Case Study 74: Training Municipal purchasers to buy green, Lille, France Case Study 75: Changing procurement patterns of the Municipal Administration of Pori, Pori, Finland72

Case study 74

Lille, France by freefotouk/flickr.com

Training Municipal purchasers to buy green

Lille, France In 2000 the City of Lille adopted its ‘list of Agenda 21 commitments’ as part of its aim to make a contribution to the introduction of certain actions which promote sustainable development, included in the Agenda 21 adopted at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Quite high on this list of actions is the crucial role of local authorities in the emergence of “responsible, future-friendly production and consumption”, by encouraging sustainable public procurement. In order to promote such procurement, the City of Lille decided to concentrate its efforts on two critical links in the awarding of public contracts chain: the preparation of specifications and the training of municipal purchasers. Specifications were drawn up for six categories of products: Wood, Paint, Cleaning products, Paper and Printer ink. For each of these categories, environmental criteria were included. To date, since 2003, over 50 buyers have been trained. This training, which is still being conducted, includes an eco-buying awareness day and a one-day course in preparing specifications. Several documents have also been circulated which provide information on French and European ecolabels, a glossary of terms used by the “experts” and a CD on ecodesign. The City carried out this work in partnership with the research offices Ecoeff and Cartes Vertes Internationales, the Steering Committee and the Technical Committee. Website: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/gpp/pdf/press_en.pdf

Case study 75 Changing procurement patterns of the Municipal Administration of Pori

Pori, Finland The goal of the Sustainable Procurement project in Pori was to change the procurement patterns of the municipal administration to follow the principles of sustainability, by avoiding unnecessary consumption and minimising waste production. The reparability, durability and environmental impact of purchased goods were considered together with the returnability, recyclability and discharge of the package. The project was a joint initiative between the Environmental Protection and Procurement departments – later led by a coordinating group. The essential partners for the success of the project were the City Hall, and the departments of education, construction, social service and health. Initially each sector concentrated only on few products, which were selected either because they had very harmful environmental impacts or the amount of products purchased was high. Much of the project resources were used for training and publicity. All the municipal employees received a leaflet informing them about the project, and 550 (out of 6 000) employees received training sessions and lectures. By using concrete examples, the personnel were able to apply the principles of sustainability in their own working environment. The following changes have taken place in Pori: l use of paper has decreased because of electric file transfers l all printing is made on chlorine-free or recycled paper l paper recycling is close to 100% l use of biodegradable chemicals has increased l use of non-packed food stuffs has increased l waste accumulation from the kitchen has decreased to 1/10 of the previous amount l use of one-way products has been reduced and in some cases abandoned totally l spray cans have been abandoned l instead of painting, metal structures are treated with zinc l an electric recycling centre for administration has begun in the computer network Website: www3.iclei.org/egpis/egpc-061.html