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Toolkit for sustainable food procurement
Published on 15 May 2019
France
This is the good practice's implementation level. It can be national, regional or local.
About this good practice
This toolkit aims to cope with the French national plan for green public procurement 2015-2020 and, by offering concrete tools and solutions, it addresses the needs of buyers to understand how to integrate sustainability in their food procurement. It is designed to ease local distribution channels and the consideration of sustainable development in tenders. It is a template of tender documents for the procurement of foodstuffs. The toolbox is composed of drafting elements of documents for consultation with enterprises and also a technical brief framework for suppliers' responses intending to ease offers assessment throughout the selection process. These documents will be useful for the award and execution of a contract for the supply of foodstuffs incorporating environmental considerations as well as social inclusion aspects. It is available to all local authorities in the Sud Region and in France in general. Any public purchaser can adapt the template according to its own needs and its desire to integrate sustainable development considerations to a greater or lesser extent and cope with National plan objectives.
Resources needed
This toolkit was developed by the ARBE, the regional environmental agency of the Sud Region. 1 project manager was mobilised. It was developed in several stages: setting up a regional working group (with local authorities and agricultural networks), initial drafting, corrections and dissemination.
Evidence of success
This tool saves buyers precious preparation time and allows them to draw up their contract in just a few days. By encouraging seasonal and local purchases, the specifications necessarily lead to a reduction in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, which are difficult to estimate because they depend on the frequency of purchases and the number of dishes and meals served. it has been distributed to over 500 organisations since its publication.
Potential for learning or transfer
The template may be used to train public buyers of any region on foodstuff, catering and services tenders. Its applicability is nationwide.