This comprehensive seminar will provide you with an understanding of the principles and procedures of European public procurement policy, focusing on the Public Procurement Directives and relevant case law. You will be guided through the Public Procurement Directive 2014/24/EU, the Utilities Directive 2014/25/EU and the Directive 2014/23/EU on the award of concession contracts. During the seminar you will receive insights into the application of professional procurement practices.

The four-day programme will begin with an ‘Introductory Seminar: European Public Procurement for Newcomers to Procurement’, which will be held on 18 February 2020. The three-day ‘Practitioners’ Seminar: European Public Procurement Rules, Policy and Practice’ will commence on the following day.

More here.

Is your city looking to make investments in the area of mobility, ICT or energy? Is your city thinking of redeveloping certain areas? Are you looking for providers with smart city products or services?

The European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC) is hosting a matchmaking event for policy makers, and city and regional representatives looking to connect with peers and start discussions with business representatives from the smart city community.

The event, taking place in ICLEI Member Brussels (Belgium) on 20 February – back-to-back with the Covenant of Mayors Investment Forum – brings together city and regional representatives, businesses, and investors and focuses on exploring and shaping opportunities for persons involved in smart cities projects.

This is the first in a series of matchmaking activities. It offers a unique knowledge-sharing opportunity for those in charge of policy-making and those representing cities and regions, and gives cities the opportunity to offer advice to peers, learn from best practices, present projects, and find investors and Smart City Solutions.

The EIP-SCC offers a forum for discussion, assists in the development of innovative urban ideas, and brings together urban innovators, developers, investors, and private equity.

ICLEI Europe will be represented at the event by Director for Sustainable Procurement, Mark Hidson, who will host a session on how public procurement can drive the implementation of Smart Cities.

The event is promoted by the European Commission's EIP-SCC Marketplace initiative, of which ICLEI Europe is an active partner.

Why should you join?

This event fosters much-needed collaboration between city and regional representatives, policy makers, business representatives, and investors. This is a unique occasion to network and explore investment opportunities with key smart cities decision-makers such as European and local authorities, research institutions, and leading smart cities and infrastructure investors.

What can you expect?

At the Matchmaking event, you will learn about existing smart city best practices in the areas of mobility, ICT and energy in an Explore Zone. Experts will assist you in shaping the concept of your planned Smart City project or planned investments in a round-table format during Shape discussions. Finally, you can engage in one-on-one meetings between solution providers and the investment community during the focussed Deal matchmaking sessions on Smart Cities and Communities (pre-registration required).

To learn more and to register, please click here.

The Congress, organized every year by SETEM Catalunya with the collaboration of various other organisations, will consist of debates and activities concerning the social and environmental impact of the electronics industry.

The MSC2020 will focus on the human rights violations and the environmental impacts generated by the production and consumption model of the electronic industry in the Global South and North.

The second day of the MSC will debut with the power of socially responsible public purchasing to influence gender inequalities in the supply chain of the electronics industry, and share good practices from different administrations in the field. In addition, it will focus on the social and environmental impacts generated by the extractive industry in the global environment, analyzing the labor conditions in the mines of Bolivia.

Li-ion batteries? These are the batteries we use massively for our smartphones, laptops, tablets and electric cars. 
Au Lap Hang of the "Labour Education and Service Network (LESN)" in Hong Kong talks about the precarious working conditions and the challenges within the factories where these batteries are produced. 

LESN, is a monitoring partner of Electronics Watch and works mainly in China. The organisation is committed to raising awareness among migrant workers, cultivating solidarity among workers and improving long-term labour rights.

Björn Claeson of Electronics Watch will talk about what you can do as a (public) buyer of ICT products.  He considers what the workers-based monitoring system of Electronics Watch can contribute to solving these problems. 

The webinar will be held in English. 

Date: 10 March, 11:00 (CET) - duration: 1h

You can register for the webinar via this link: 
https://zoom.us/meeting/ register/v5cudO-uqzovv05a_ GPSpdZQTKpIPRUnKg

After registration you will receive a confirmation email from Gertrude Klaffenböck of SuedWind.
If you have questions: please contact Kim Claes (kim.claes@catapa.be).

How to do sustainable and innovation procurement in practice? What can a sustainable supply chain for textiles look like, and how to steer it through procurement? How can we use innovation procurement to support cutting edge science? Learn from award winning procurements – and join us for a webinar presenting two of the Procura+ Award 2019 winners and their procurements and initiatives, on March 16, from 11h – 11:50.
 
Register via this Link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6441250682458294796

Procura+ participant and GLCN member the City of Ghent launched a pilot procurement for ethically produced workwear. After researching best practices in textile procurement and conducting a market analysis of fair and ethically produced clothing, Ghent realised that the market was not ready to deliver the level of environmental and social impact required – learn how the City has tackled this during the webinar!

Bob Jones from the Swiss company CERN will present on their award winning Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) of data cloud storage. Ten public research organisations from seven European countries have joined forces in a PCP to meet the demands of large scale scientific projects for big data storage and analysis tools. The result of the multi-stage PCP process was the pilot Helix Nebula Science Cloud. This cloud-based system makes it possible to host the service in new data centres with excellent power usage effectiveness. The services will be made accessible to a broader set of public research and higher education.

Join us and register via this link.

