Sustainable requirements need to be incorporated into the specification and must be relevant and proportionate to the particular procurement. Legislation permits environmental considerations to be included in the technical specification of a procurement. In the case of biosecurity procurers should consider its relevance to the product, services, or works in question, as well as the relevant market.
The EU Green Public Procurement Criteria (EU GPP criteria) are developed to facilitate the inclusion of green requirements in public tender documents. These can be incorporated into specifications for goods, services or works to reduce the environmental impact of procurements. These include criteria for food catering services.
Similar in purpose to the EU GPP criteria, Government Buying Standards (GBS) are a set of product specifications for public buyers when buying goods and services. These include criteria for food and catering, and horticulture and park services. It should be noted that at the time of publication the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) are in the process of updating the GBS.
Use of Labels
Labels can be used as evidence of meeting specific environmental, social or other criteria. Equivalent evidence of meeting these criteria must also be accepted.
For example ISO14001, EMAS or British standard BS8545:2014.
British standard BS8545:2014 focuses on the growing of trees and states that 'Bio-security is an important consideration. To minimize the risk of pests and or diseases being imported directly into the UK, all young trees produced abroad but purchased for transplanting should spend at least one full growing season on a UK nursery and be subjected to a full pest and disease control programme'.
The Plant Healthy Certification Scheme sets out key requirements for plant health and biosecurity management and is relevant to a range of horticultural businesses and organisations that make up the live plant supply chain.
The UK Woodland Assurance Scheme (UKWAS) is the certification standard for verifying sustainable forest management used by both the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).
The Woodland Carbon Code is the quality assurance standard for woodland carbon projects in the UK. It sets out requirements for voluntary woodland creation projects which tackle climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Woodland carbon projects offer a revenue stream for landowners and farmers and a way for companies to support woodland creation and compensate for emissions.
Labels are a specific term and how they should be used is set out in Regulation 44 of the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015.
The use of labels needs to be approached with care. A label must be:
While a public body can ask for what they are buying to have an independently verifiable label which certifies that it meets specific environmental, social, or other characteristics, a particular label should only be requested where all of its certification characteristics correspond to a procurement.
See the Annex for example wording.
