How can sustainability principles be applied in public procurement? What strategies will help buyers start carrying out environmentally friendly procurement? Are suppliers ready to offer «green» and circular products?
We discussed these and other issues at the online seminar “Environmental requirements and circular strategies in public procurement. What opportunities do public sector customers have and what can business offer?”. The seminar was held by the National Research University Higher School of Economics in cooperation with the Ecological Union (Ecounion) under the Circular PP project.
Circular Public Procurement is a project supported by the Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme. The project is being implemented in the consortium by Russia and 6 other countries. The aim is to address the societal challenge of resource efficiency, by considering innovation from a multidimensional perspective – including involving products, processes and new business models and by exploiting the synergies between public authorities, research institutions, SMEs and non-profit organizations in this field. The main project principle is ´getting-more-by-using less´.
The seminar was attended by 62 participants from public sector and municipal customers, business representatives, experts in the field of environmental safety and public procurement. The main topic was the discussion of a new trend – circular and environmentally friendly procurement, sharing experiences and opinions on the possibility and readiness to use new technologies and business models in entrepreneurship and public procurement.
Comments:
Elena V. Shadrina
Department of Management associate professor (HSE) and chief expert in the Circular Public Procurement project.
«It became insufficient to carry out public procurement based only on the economic criteria. Through procurement, the state and private companies should implement the national strategy for environmental protection and sustainable development.
We invited representatives of public sector customers and business, experts in the field of ecology and public procurement, academic field representatives, students and our foreign partners to the seminar. Our task was to organize a meeting of public sector customers and businesses to discuss what eco-friendly and “circular” (resource-saving) procurement is, and to show the real need for it and the readiness of business to supply certain groups of eco-friendly products.
Emil Brüls, representative of the Rijkswaterstaat agency at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management of the Netherlands, prepared a very informative and urgent presentation. Emil spoke about the policy of the Netherlands in terms of applying the principles of circularity in public procurement and introduced a lot of examples of procurement based on resource-saving principles.
Evgeniya Kuznetsova from the “Ecological Union” spoke about the methods of developing environmental requirements and compliance certification, for example, the unique in Russia eco-label “Leaf of Life”. Evgeniya presented our joint development – “Guidelines for the introduction of environmental criteria in public procurement. Chemical Safety Criteria “. It is a methodological tool to help customers introduce environmental criteria in procurement.
Yuliya Shatunova, brand manager of Stupino Chemical Plant, presented the company’s experience in the production of environmentally friendly products, which allowed customers to learn about what can already be purchased based on the sustainable principles.
Valuable, deep, meaningful questions from the participants made it possible to organize a discussion and analyze how to combine the idea of green and circular procurement with the legal requirements and limitations of real procurement practice. We are much appreciated to all participants and speakers! »
Kashin V. Dmitry
Lecturer at the Department of Management (HSE)
« The circular procurement seminar was very informative and useful.Elena V. Shadrina gave a very important presentation, describing the concept of circular public procurement and substantiating the need for sustainable behavior for organizations. I was also impressed by the experience of the Netherlands in the development of the circular procurement system, describing in the presentation by Emil Brüls. Today the Netherlands is one of the leading countries in sustainable development.Of particular note is the Russian experience of environmentally friendly procurement, which was described by Evgenia Kuznetsova and Yulia Shatunova. Colleagues shared real cases of carrying out circular procurement by
public sector customers and businesses, which was especially valuable for all participants of the seminar»
Evgeniya Kuznetsova
Head of the certification body of “Ecological Union”
«In my opinion, the last seminar was very important in terms of becoming a discussion platform for methodologists, manufacturers and their potential public sector customers. The listeners’ questions show that it was the beginning of the most important dialogue between business, experts and the Government. We hope that the seminar has contributed to closing the gaps in the methodological field and in the issues of awareness of the importance of the circular procurement»
Ekaterina Stepanova
Project manager of “Ecological Union”
«It was very useful and informative seminar! The topic of circular procurement is covered from start to finish: from the idea and the global impact on the economy through tools, examples of use in Europe, scientific and technical justification of procurement criteria and to particular manufacturers of eco-friendly products that can be already purchased. The most interesting thing at the seminar was questions and discussion of the possibilities and prospects of using circular procurement in Russia. I hope that here has been growing interest in this idea and probably soon we will see the results at the national level»
Seminar presentation materials: 1. Presentation by Elena V. Shadrina 2. Presentation by Emil Brüls 3. Presentation by Evgeniya Kuznetsova 4. Presentation by Yuliya Shatunova
Video of the seminar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlDymNSDwgQ&feature=emb_imp_woyt
Video time codes:
00:00:00 — Welcoming greetings for the seminar participants
00:03:35 — Circular economics and circular procurement. What is it and why is it needed? The speaker is Elena Shadrina, Department of Management associate professor.
00:21:00 — Public procurement in the circular economy. The speaker is Emil Brüls, The Netherlands.
01:02:29 — Guidelines for introducing Environmental Criteria into Public Procurement. Chemical safety criteria. Methodical tool for buyers, experts. Speaker: Evgenia Kuznetsova, head of the certification body of “Ecological Union”
01:23:10 — Eco brand GreenLove. Speaker: Yulia Shatunova, brand manager of Stupinsky Chemical Plant CJSC.
01:35:00 — discussion and Q&A session