Agenda

11:00 Introduction to the Procura+ Network and the Procura+ Awards, Paula Land, ICLEI Local Governements for Sustainability

11:10 City of Ghent: How to mainstream sustainability and fair trade in the textiles supply chain through procurement, Aline De Cokere, City of Ghent

11:30 CERN: Open cloud data storage innovation through pre-commercial procurement, Bob Jones, CERN 

11:45 Conclusion

Programme

• Welcome and Introduction to the EU GPP Criteria for food, catering services and vending machines, Enrico Degiorgis, DG Environment, European Commission
• The sustainable school meal procurement initiative of Torres Vedras, Paula Rodrigues, City of Torres Vedras 
• Low-carbon and sustainable food procurement in Helsinki, Satu Turula and Reetta Huomo, City of Helsinki

Purpose and Framework

Green Public Procurement (GPP) is an important tool to achieve environmental policy goals relating to climate change, resource use and sustainable consumption and production – especially given the importance of public sector spending on goods and services in Europe.

This is the first of two Webinars that will be held in 2020, as part of the European Commission’s Helpdesk service on GPP. The webinar will focus on the updated voluntary EU green public procurement (GPP) criteriafor food, catering services and vending machines, which have been designed to help public authorities reduce the key environmental impacts associated with the growing, preparing, and selling food.

The GPP Helpdesk Webinars provide a forum to inform stakeholders working in the field of public sector procurement about important new developments in the resources available and legislative context for GPP, and provide an opportunity for questions and discussion. For more information, visit the European Commission’s GPP website.

ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability is organising this webinar on behalf of the European Commission (DG Environment).

Register here. 

In response to the current sanitary crisis, EIC Accelerator and ICLEI Europe will organize an online market engagement event. 

The e-pitching aims to connect public and private procurers from the health sector with EIC companies providing medical supply, such as personal protective garments, medication, test kits, respiratory machinery as well as innovative technologies, for example tele-medicine, remote solutions, artificial intelligence for date analysis and prediction. 

The overall idea is to have a first e-pitching and co-creation event for the fourth week of April with at least 10 European procurers and 20 to 40 EIC companies. Non EIC companies may be accepted in case they provide complementary solutions. The exact date and time is still to be determined.

If this opportunity is of interest to you, please get in touch with Rafael Hirt - rafael.hirt@iclei.org.  

The European Innovation Council (EIC) can connect public buyers with innovation needs with the community of more than 5000 top innovative SMEs and start-ups. All suppliers go through a demanding selection procedure and received EIC funding.

ICLEI Europe supports partnership building between the EIC Community members and public procurers interested in working with EIC SME’s; and manages the on-boarding of private and public procurers interested in working with innovators on the EIC Community Platform and motivate their active participation in the EIC Community.

For the first time in the history of the European Urban Resilience Forum, organised by ICLEI Europe, we will explore the connection between procurement and resilience. The following session will run as 2C, 1-2.15pm. Register here.

Across Europe, on average, public authorities spend about 20% of the EU Gross Domestic Product (GDP) purchasing goods, works and services. Sustainable and circular procurement is used by cities to ensure that their purchasing reflects broader goals linked to resource efficiency, climate change, social responsibility and economic resilience, for example.

This session explores how public procurement can be used to build resilience as a strategic preparedness and response mechanism in European cities. 

It gives opportunity to dive into the world of procurement, its role to prepare for future stresses and mechanisms for crisis response. For example, the session delves into how public procurers can foster the uptake of nature-based solutions, support sustainable small-medium enterprises, local supply-chains or how to secure urgently needed products. Discover the potential behind connecting procurement to resilience and learn from practical stories first-hand. The session will also cater to an open discussion reflecting on the current situation under COVID-19. 

confirmed speakers:

Alessandra Aires, Architect, City of Turin, Italy

Paula Rodrigues, City of Torres Vedras, Portugal

Birte Detjen, City of Bremen, Germany

Kenza Khachani, Policy Analyst, OECD Cities

Sanne van Camp, Strategic Procurement Officer & Rudie de Vries, Senior Sustainability Policy Advisor, Municipality Haarlem, the Netherlands

Registration is mandatory in advance.

AI4Cities is looking for artificial intelligence (AI) solutions in the fields of mobility and energy to accelerate our path to carbon neutrality.

The project's first Open Market Consultation webinar is open to suppliers, manufacturers, entrepreneurs, startups and other experts, who are able to consult in the following domains: climate change, AI software and hardware development, public traffic management and planning, energy efficiency and infrastructure, and building maintenance.

The AI4Cities Buyers Group will present the project's goals, its pre-commercial procurement tool, and its phases. This is the first AI4Cities global event in which the demand and the supply side will meet.

Agenda

• 10:00 Introduction to the AI4Cities project – Kaisa Sibelius, Coordinator AI4Cities, Forum Virium Helsinki
• 10:15 Mobility – City of Stavanger, Nils Henrik Haaland
• 10:25 Energy – City of Amsterdam, Anja Reimann and Mimi Eelman
• 10:40 Open AI for agile cities – Timo Ruohomäki, Programme Director, Forum Virium Helsinki
• 10:55 What is a Pre-Commercial Procurement process? – Hugo Gonçalves, PCP Specialist, Forum Virium Helsinki
• 11:10 Questions and answers
• 11:30 End

Register now by clicking here.

This Strength2Food's webinar will present:

• Public Sector Food Procurement for school meals in Europe: evaluation of the environmental, economic and social impacts
• Meal Analyser Tool
• Menu and Procurement Planning Tool

The webinar is aimed at policy makers, hospitality and catering managers (schools, hospitals, etc.), strategic procurement experts,
local authorities, food procurement companies.

This webinar is organised in cooperation with the University of Edinburgh, Impact Measurement Ltd, the European Training Academy, the European Food Information Council and Newcastle University.