Page 20 - Social_Sustainable consumerism

20

- GPP may also provide financial savings for public authorities, especially if you consider the full life-cycle
costs of a contract and not just the purchase price.

- Authorities who implement GPP will be better equipped to meet evolving environmental challenges, for
example to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or move towards a more circular economy.

3.2 Ecolabels and GPP

We have seen in the second chapter different examples of sustainability related labels. Those also have
importance in the public procurement processes. Indeed, in Europe, under the EU Procurement Directives
(2004/18/EC and Directive 2004/17/EC), ecolabels may be used in public procurement, providing
a number of conditions are met:

- Procurers are not allowed to demand that a product carries an ecolabel, but may only indicate that the
criteria underpinning a certain ecolabel must be met and that the ecolabel may be used as one form of
proof of compliance.

- Procurers may only use ecolabel criteria that refer to characteristics of the product or service itself or
production processes, not those relating to the general management of the company.

- Procurers may only refer to ecolabels that meet a number of requirements (the Type I or ISO 14024 eco-
labels, such as the EU Ecolabel, meet these requirements).

- The requirements for the label are based on scientific evidence.

- The ecolabels are adopted with the participation of all stakeholders, such as government bodies,
consumers, manufacturers, distributors and environmental organisations.

- They are accessible to all interested parties.

The Green Public Procurement and the European Ecolabel factsheet, which is part of the GPP Training
Toolkit proposes a list of existing labels that can be used for GPP and what can be done in this framework.

In any case, the presentation of labels in Green Procurement presents advantages. It make easier for public
authorities to make reference to sustainable requirements in their processes and to recognise the
compliance with such requirements by easing the identification of companies that are certified.

3.2 Ecolabels and GPP

Case 1. OECD Publication, a source for GPP best practices.

A collection of best practices has been prepared by the OECD, providing good practices for green public
procurement at national and sub-national levels. The practices cover the following areas:

- Green Public Procurement Legal and Policy Framework
- Understanding Market Capacity and Assessing Costs and Benefits