CircularPP

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?

Circular and «green» procurement is a new trend in entrepreneurship and public procurement

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.

Emile Bruls, 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

Public procurement can be a powerful tool in the transition to a sustainable and just circular economy. While procurement is implemented on the ground by public buyers, the European Commission has and must continue to play an important role in promoting procurement as a tool which can support sustainable and circular goals.

Based on research and practical implementation of pilot procurements done as part of the Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme funded Circular PP project, we present the following six recommendations to the European Commission in support of the Circular Economy Action Plan.

1. Raise the baseline of sustainable and circular procurement in Europe through the introduction of minimum mandatory GPP criteria, for example, compulsory collection and reuse clauses in ICT and furniture procurement.
2. Explore innovative approaches to output- and impact-focused monitoring, including innovative digital approaches, making use of big data and artificial intelligence.
3. Promote Life Cycle Costing through the development of further standardised, free-to-access LCC measuring tools, including calculation of carbon costs of products and services.
4. Continue the provision and expansion of the EU Ecolabel, including ecolabel for services, such as catering services or ICT collection services.
5. Support capacity building for procuring organisatons and suppliers, with a particular focus of learning by doing through implementation of pilot procurements.
6. Lead by example by making the procurement of EU institutions more circular, in order to showcase the procurement practices necessary to facilitate the transition to a circular economy.

A full overview of the EU Recommendations can be found here.  As part of the Circular PP project, recommendations have also been devised for the national level (see here) and local level (upcoming).

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

European Social Economy Summit (#EUSES) is a conference program covering a line of conferences jointly organized by the European Commission and the City of Mannheim. The main target is to strengthen the social economy in Europe and harness its contribution to economic development, social inclusion as well as green and digital transitions.

On 26^th and 27^th November, as part of this conference series, a two-day virtual conference was held entitled “Recovery Strategy for Europe – which role plays the social economy  in building a resilient and sustainable economy” with 60 different speakers in 15 different sessions over the two days that the more than 400 listeners could sign up for.

Michael Rafn from EEN Denmark / North Denmark EU-office participated along with two participants from the EU Commission and one from EEN Brussels in an expert panel giving insights on the topic; “The importance of SMEs in the Social Economy and in the recovery”. The panel debate sought to shed light on the following main issues:

• What role do SMEs play in the social economy and why are they important?
• How can “best practice” from the social economy help SMEs and their networks to become more resilient
• How can EEN help SMEs become more sustainable and resilient in their recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic

 This panel debate took examples from different existing international projects e.g. key learning points from a current project on Circular Public Procurement (CPP) in which North Denmark EU-office is a project partner along with Aalborg Municipality (Denmark) and a number of Baltic Sea municipalities. References were made to project experiences from the two companies Råt & Godt and FleXskrald as good examples of how these start-up companies play a major role in the socio-economic environment and contribute in various ways to solving tasks in a sustainable way while simultaneously involving citizens challenged in the established job market or living on the edge of society.

To view a presentation click here

Circular procurement is on the agenda in many Finnish municipalities. In the end of August, CircularPP project organized in co-operation with the Circwaste -network an online event on circular procurement capacity building focusing on construction sector and food and catering. The aim of the event was to create dialogue between procurers and suppliers, learn to implement strategic circular aims to practise and solve main obstacles that have been recognized in circular public procurement. The event was targeted to public procurers in the Circwaste -network of 11 pioneering municipalities in circular economy, but everyone interested in the issue was welcome to join. There were altogether almost 30 participants.

”Public procurement offers many possibilities for municipalities to reach their sustainability and circular targets” said Ms Katriina Alhola, a senior researcher in Finnish Environment Institute, and opened the event. Leader of the construction sector in Lappeenranta municipality, Ms Katri Tolvanen, pointed out the importance of a clear procurement strategy and alignments that would guide the procurement process to low carbon and circular direction. Quality manager, Ms Heidi Karlsson from Teijo-Talot Ltd highlighted the possibilities of public procurers to boost circular solutions by requiring them in public tendering. Currently, there already exist many circular solutions in the construction sector, for example, modular houses that can easily be modified or even moved from a city to another depending on the need.

Manager of public catering in city of Turku, Ms Suvi Haukioja, illustrated the carbon footprint (CF) of catering services and actions that they have taken in order to tackle the most important elements of CF in catering, i.e., the content of meal and food waste. Currently, they can set requirements for the number of vegetarian meals per week, but a reliable CF calculator would be needed in order to set CF as an award criterion. Sales director Ms Mervi Mikkola from Compass Group revealed that suppliers monitor the sustainability strategies and targets of public procurers and can respond their needs. There already exist sustainability criteria for food products in Finland, that is very useful when used systematically. This set of sustainability criteria for food products is currently being updated, told a specialist, Ms Elina Ojala from Motiva Ltd, a state-owned sustainable development company. It was also discussed that in order to implement changes in recipes, the end users should be listened carefully – otherwise the change will not happen.  

