The threat posed by climate change demands the development of innovative, low carbon solutions for lighting, vehicles, and heating and cooling systems. Since European public authorities purchase large volumes of these products and services amounting to two billion euro per year, there is enormous, largely untapped potential for progress in the area of public procurement.

The Building SPP project, funded by the LIFE+ Programme, aims to promote sustainable procurement practices in Portugal and Greece. Sustainable procurement can play an important role in organizations at national and local level. The project’s main objective is to build capacity in sustainable procurement by assisting public authorities in setting up a procurement strategy.

It further seeks to encourage communication at various stages of the procurement process, promoting cooperation among public authority procurers and greater market engagement between public authorities and suppliers. Sustainable procurement can help organisations to meet commitments related to social, environmental and economic policies, and its benefits include money and energy savings.

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