Circular economy for green and sustainable public procurement

<< Background >>Circular economy aims to minimize waste and make the most of resources. By focusing on reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling existing materials and products, the circular economy helps reduce environmental impact, conserve resources, and create sustainable economic growth. The EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy has established a concrete and ambitious program of actions. It proposes actions to keep resources in the economy and retain the value of these resources, which will contribute towards delivery of a sustainable, low carbon, resource efficient and competitive economy. This plan recognizes public procurement as a key driver in the transition towards the circular economy. Public procurement is estimated to account for 15-20% of global GDP, placing it at the forefront of shaping the model of local economies. This means that it has a high potential to facilitate the transition to circular economy. When civil servants in the public sector engage with potential suppliers during procurement processes, they can play an important role in encouraging the suppliers to adopt more circular practices. This will aid in directing public finances towards a wider adoption of circular solutions. << Objectives >>By implementing the project, we wanted to fight climate change through ‘circular’ public procurement. We wanted to provide officials and managers of European local authorities more knowledge, expertise and competences to obtain more sustainable procedures, aimed at incorporating circular economy principles into the procedures they manage. It was necessary to give them a clear framework of the Eu law about circular economy and public procurement. The path towards circular procurement is not only about legislation, attitudes and mindsets must be changed. We wanted to contribute to a new way of thinking and designing public procurement is needed, leading public authorities to develop internal procedures that incorporate the principles of the circular economy. In addition to legislation, it is necessary to learn from good practices, inspiring success stories and positive examples implemented in EU countries. We wanted to provide public officials with guidelines and tools that can be used for more informed choices in procurement planning. To make a concrete change in the daily work of procurement officials, it was important to provide practical tools that can be easily used in the planning phase of procedures. These tools are includ<< Implementation >>Coordination transnational project meetings TPM were to steer, monitor and evaluate the project activities participated by the partners. Totally, there were 2 face to face and 11 online TPMs. Survey on the starting situation gave us more information about the baseline and helped us to develop the Guidelines in line with the needs of civil servants. Each partner submitted the questionnaire to its contacts and provided a report on the results. Elaboration of Guidelines for civil servant: There were a longer and a summary version of the Guidelines produced. Both versions were first produced in English but then translated into the languages of the partners. The summary version was also printed by the Italian and Spanish partners. The Guidelines can be found from the web pages of the partners. Seminar for the presentation of the pilot version of the guidelines was organized in Parma. Feedback was collected from the participants after the event. Multiplier events in Finland, Italy and Spain: Multiplier events were organized in Finland, Italy and Spain.<< Results >>The concrete outputs of the project were: the TPMs’ decisions made based on discussions that helped the project partners to fulfill the objectives of the project as planned, the results of the survey on the starting point that gave the project partners necessary information about the state of circularity at local and regional level in order to produce the Guidelines, the seminar feedback on the Guideline’s first version that helped project partners to elaborate the Guidelines for the final version, and finally both of the versions of the Guidelines, the longer version and the summary one. Although Finland is the pioneer in circular economy, the Guidelines elaborated in the project are the first easy-to-use guide for circular economy purchasing for municipalities in Finland. In Multiplier Events we understood how big a demand there was for it. For the Italian partner, another result was a strengthened collaboration between the different sectors of the Province on the topic of the circular economy. In the Spanish case, we have attracted the interest of institutions and public workers from local entities not directly related to the Mancomunidad Sierra de San Pedro and physically far from this territory.