Good practice:

Promotion of Green public procurement by providing green technical specifications

Central Procurement Organization (CPO LT) is in charge of centralized purchases on behalf of contracting authorities at both national and local levels. Procurements are handled over CPO LT e-catalogue which is grouped into procurement categories with 49 different groups of services, goods, and works. E-catalogue enables to simplify the way procurement is conducted, optimize procurement cycles and reduce process costs.
In the catalogue it is marked which technical specifications include the criteria for the procurement to be defined as Green public procurement. There are 380 green specifications for the categories such as Office supplies, Cleaning services, Computer and office equipment, mobile phones, furniture, food integrated into the e-catalogue.
In this way the process of green public procurement is facilitated, because the procuring organizations do not need to set up the criteria themselves. On the other hand, procuring organizations can use these technical specifications as examples and conduct the green public procurements themselves.
In the categories which include regular and green technical specifications, 99 percent of procurements are conducted choosing green specifications. In the first half of the year 2020, through the CPO LT electronic catalog purchased green goods and services reached the value of 18 million Eur.

Human resources to set up the criteria and develop green technical specifications.

The largest part of green procurements (almost 53% of the total number) were conducted for the Office supplies. Green office supplies were procured by 845 contracting authorities.
According the value, most of the green public procurements were conducted in order to procure Cleaning Services (84 contracting authorities procured services for as much as 8.4 million. Eur) and the Computer and Office Equipment (6.8 million. Eur)

Usually procuring organizations lack skills and competences in order to conduct the Green public procurements themselves. Therefore, the central procuring bodies can play a vital role in facilitating the uptake of the green public procurement by providing an opportunity for the procuring organizations to procure goods and services which comply with the green public procurement criteria set in their regions.
On the other hand, it provides examples of the technical specifications of green public procurements, which can be later used by the procuring organizations themselves.