The 4th stakeholder seminar of CircPro project in Estonia was held on the 25th of November 2020 in the form of a webinar. The aim of the webinar was to bring together various stakeholders and discuss the bottlenecks and challenges related to green and circular public procurements and what could be the potential measures to improve the situation with GPP. The results of the webinar provide direct input to the development of the CircPro action plan.
The webinar brought together over 40 participants from 20 organizations that shared and discussed useful and engaging ideas on how to promote the uptake of green and circular criteria in public procurements.
The seminar started with the introduction of the circular economy and circular procurement. It then gave an overview of the current and finished activities of the CircPro project as well as the upcoming plans within the project.
During the discussion, it was discussed which measures are needed to wider uptake of circular and green procurements. First, it was acknowledged that Estonia as one of the few countries in the EU without any national action plans on GPP requires some sort of strategic decisions and document to support the implementation of GPP. The process of making GPP mandatory would also boost the uptake of GPP. Furthermore, it was agreed that procurers need support in carrying out the actual tenders and advice on how to set circular and green criteria, so some sort of competence center or help desk is needed. Moreover, clear and user-friendly guidelines including the environmental criteria for different product groups are needed, preferably some other forms than pdf files. At the same time, engaging the market is a key issue in green procurements. However, as it is not quite practiced in Estonia, guidance is needed on how to do that. Finally, it was discussed which necessary developments in the Procurement Register need to be undertaken to support the better uptake and monitoring of GPP.
The results of these discussions will contribute to the development of an action plan to promote green and circular public procurement in the framework of the CircPro project. Also, it contributes to increasing the knowledge of public sector stakeholders in circular procurement principles and criteria .
