News

The PRIMES project helped the procurers in six European countries to draw up more than 100 GPP tenders.

The article presents the most important project findings, explains GPP evaluation methodology and gives the GPP development guidelines for municipalities’ management level.

PRIMES project helped small and medium municipalities in six European countries (Denmark, France, Croatia, Italy, Latvia and Sweden) to develop basic green public procurement (GPP) skills providing them with hands-on support to overcome barriers and implement GPP.

During EUSEW in Brussels, PRIMES project partners arranged a seminar focused on green public procurement, where several ongoing EU-projects were presented

Holbaek Municipality and the energy utility SEAS-NVE have developed an efficient in-house model to achieve attractive financing of energy renovation projects with both short and long-term payback periods. Read the case study to learn more about the model.

Old street lighting systems can account for 30-50% of municipalities’ total electricity consumption. Yet, current technologies offer 30-70% energy savings potentials. These savings potentials have been recognised and incorporated into European policy: EU Regulation 245/2009 sets phasing out requirements for nearly 80 % of all currently used lamps types between 2012 and 2017. This means that these lamp types will no longer be available on the market for purchase.

The European project, Streetlight-EPC, is put into the world to help municipalities reduce their energy consumption.

The municipality of Carnikava decided not to renovate the secondary school in a traditional manner, but instead to invest more financial recourses to achieve better results – not only financial result, but also salubrious, which has been a big issue in Latvian schools because of bad ventilation systems.

In November 2013, in the first months of the PRIMES project, pilot-municipality Preiļi announced the first green public procurement. It was very simple and the municipality’s procurers tried to develop it more or less by themselves following the EU street lighting guidelines - before the opportunity to visit PRIMES trainings for procurers.

For many years now, there has been an interest towards procuring green electricity in France. As a responds to the growing interest, in a broad spectrum of French municipalities, SINGERLY crafted a series of tenders, to help the process on its way. The initiative resulted in a CO2 saving equivalent to about 1000 t/year.

For the first time in France a joint procurement located around Bourg en Bresse inserted green specifications about gas in a procurement. A share of 3 % biogas has been obtained with guaranties of origin and almost without any overall cost thanks to the price negotiation about fossil gas. Finally the economy were around 25 % in comparison to the previous contract.

As a part of its environmental policy, SDH decided to renew a part of its fleet by purchasing both consume less and less polluting vehicles but also electric vehicles and hybrids vehicles. For this, a consultation of 40 vehicles has been launched. They were selected not only for their price but also for their environmental and energy performance.

Municipality of Holbæk reduced the energy consumption and CO2-emissions by 75% and gained major savings in operation and maintenance by investing in LED street light and streamlining the operation system.

The decision about renovating an old, abandoned municipality building was effectuated because the existing city council building is too small for all staff members. The building, which will be renovated, is big enough and very close to the existing city council building.

With the starting point in an ambitious target, that by 2018 75% of all business travel carried out by vehicles from carpool should be done with renewable fuel, the politicians sat the standard for the Region of Kronoberg’s new vehicles procurement. Through a successful collaboration between the procurement unit and the environmental department the organization managed to save CO2 and established a higher demand for renewable fuels in the region.

When procuring electricity the challenge of choosing between standard electricity and electricity that conforms to certain environmental criteria is present. Ljungby municipality, located in the south-eastern part of Sweden, achieved lower emissions of CO₂ by using a certified eco-labelled energy source as procurement criteria.

When procuring electricity the challenge of choosing between standard electricity and electricity that conforms to certain environmental criteria is present. Ljungby municipality, located in the south-eastern part of Sweden, achieved lower emissions of CO₂ by using a certified eco-labelled energy source as procurement criteria.

Danish municipalities sees great potential in replacing gasoline cars with electric cars, however they also indicate complications within the political forum as well as financially and geographically. PRIMES partner recently held a workshop on the topic. 

The annual trade fair “Environment and Energy” is the largest event for energy efficiency and environmental technologies in the Baltic countries. This year it gathered more than 120 participating companies from 14 countries and more than 25 000 participants attended it this year.

In October 5, 2015, Latvian Environmental Investment Fund organised round table discussion about possibilities and requirements for green electricity procurement in municipalities of Latvia. 

In March 2015 Latvian Environmental Investment Fund organised the training course for municipalities specialized in construction sector. View the highlights here.

ANCI Liguria and IRE Spa are carrying on with activities supporting Municipalities in their activities linked to the energy efficiency.

In France only 7% of procurements take sustainable development into account. Therefor PRIMES' french partner, Rhônalpénergie-Environnement has offered GPP training to elected officials.

Municipalities and other stakeholders were invited to a workshop 11th of june by the Danish partners in PRIMES. Main focus was on energy-saving initiatives in buildings and how public procurement could be integrated in strategic energy planning. Read the highlights.

Green Public Procurement can be an effective tool in reducing CO2 emissions. This was clear when the two Intelligent Energy Europe projects PRIMES and GPP2020 held a conference on Green Procurement in practice in Riga. Learn from the presenters here...

Next round of Public Procurement of Innovation Award is open for applications, and they are looking for innovative public tenders. Apply now...

It is actually very simple. By using some additional criteria in your tenders, you can ensure that your new service/product not only meet your needs but also works towards reducing CO2 emissions - and the PRIMES project can help...

Within the Primes project a training package on energy-efficient public procurement has been developed and it is free to be used

A smaller Croatian city named Koprivnica are happy to announce their first public procurement procedure of electricity made from renewable energy sources. Read more about how several schools became consumers of electricity from renewable sources 

The Forum Compraverde - BuyGreen is the most important conference and exhibition dedicated to policies, projects, goods and services for private and public green procurement at Italian national level. Two PRIMES partners attended...

See who won the Public Procurement of Innovation Award...The ceremony was held during the EcoProcura conference, in Ghent, Belgium and the winner overcame competition from five other finalists. The award was presented by Bonifacio Garcia Porras of DG Enterprise and Industry, European Commission.

A capacity building workshop in Aalborg, 18-19th March 2014, under the European ManagEnergy initiative provided an opportunity for introducing Green Public Procurement (GPP) as a concept for sustainable energy practice.

ANCI Liguria and IRE Spa organized the first workshop in PRIMES regi with municipalities of the province La Spezia.

As part of the Energy Week which takes place in countries throughout the European Union, UNDP Croatia and Zagreb City Holding organized a round table using interactive TV show format, where moderator pointed questions to the members of the panel dedicated to Green public procurement.