European Commission, DG Internal Market and Services
Partners
Partners
Belmont Innovaties & Management bv
International Training Centre of the ILO
Universität der Bundeswehr München
Spending on public procurement in the EU Member States accounts for around 16 per cent of the EU’s gross domestic product. In view of this economic significance, public procurement may encourage production and consumption trends towards environmentally friendly, socially responsible and innovative products and services on a large scale. The European Union therefore lent considerable weight to public procurement, as became evident in its recognition as an important measure for implementing the EU- 2020 strategy and the European sustainability strategy.
In a study project for the EU Commission, adelphi examined Member States’ experiences in integrating sustainability and innovation policies into public procurement processes. The analysis by an adelphi-lead consortium was divided into three parts: at the first stage, national policies and strategies were reviewed. To what extent and by which means contracting authorities actually implement sustainability and innovation goals was the central question to be answered in the second step of the survey. Finally, and based on intermediate data, adelphi and its partners determined if purchased products and services were indeed environmentally friendly, socially responsible and innovative.