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The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local
Government, Mr Phil Hogan, TD and the Minister for Public
Expenditure and Reform, Mr Brendan Howlin, TD have jointly
launched Ireland’s first Green Public Procurement Action
Plan - Green Tenders.
The overall objective of Green
Tenders
is to assist public authorities to successfully plan
and implement green public procurement (GPP).
Public authorities are major consumers, spending some
€14 billion annually.
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Clearly, Ireland’s public sector has considerable leverage
to stimulate the marketplace in favour of the provision of
more resource-efficient, less polluting, goods, services and
works.
“By using their purchasing power to choose, goods, services
and works with a reduced environmental impact, public authorities
can make an important contribution towards local, national
and international sustainability goals. Green Public Procurement
can, therefore, be a key driver of the green economy in Ireland”,
the Ministers said.
Eight priority areas
This initial action plan has focused on eight priority areas
- Construction, Energy, Transport, Food and Catering Services,
Cleaning Products and Services, Paper, Uniforms and Textiles
and ICT.
The Ministers noted that GPP can also be a major driver for
innovation, providing industry with real incentives for developing
green products and services - particularly in sectors where
public purchasers represent a large share of the market such
as construction, health services or public transport.
In a joint foreword to Green Tenders, the Ministers said
- “This initiative should also be viewed in the context of
the Government’s recently announced Public Service Reform
Plan, which contains a suite of measures in relation to public
procurement. Reform of the public procurement function is
- and remains - driven by the need to obtain maximum value
for public money in procuring works, supplies and services.
This Action Plan is, therefore, a major milestone - not just
in effectively introducing a sustainable development mindset
within public procurement practices, but also in ensuring
that taxpayers’ money is spent wisely.”
An Implementation Group, representative of public authorities
and relevant stakeholders, will be established to oversee
and monitor implementation of the Action Plan across the eight
areas chosen and to report on progress annually.
Green Tenders was developed following an extensive public
consultation process. Some 57 written submissions were received
from major stakeholders in the public sector, from supplier
and wider private sector representatives, from academic specialists
and from environmental and social NGOs.
The Ministers thanked everyone who participated so actively
in the consultation process and stressed that the continued
support of all of the stakeholders involved would be critical
in ensuring the successful implementation of Green Tenders.
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