Sustainability requirements should be incorporated into the specification. They must be relevant to the particular procurement, and not to the general capacities or qualities of the operator. It is also important to establish that the market for a particular product can meet requirements before incorporating them into the specification.
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 in order to reduce the environmental impact of procurements.
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. Minimum efficiency for water-using products standards and other requirements have been incorporated. It should be noted that the GBS are in the process of being updated by DEFRA.
A buyer could also use a water efficiency calculator for water using products such as The Water Calculator, or the criteria of a label such as The Unified Water Label . This could be used to identify water and energy efficient products.
When it comes to production, buyers should first consider whether the products required could be of a lower embodied water design before creating the specification.
An environmental management system may be relevant to the particular procurement. Its requirement should be proportionate according to the market and the scope of products or services required. Labels can be used as evidence of meeting specific environmental, social or other criteria, for example ISO14001 or EMAS. Equivalent evidence of meeting these criteria must also be accepted.
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.
The Annex includes model wording that may be used for this purpose.
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