Green criteria in an electronic Procurement Register

In Estonia, the whole procedure of all public procurements takes place on the electronic platform for public procurement, the Procurement Register. The public procurement register offers an innovative working environment for buyers to organise public procurements and for tenderers to participate in public procurements.

The green public procurement (GPP) is not widely implemented in Estonia for various reasons. One of the most important ones is the lack of experience and knowledge of the procurers about the application of GPP criteria in tenders. In order to overcome this barrier and support the wider implementation of the GPP, the criteria for GPP are built-in in the new Register open since October 2018. The environmental criteria available for use in the Procurement Register are based on the EU GPP criteria. Currently, there are GPP criteria available for four product groups: copy paper, cleaning products and services, furniture, and office IT equipment.

For each product group, there is an easy-to-use dropdown list from where the buyers can choose the criteria they would like to use in each procurement. They can also create their own criteria if needed. This also allows for monitoring of the implementation of GPP, identifying whether all or some built-in or self-made criteria are used in each procurement.