In the workshop session, participants discussed actively in smaller groups about the potential solutions to the obstacles that have been identified in circular public procurement in practice. The discussants saw that the commitment from the management and decisions makers should be stronger. This could be strengthened by their visits e.g., to the realized circular buildings and sites. In addition, the management should be better informed about circular public procurement and its implications in the municipality. In addition, clear procurement alignments are needed, in which circular aspects are clearly stipulated. Also, the use of available guidance, such as the services provided by the KEINO Competence centre, would ease the work load of procurers. Other recommended means included using of requests for information of circular options, organizing joint market dialogue events and joint procurement as well as sharing of good practices and learning from examples and experiences from others. Sustainable cities networks, such as Circwaste, could provide an excellent platform for co-operation.

Participants considered also their own roles and tasks that they could do in their daily work to promote circular procurement in their municipalities. Delivering information, organizing dialogue and connecting people from different departments were considered as possible means to take the action.

In the end of the webinar, a specialist from ICLEI, Ms Ashleigh McLennan, representing also CircularPP project, provided the participants with highly motivated speech and examples from CircularPP partnering countries. Participants left the webinar with new ideas on circular procurement and new way of thinking.

Katriina Alhola, SYKE 25.8.2020

The paper, authored by Alberto Huerta from Aalborg University, explores the paradoxes that emerge in circular business models.

The concept of paradoxes helps understand how some elements in circular business models can be experienced both as a benefit but also a challenge.

The paper is open-access so everyone can download it and share it following this link: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/18/7577

Enterprise Europe Network Annual Conference is a yearly event gathering network partners from over 60 countries together with representatives from European Commission to share and discuss on best practice to address main challenges and priority areas on the political agenda in transnational context.

This year for the first time the conference EEN E-Days was taking place online on October 19^th-20^th 2020, due to the current COVID-19 situation. https://een-eday-2020.b2match.io/

Online attendance opportunity opened a possibility to gather much more participants that it would be possible during on-site participation.  EEN E-Days was represented with over 1000 participants from more than 50 countries from around the world.

Topics discussed during workshops and discussion panels were: digitalization, SME resilience and sustainability. Hereby North Denmark EU Office was invited to share their experience and best practice in building up local partnership to promote sustainability. Aija Konisevska Azadi together with 3 other experts from Denmark, Belgium and Ireland presented lessons learnt during Circular PP project co-funded by Interreg BSR. The presentation ended up with newest survey conducted with support of Cluster Excellence Denmark as part of Circular PP project. Results uncovered impact of COVID-19 on work with circular economy and circular transition of SMEs, that was gathered form 60+ European clusters from 13 different countries, across most sectors representing between 6000-8000 SMEs. There were mutual understanding that pandemic have intensified need for circular transition of SMEs to ensure future needs relevant products and services and hereby stay on the market.

Topic gathered a lot of attention and fruitful discussions during the workshop from several countries outside of the project partnership as Switzerland, Germany, Belgium and Italy.

Learnings from the workshop are expected to contribute positively to the sustainable transition support provided to SMEs by different partners in different EEN partner countries around the world.

Have you ever considered your IT habits when thinking about sustainability? These 10 advices present how you can become a greener IT user!

The advices have been made by Birgitte Krebs Schleemann, project manager at City of Aalborg. They are covering the whole lifecycle of the IT equipment. From procuring – to use – to end-of-life. The advices encourage all three aspects of sustainability by including both social, economic and environmental elements.

By encouraging users to integrate sustainable habits when using their equipment, it reduces their IT related carbon footprint, minimizing waste and benefits other sustainable topics.

The 10 advices are a spin off by running the pilots about life extension of IT equipment and change habits has a big effect when thinking recycling IT equipment. Even though it is designed for the purpose of educating employees in the Danish municipalities it can be used as guidance for all IT-users.

See more at: https://www.itb.dk.

Have you ever considered how an IT department can contribute to the green transition? We present the “10 advices for being a greener IT department”.

These are the top ten recommendations to consider when trying to become a more sustainable friendly IT department.

The focus is here on the IT departments of the Danish municipalities, but the advices can be upscaled and used in all sorts of IT departments globally.

The ten advices include both social, environmental and economic values, and focuses on the whole lifecycle of the IT equipment. Here especially the end-of-life is focused on, where it is recommended to extend the life of the IT equipment by repairing and exchanging internally in the organization instead of discarding.

The focus is also on how to reduce the energy consumption when using the equipment by getting products that are low energy efficient by ensuring to buy ex. Energy Star or TCO labeled products.  See more at: https://www.itb.dk.

Around 240 participants was signed up to the Circular economy stakeholderconference, workshop procurement the 4^th of November 2020. The workshop was organized by Circular Flander and the Interreg. North Sea, ProCirc-project.

The workshop was devided into smaller group according to the 3 steps in procurement, pre-tender phase, tender phase and post tenderphase. The CircularPP partners from City of Malmo and City of Aalborg was among the expert panelist and shared their experience.

The workshop was organized with pre-recorded presentation for each of the 3 tender phases followed by a live section of questions from the audience. City of Malmo, Project manager Emma Börjesson had a 4 minute presentation in the tender phase about experiences from the pilot non new furniture and City of Aalborg, project manager Birgitte Krebs Schleemann had a 4 minutes presentation in the post tender phase about experiences from the pilot learning environment to the public schools.  Both Emma and Birgitte was panelist answering question from the audience. Have a look at all the pre-recorded videos:  https://cloud.vc-docs.be/index.php/s/Ax55d7s2WGsDzTB