In Italy, the hand brake has been pulled on the application of Green Public Procurement and Minimum Environmental Criteria which, eight years after their entry into force, are struggling to take off in a structured manner. According to the latest Anac data, the overall value of contracts of an amount equal to or greater than 40 thousand euros in Italy stands at around 283.4 billion euros.
From the VII report 2024 “The numbers of Green Public Procurement in Italy” presented today at the Compraverde Buygreen 2024 Forum, it emerges that «On a sample of 126 public administrations, including 14 Regional Procurement Centres, 64 managing bodies of 148 protected areas, 41 Local Health Authorities and 7 metropolitan cities , in 2023 the average performance index of the sample investigated is equal to 62%, with a maximum value of 79% reached by metropolitan municipalities and a minimum, equal to 56%, reached by bodies managing protected areas. The index represents an overall assessment of the implementation of policies necessary for GPP and the application of CAMs. A sore point is the percentage relating to the monitoring of purchases, a practice carried out by only 17% of the sample. On the other hand, the best data concerns the now well-consolidated “knowledge of Green Public Procurement”: for 98% of public administrations, knowledge of this tool is widespread, ensuring a fundamental first step for its application; followed, among the most well-known and applied policies, are those on “Plastic free” (57%) and “Training” (56%); further behind, but equally important, are “Social Criteria” (47%) and “Gender Procurement” (46%)”.
The aim of the report, published by the Green Procurement Observatory of Legambiente and the Ecosistemi Foundation in partnership with Assosistema, the University of Padua, AdLaw Avvocati Amministrativisti, the Law department of the University of Turin and the Network of Sustainable Municipalities, is to tell how Italy is facing the challenge of sustainability which also involves purchases promoted by public administrations and the application of Minimum Environmental Criteria. There are 126 PAs who responded on the application of the policies necessary for Green Public Procurement in the tenders held in 2023, including knowledge of the tool, staff training, plastic free and gender procurement, and on the adoption of the Minimum Environmental Criteria, which has been mandatory since 2016.
According to Legambiente and Fondazione Ecosistemi, «Today in Italy, for 53% of the contracting authorities interviewed, the delays in the application of the GPP and especially the CAM are affected by the difficulty “in drafting the notices”, followed by the “lack of adequate training” ( 41%) and by the lack of companies with suitable requirements (34%). Achilles heels on which it is important to intervene to accelerate the pace and guarantee its full application by making up for lost time. For this reason, the Green Procurement Observatory asks that the main actions to start from concern primarily the training of competent and qualified personnel on the topic of CAM, followed by the control of the outcome of the tenders”.
Andrea Minutolo, scientific manager of Legambiente, underlines that «The overall data on the application of Green Public Procurement in Italy shows us that green purchases, although their usefulness is widely recognised, still suffer too many slowdowns. The Report of the Green Procurement Observatory serves to shore up the weak points on which to intervene to make the GPP more effective and practiced by PAs, so that it can become a structural tool. The promotion of an environmentally and socially preferable purchasing system can really generate an improvement in environmental terms and in the diffusion of green technologies”.
For Silvano Falocco, director of the Ecosistemi Foundation, «The data in the Report highlights the urgency of strengthening the GPP instrument with specific actions. 3 actions are necessary: each public administration must have a GPP contact person; a national program is needed to train and support PP.AA. in the inclusion of environmental and social criteria; we need a national Task Force that is able to verify respect for human and social rights along the production chains, to avoid social dumping.”
Among all the performances monitored in the four contracting authorities, a special mention goes to the presence in 8 bodies managing protected areas out of the 64 total, of a contact person for Green Public Procurement, as was requested in the proposals put forward in last year’s Report by ‘Green Procurement Observatory: «Centralizing the GPP practice through a more competent person who knows how to network the offices is in fact one of the issues to be resolved and to insist on also for the diffusion and application of the GPP in general».
Still on the side of protected area management bodies, low percentages were recorded regarding the application of improved strategies for separate waste collection (only 39% put them into practice) and initiatives for energy saving and the creation of Energy Communities Renewable and Solidarity (only 44% promote them). Despite the fact that the bodies managing protected areas should be an example and a stimulus for the public administration in the promotion of virtuous practices and good governance, also through the application of the GPP.
Among the 41 local health authorities that responded to the Observatory’s questionnaire, there is a huge gap in the purchasing monitoring system, with only 5% of implementation. A fact that turns on a red light and calls for the search for useful solutions to understand how purchases are made and how to rationalize expenses, also in light of the numbers contained in the latest Economic and Financial Document which certifies for the year 2023 a health expenditure of over 131 billion euros, with a health expenditure/GDP ratio of 6.3%. These figures give us the order of magnitude and the importance of monitoring the healthcare sector and understanding how spending can be channeled towards sustainability which concerns various purchases in the sector and the management of the healthcare system”.
In light of all this, according to the Green Procurement Observatory it concludes: «There are two priorities on which to intervene immediately, to allow faster and more effective growth of GPP in our country. The greatest difficulty that public administrations still experience today, in fact, concerns the lack of technical support for the drafting of tender documents, a fundamental aspect given that, for example, many CAMs do not provide for automatic application but require customization during the tender design, also necessary in some services (such as those on the energy management of buildings or public green areas). It is therefore necessary to equip each administration with specific, trained personnel who know how to direct and follow the purchasing process in all its phases. However, the monitoring activity of the state of adoption of Green Public Procurement within the individual contracting authorities is still completely absent. This makes it impossible to correctly evaluate the feedback from the tender procedures regarding the environmental criteria to be integrated. Even in this case, monitoring is realistically possible only if a specific GPP contact person is identified, whose need and relative lack is felt. A contact person who should be the person capable of connecting the various policies of the administration (climate action plans, mobility plans, for the circular economy and waste prevention, urban regeneration plans, food councils, etc.) with the use of the GPP tool”.
