Sustainable Public Procurement in Austria. Karin Hiller Austrian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management

Transcription

1 Sustainable Public Procurement in Austria Karin Hiller Austrian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management

2 Legal framework for sustainable public procurement in Austria

3 Legal framework: Federal Procurement Act Federal Procurement Act regulates how public procurers should purchase 19. Principles for purchasing procedure lit 5: General obligation for all public procurers to take into account environmental requirements lit. 6: social aspects in procurement procedures can be considered 80. Provisions for procurement of vehicles 80a. Provisions related to energy efficiency when procuring goods and services above the tresholds

4 Political support is essential Sustainable public procurement explicitly mentioned in the action programme of the Austrian government Austrian government adopted the SPP Action Plan in 2010 Implementation is on the way Federal structure of the Austrian political system to be considered

5 Approach for implementation of SPP

6 Approach for implementing SPP Participation: Procurers, Ministries, Social partners, NGO, technical experts are involved in the development Focus on procurement officers: support with Information, tools, criteria, help desk Long-term Partnerships and networks with key players Keep SPP in the political discussion Core criteria are mandatory (SPP achieved this for the federal level)

7 Key Players in SPP

8 Key players: Public procurers Federal Level Federal Procurement Agency 9 provinces: Procurement is partly centralised and partly decentralised municipalities

9 MoE Key actor and coordinator Since 20 years active in the field of GPP/SPP MoE develops initiatives like SPP Action Plan, involves stakeholders and takes care of political support. Scientific support is provided by Procurement Service Austria MoE commissions studies in the context of PP MoE is responsible for the Austrian ecolabel and criteria development

10 Network of key actors Ministry for Infrastructure G7+ und GPP AG Chamber of Commerce Ecobuy Vienna Add. Public procurers DG Environment Ecoprocurement Service Vorarlberg Federal chancellery BMLFUW BSA/IFZ Think tanks Fed Environment Agency Ministry for Economic Affairs Federal Procurement Agency PP-Network of provinces Ministry for Research Federal Agency for Construction

11 Strategy: Austrian Action Plan on SPP

12 Responsibilities & Measures Steering Group: Representatives of Ministries, provinces, municipalities, social partners, Federal Procurement Agency, NGOs, etc Coordination: MoE Social criteria Dismantling barriers Studies Website/ Tools/Help Desk Conferences Networking Monitoring Evaluation

13 4 Objectives in SPP-Action Plan 1. Integration of SPP in public purchasing in Austria (at least core criteria level) 2. Maintaining a leading role with GPP in the EU 3. Coordination and streamlining of activities around SPP 4. Dismantling barriers

14 Core Criteria in SPP-Actionplan It contains: Ecological criteria for 16 product groups TCO-approach to be considered Social criteria already available, but not yet adopted

15 SPP-Action Plan Adoption by the Government in 2010 self-declaration of Ministries and Provinces Plan since Oct 2010 Review of criteria Improve SPP Actionplan Apply Information for procurers networking with procurers Evaluate 2012: EU-Monitoring: Austria among the forerunners 2013: Pilot phase for Monitoring 2013: Evaluations of SSP-Action Plan

16 Pilot Phase for Monitoring exercise (2013) Monitoring on a voluntary basis Key question: Are core criteria integrated in public purchasing? Procurement officers provide relevant information of their tenders Data will be analysed by end of 2013

17 Evaluation of the SPP Action Plan (2013) Objective of the evaluation exercise Assess the uptake of the SPP Action Plan Develop recommendations for improvement Questions Could the objectives be achieved? Which ecological impacts result from the SPP Action Plan? What are the financial impacts?

18 Lesson learned

19 Lessons learned /1 You need to be persistent to push this topic Strenghten training for procurers Be aware which requirements procurers have to copy with (quality, risks, costs, administrative burden) Use criteria which are simply to be verified Make costs and benefits (CO 2 savings) clear and understandable Strenghten cooperation with business to influence the market

20 Lessons learned /2 Many procurers know how important PP is. But there is uncertainty how to implement SPP in times of budget constraints. Innovative public procurement might be both a chance to get additional data on PP, but a risk that innovative and sustainable PP are considered to be separated fields

21 a good solution: Change Agents

22 Further questions? Karin Hiller Ministry of the Environment Stubenbastei 5, 1010 Wien Tel.: * 43 1/