Green public procurement and decarbonisation

Eileen Torres Morales, research associate at the Stockholm Environment Institute, tells eolas Magazine that green public procurement holds the key to decarbonising the public sector across Europe.

Public procurement accounts for roughly 15 per cent of GDP across the European Union. That scale makes it a potentially powerful tool in the transition to a low-carbon economy, however, it remains underused. Across EU member states, green public procurement (GPP) policies exist but are rarely mandatory, inconsistently monitored, and poorly integrated into wider climate strategies.

According to Torres Morales, GPP should be considered a core part of Europe’s climate policy framework rather than an optional add-on. “Green public procurement is not just about securing value for money,” she says. “It is also about delivering environmental and societal value. That is where the real untapped potential lies.”

At its core, GPP involves prioritising goods and services with lower environmental impacts throughout their life cycle. This includes operational emissions such as energy use during the life of a building or vehicle, but also embodied emissions like the carbon locked into construction materials or manufacturing processes.

“Think of the EU’s road transport and construction sectors,” Torres Morales explains. “They are both heavy users of materials such as steel and cement, which are sources of significant greenhouse gas emissions, and both rely heavily on public procurement. That means decarbonisation through GPP is both necessary and feasible, but it is not being pursued with the urgency or consistency it requires.”

Fragmented implementation

Despite policy frameworks in place, the EU’s current approach to GPP is patchy. “There are national action plans, and many of them have targets,” Torres Morales notes. “But those targets often go unmet. In most cases, GPP remains voluntary, and even where it is mandatory for certain product groups, enforcement and transparency are lacking.”

Procurement officers – the individuals responsible for applying these policies – often lack access to tools and training. “They told us in interviews that they do not always understand how to apply environmental criteria or assess bids based on them. There is also fear of legal challenges,” she says.

The challenge, she argues, is structural. “You cannot expect meaningful decarbonisation if the people implementing policy do not have the support to do so. It is not just a matter of adding a green checkbox to the procurement process; it requires knowledge, time, and capacity.”
Data

One of the key barriers to successful GPP policy rollout, according to Torres Morales, is data. There is no harmonised EU-wide system for tracking the uptake or environmental impact of GPP. “It is very difficult to measure what progress is being made, or to compare between countries,” she says. “Some municipalities like Berlin, Rome, and Catalonia have started local-level monitoring, and the Netherlands is piloting greenhouse gas savings tracking. But overall, the data is sparse.”

Without standardised definitions, methods or reporting systems, even basic statistics become unreliable. “According to public reports on GPP uptake, as of 2020, Poland reported that just 1 per cent of tenders were green. The Netherlands reported 67 per cent. But the methods used are so different, the numbers are not really comparable,” she says. “We need harmonised metrics that allow us to know what is working and where.”

Coherent, mandatory policy

To address these challenges, Torres Morales and her colleagues at SEI conducted a one-year study, funded by Breakthrough Energy, looking at GPP in eight EU member states: Sweden, the Netherlands, Estonia, Poland, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.

“We chose a mix of frontrunners and laggards,” she explains. “Countries with large and small economies, and different governance structures.”

The findings were consistent: better coordination is needed “within countries, between national and sub-national governments; between member states; and between EU institutions and international actors. Right now, efforts are fragmented and overlapping”.

The report also recommends introducing product-specific carbon thresholds and expanding EU directives to include embodied carbon emissions, particularly important in sectors like transport, where focus still tends to be limited to tailpipe emissions.

“We need to move from soft incentives to clear rules,” she says. “That means mandatory thresholds, better data, and more robust monitoring. Without that, GPP will remain a marginal factor in the climate transition.”

Strategic value of procurement

Despite the current gaps, Torres Morales is optimistic. She sees signs that some governments and cities are beginning to take procurement seriously as a climate tool.

“Public procurement can drive demand for low-carbon materials, support innovation, and shift entire supply chains. That is not theoretical. We have already seen it in isolated examples; the challenge now is scaling that impact.”

However, she asserts that doing so will require more than goodwill: “Procurement officers need time, training, and clear mandates. Policies need to be enforceable, and their outcomes measurable. And there needs to be alignment between procurement strategies and national climate goals.”

Concluding, Torres Morales states that the key to progress is political will: “The potential is there, but unless GPP is treated as a core element of Europe’s decarbonisation strategy, with the investment and coherence that implies, it will not deliver what it could.”