The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development covers 17 goals, the twelfth of which is “Responsible consumption and production,” namely: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

Under this major goal, there are 17 targets, the 12.7 of which is “Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable, in accordance withnational policies and priorities.”

●Current Situation

About the World

Green Public Procurement: Catalyzing the Net-Zero Economy

Governments are among the biggest buyers of goods in every economy - spending $11tr every year - and they are responsible, directly or indirectly, for about 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. That means that their procurement decisions can make a big difference. “Abating these emissions will have several benefits,” says a report –“Green Public Procurement: Catalyzing the Net-Zero Economy” - from BCG and the World Economic Forum. “It will lead to an estimated $4tr boost to the green economy, create around three million net new jobs and considerably reduce the social cost of carbon.”

Up to 70 percent of public procurement is focused on just six industries - defense and security, transport, waste management services, construction, industrial products and utilities - so governments can have an outsize impact in these sectors. Well over half of public sector emissions - 67 percent - come from their suppliers.There are challenges to overcome if we want to cut emissions - government procurement is highly decentralized, and green procurement would raise costs by 3-6 percent at a time of rising inflation and post-pandemic pressure on public budgets and competition from other departments. And because transparent data on public sector emissions is lacking, setting emissions baselines, defining decarburization targets and tracking progress are difficult. However, the report sets out a framework to overcome the challenges of greener public procurement. The first steps are to create a baseline of emissions and set targets in a transparent manner. This means public bodies need to identify the suppliers with the heaviest emissions, work out where they can have most impact, determine comment metrics and set targets.Next, they need to develop an abatement roadmap outlining how they will achieve their targets, looking at how much they will cost, what their impact is and how feasible they are.The final steps are to transform the way your organization goes about procurement to ensure that the scale and spending power of public procurement is directed towards tackling climate change. This requires new ways of working and better data collecting and analyzing capacity.

Governments play a vital role in setting the rules for the net zero transition. They can make another important contribution by ensuring that their own spending is as green as possible. As the report says: "In addition to far lower emissions, climate sensitive public procurement will stimulate the green economy, reduce the social cost of carbon and lead entire industries towards a net zero future."

Source: Boston Consulting Group,UNEP

About China

Government Procurement Law is upgraded to version 3.0

After the promulgation and implementation of the Government Procurement Law of the People's Republic of China in 2002, it has played an important role in improving the national budget management system and improving the efficiency of the use of financial funds. Over the past 20 years, the scale of China's government procurement has expanded 35 times, from 100.9 billion yuan in 2002 to 3.64 trillion yuan in 2021, and its share in GDP has increased from less than 1 percent to more than 3 percent. China's government procurement scale and procurement object structure are also increasingly optimized. From simple goods procurement to engineering and service procurement, from traditional office supplies procurement to policy research, standard formulation and other performance services, and various infrastructure construction, medical care, elderly care and other public services, the ratio of government procurement of goods, projects and services has grown from 7.9:3.6:1 in 2001 to 0.89:1.7:1 in 2021. At the same time, the current government procurement law has also revealed in practice that the policy function is not fully played, and that the public procurement system is not unified and not connected, among other problems. It is urgent to revise and improve it from the top-level design.

This year, the construction of China’s government procurement system has continued to advance. Government procurement has become “green”. The concept of green procurement and sustainable development has been increasingly integrated into all aspects of government procurement. Energy saving, water saving, material saving and other raw materials, products and services conducive to environmental protection have been prioritized for procurement and use. The application of electronic procurement platform has also made the procurement process paperless and low-carbon. With the vigorous development of digital economy and the continuous improvement of financial management efficiency, through improving the management mechanism and forming the resultant force of policies, the government procurement will be integrated more quickly into the budget management integration closed-loop, which will better play the important role of government procurement in promoting the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, and promote the stability of the government procurement cause.

Sources: People’s Daily

●Cases

About the World

U.S.: Sustainable procurement goes mainstream, influences IT buys

ESG(environment, social and governance) considerations add a new dimension to IT purchasing criteria and, more broadly, could bridge the gap between business leaders and IT. Themulti-billion-dollar federal IT sector is one area where CIOs and IT suppliers could see ESG procurement making inroads. The Biden administration has made ESG, climate resiliency, environmental justice, and procurement equity key elements of its management agenda, said Deniece Peterson, senior director of federal market analysis at Deltek, a Herndon, Va., Software Company that studies government contracting trends.

“IT contractors are directly impacted by the administration’s agenda for driving sustainability, net-zero emissions goals and energy-efficiency objectives,” she said. She pointed to a White House Executive Order requiring the “social cost of greenhouse gas emissions” to be considered in government procurement decisions. The process of amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation to reflect that mandate is underway, with an internal assessment of the proposed rule expected in November 2022.

Source: federalnewsnetwork

M&G acquires stake in Greencore in £500m boost for 'climate positive' homes plan

Greencore homes absorb more carbon than is emitted during construction and over the lifetime of the home. Global investment manager M&G has acquired a majority stake in Greencore Construction in a move that is expected to help accelerate the development of thousands of new “climate positive” plans. The investment manager says it now plans to invest up to £500m in future sustainable housing developments.

Source: businessgreen.com

About China

Explore a new path for government procurement to support green and low-carbon development

After the “double carbon” strategic goal was put forward, the Ministry of Finance has actively improved the policies related to government green procurement, carried out pilot projects of government procurement to support green building materials, built a standard system of government green procurement demand, and supported green procurement of key products such as new energy vehicles.

How to play the leading role of government procurement, promote the overall reduction of life-cycle costs, and promote green procurement better?Itcan be considered from the following three aspects.

1. Attach importance to demand research, and include the whole life cycle cost into the review factors.

2. Standardize the certification and testing mechanism about green product standards. Taking the green building materials pilot project as an example, at present, the pilot cities have successively established green building materials warehouses, and the green standard certification certificate and testing certificate are the key “tickets” to enter the green building materials bank. In the process of promoting green procurement, it is necessary to gradually standardize and increase the certification and testing institutions recognized by the country in the field of green building materials standards. At the same time, we should establish and improve the updating mechanism of the green building materials bank.

3. Promote carbon inclusive system in government procurement. We can try to introduce carbon inclusive into demand management. By setting qualification conditions, or setting carbon credits, low-carbon credit ratings and other contents in the review factors, we can strengthen suppliers’ concept of green environmental protection, and further promote the green and low-carbon transformation of economic structure.

Source: cgpnews.cn

Shenzhen creates a first-class business environment for government procurement

In recent years, Shenzhen’s government procurement has always adhered to “sunshine procurement” as the core, relying on the construction and development of information, digital and intelligent platforms such as “Internet +government procurement”, and made every effort to build a high-quality business environment for Shenzhen’s government procurement that integrates many advantages such as institutionalization, platformization, intelligence, transparency, and precision. In the first half of this year, the city issued a total of 242 million yuan of financing loans for government procurement orders, up 67 percent year on year. Among the enterprises receiving the loans, 89 percent are small and medium-sized enterprises, effectively releasing market’s vitality and boosting the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in Shenzhen.

Source: sztqb.sznews.com

●Background

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Initiated by the United Nations

On January 1, 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including 169 targets, of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — adopted by world leaders in September 2015 at an historic UN Summit — officially came into force. Countries will mobilize efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind.