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Sustainable Public Procurement Case Studies
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Sustainable Public Procurement Case Studies
Examples of sustainable public procurement by public bodies can be helpful when introducing sustainable considerations into a new procurement project. There is a wealth of international and European Union examples gathered in collections of case studies. There are also some recent Irish examples.
National Sustainable Public Procurement case studies and examples
Addressing both environmental considerations and social responsibility in public procurement:
• The European Commission’s GPP Good Practice Issue 118 describes the inclusion of both environmental and social criteria in the Irish Prison Service’s mattress recycling initiative.
• The European Union project BusLeague’s guide on how to use public procurement to incentivise energy efficiency upskilling in the construction industry (see results at end of Outcomes page ) includes an example of the use of a training clause in procurement by Dublin City Council (see section 3.2 of the guide), thus addressing a social consideration (upskilling of personnel employed on the contract) at the same time as an environmental consideration (the need for sustainable skills).
Green public procurement
Some other recent examples of green public procurement (GPP) in Ireland are provided in:
• Some of the presentations at the OGP's GO Green Conference , for example from Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ) and Trinity College Dublin (TCD)
• The presentation about green procurement in University College Cork (UCC) at the OGP'S GO Green Breakfast
• Some of the presentations at ‘Green Public Procurement in Practice’, organised by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in November 2023, for example from the Office of Public Works (OPW), An Post, the EPA, Bus Éireann, UCC, Cork County Council, and Galway and Roscommon Education and Training Board.
• GPP training for suppliers published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2022 provides a case study about sustainable procurement of furniture by the Office of Public Works (OPW)
• The best practice guide to support incorporating Level(s), Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Costing, and Indoor Air Quality into the public procurement process produced by the Life Level(s) project includes a best practice case study from the Grangegorman Development Authority (p 38) in procuring design of a new building
Additionally, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland Energy Link, http://energylink.seai.ie, provides access to case studies on energy-related green public procurement, including recent case studies.
Socially responsible public procurement
The Department of Rural and Community Development (DRCD) has provided another recent example of including social considerations in a public procurement process. DRCD procured services for designing a process to collect data and conducting data collection for the first Baseline Data Gathering Exercise of Social Enterprise in Ireland. A case study of the incorporation of a social considerations into the procurement process can be found below. Further information about the data collection exercise can be found here.
SPP Case Study - DRCD Data Gathering Exercise of Social Enterprise
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European Union Sustainable Public Procurement case studies
GPP - A collection of good practices presents a selection of useful green public procurement (GPP) case studies. A wider range of GPP case studies can be found at https://green-business.ec.europa.eu/green-public-procurement/good-practice-library_en. The European Commission’s Green Public Procurement page, https://green-business.ec.europa.eu/green-public-procurement_en, provides an option to sign up for monthly updates regarding GPP. These updates usually include links to new, detailed, GPP case studies.
Making Socially Responsible Procurement Work - 71 Good Practice Cases addresses all aspects of sustainability (social, economic, and environmental) and provides case studies from a range of sectors such as healthcare, ICT, construction, and social services, as well as broader policy or procurement approaches.