Page 21 - Social_Sustainable consumerism

21

- Introducing Environmental Standards in Procurement
- Professionalising Green Public Procurement
- Raising Awareness
- Monitoring Green Public Procurement

Among those, we can for instance quote the case of the Estonian best practice, as reported in this
document:

Context and background
The Estonian Road Administration (ERM) is a government agency operating in the administrative area of
the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. It is responsible for the implementation of transport
policy, that is, infrastructure, traffic and public transport.

The ERM carried out a procurement process in October 2010 under the Green Investment Scheme
(“Promoting the Use of Public Transport”), which is funded from the agreement of the sale and purchase
of the CO2 emissions quota between Estonia and Spain. The agreement was awarded in accordance with
Kyoto protocol Article 17 and provided that the Estonian government invest the proceeds arising from the
sale of the CO2 quota into areas where CO2 emission reductions can be achieved. The aim was to
introduce new environmentally friendly buses which will help to popularise the use of public transport and
reduce CO2 emissions caused by the transport sector.

Criteria used
In terms of “green” criteria, the tender specifications included the following:

Subject of the contract
The purpose of the public procurement is to buy new cost-effective and environmentally friendly buses,
suitable for running county and regular urban services (category M3 vehicles).

Award criteria
The award criteria were weighted as follows: 55% value of tender (i.e. lowest price); 24% for
a combination of warranty, bus engine smoke opacity and repair and maintenance work; and 21% for other
technical properties of the buses […]

Results
All the bids received offered vehicles with engines that met the EEV emissions standard – which is more
stringent than the legally required EURO V, despite this being the award criterion. This meant 28 that the
tendering criteria motivated tenderers to offer greener vehicles than required. Most tenders also offered
technical enhancements, for which additional evaluation points were awarded. In the tendering
procedure, 28 persons registered as interested parties and 6 tenders were submitted. The tender was
awarded to a Czech company and had a value of EUR 15.7 million (excluding VAT) for the delivery of 110
new buses with long warranty periods (5 years).