Establishing supporting and capability-building mechanisms

At this stage of planning your SPP implementation strategy, you have already assessed what you can do within your procurement enabling environment, decided where to focus your efforts, and established your goals.

However, as we mention in the introduction, implementing SPP means procuring in a different way. As this can be challenging for procurement officials, public authorities should consider what they can do to build capabilities.

In this section we introduce some of the mechanisms public authorities can put in place to support procurement officials effectively implement SPP, together with examples of how they are used across the world.

Engage with stakeholders

One of the main ways in which public authorities can build their procurement capabilities with respect to SPP is by reaching out and engaging with stakeholders.

As we highlighted at the beginning of this guide, governments will have to buy things in fundamentally different ways and explore new technologies and solutions to address the climate crisis. Stakeholder engagement, sharing information and exploring solutions will be vital to this shift, given that the government alone does not yet always know what to buy and how to buy it.

This will be a huge shift in the traditional box ticking, compliance-based approach to procurement and may feel uncomfortable, but it takes two to make a market. Opening up your contracting process and seeking out a wide range of stakeholders to inform your procurement strategies will improve competition and improve your chances of reaching vendors with the best solutions for your needs. It will also give you insights into the market, what is working and what isn’t.

Engagement is not a one-off, you should plan the appropriate and best moments to engage civic and business actors across the entire cycle of planning, tendering, awarding and delivering public contracts. The golden rule: engage early, engage often. If you don’t design for inclusion and engagement right at the start, it won’t happen.

Below we include some of the main ways that this can be done; the key is repeated and sustained engagement. A great example of this is our case study on Mexico City’s Ecobici bike share system renewal process. It shows how by rethinking the process and relying on sustained engagement with vendors and communities, the city was able to extend its bike share scheme to poorer and more underserved parts of the city, resulting in radically better results than previous tenders.

Beyond individual tenders, open and sustainable public procurement will need smart, data-driven policy changes. This will include sustained leadership and buy-in from the marketplace and communities, so again, engagement and feedback will be crucial to driving change and delivering results. There are some great examples of how civil society organizations are monitoring the outcomes of public procurement and tracking the results for citizens in Ukraine, Nigeria and India.

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Capacity-building workshops with procurement practitioners

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Sustainability workshops with suppliers

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Sustained outreach with civil society, academia and other civic actors Organizations (CSOs)

Standardize sustainability criteria

Governments buy a huge range of materials and most procurement practitioners don’t have the knowledge, or resources, to know which sustainability standards should be applied across different industries and categories. So, as we mention in the prioritizing procurement categories section, one of the steps when getting started with Open SPP is identifying existing sustainability standards and ecolabels, and then providing guidance on which are the best standards for different procurement categories, and how these should be included in procurement processes.

A good example of this guidance is the U.S. General Service Administration’s Green Procurement Compilation (GPC) tool, which provides guidance regarding regulations, environmental considerations, and available labels for over 36 procurement categories.

Create and share sustainability registries and catalogs

In the enabling framework section, we introduced how introducing sustainability criteria in framework agreements can constitute an SPP enabler. Another way to create a pre-selected list of more sustainable suppliers is through public and accessible catalogs and registries.

The suppliers included in these can be chosen according to the certain sustainability standards set by existing environmental labels and accreditations, or the standardized criteria developed. The catalog, or registry, would help to tackle legal concerns from procurement practitioners, as it would be understood that purchasing products or services from the catalog is supported by the government, despite prices being higher. It is important to create clear and fair routes, especially for smaller businesses to get onto the registry and to have regular updates.

For more guidance on how to use procurement data to create SPP supplier registries see Option 9 in section three.

An example of a catalog for environmental purchases is Thailand’s Green Cart, which is recommended within the legal framework as a way to purchase more sustainably. In Paraguay, the National Registry of Family Agriculture (RENAF) served as a way to facilitate and promote the procurement of food and catering services from this economic group. Another example comes from Chile’s framework agreement for necessary goods and services in case of emergencies; selected suppliers are pre-screened by ChileCompra, the central purchasing body, to buy products from them in a fast and easy way when disaster hits.

Set up a Help Desk and central information point

Changing public procurement processes to allow for the introduction of sustainability considerations can be challenging for procurement practitioners. As well as trying to facilitate the process by standardizing sustainability criteria, or creating registries and catalogs, a Help Desk should be set up to provide practical hands-on support or advice to practitioners. For example, providing a service to look over SPP tender documents can help to tackle procurement practitioner’s concerns that they are framing the award criteria correctly.

The Help Desk, as well as the rest of the supporting mechanisms developed for the implementation of Open SPP, can be made easily accessible by creating a central information point with all available resources. An example of this is the German Competence Center for Sustainable Procurement (Kompetenzstelle für nachhaltige Beschaffung, KNB), which provides information regarding laws, regulations, guidelines, and examples, from federal, state, and local authorities. The KBN also has a Help Desk, from which it provides tailored support via telephone and email.

Resources

Case Study In 2005, the Government of The Netherlands set up PIANOo, a knowledge network for government procurement officers and contracting authorities. PIANOo was created with the aim of professionalizing procurement, seeking to improve efficiency and compliance.

It also now incorporates a specific section of Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP), offering learning materials, guidance, and a criteria tool for public authorities to identify possible environmental requirements to include in tendering processes. The expertise center also includes information regarding best practice exchange meetings amongst procurement practitioners.