The first stakeholder meeting for the GPP4Growth project took place on March 28th 2017 in the 'Huis van de Sport' in Antwerp, Belgium. The meeting was attended by 34 representatives of municipalities, the Flemish Energy Agency (VEA), the Intercommunal Land Policy and Expansion Antwerp (IGEAN), Provincial municipal support (Regiowerking), Provincial Service for Sustainable Environment and Nature Policy (DMN), Provincial Centre for Sustainable Building & Living (Kamp C), and the coordinator of provincial group purchases.
The Province of Antwerp organized a study day on GPP for the same target group and other interested parties on October 25th 2016, where the participation in this project was already announced.
Gil Stevens, coordinator of Cradle to Cradle Platform presented "Cradle to Cradle in public procurement".
Annemie Andries, Policy Officer OVAM, Waste and Materials Management Department/team local authorities presented "Circular procurement: cases by OVAM".
Katty Michielsen, Sustainability Officer, municipality of Schoten presented "How to include sustainable public procurement in local policy".
Monique Van Dousselaere, Energy and Environment, City of Antwerp presented "City of Antwerp chooses ambitious sustainable criteria: case framework contract for hygienic paper products".
Sébastien Lefèbvre, Procurement and Technology Management, City of Kortrijk presented "Pilot project circular economy: lighting as a service".
Koen Van Haelst, director Facility Service, Province of Antwerp and Laurens Smaers, consultant procurement team, Province of Antwerp presented "Cases sustainable purchases by the Province of Antwerp".
For the evening programme, more local politicians were explicitly invited.
After a welcome by Rik Röttger, Deputy for the Environment, Province of Antwerp, Mieke Pieters, Managing Director of The Global Picture and coach in sustainable purchasing presented "Purchasing power for sustainable impact".
Tanja Mattheus, secretary, City of Herentals presented Integrating sustainable buying and policy; Maarten Desmet, founder of ecological app For Good presented "For Good: how municipalities can reduce CO2 and activate citizens".
Therefore this stakeholder meeting was confined to the presentation of the GPP4growth-project and its objectives and a discussion on future actions in the project.
Finally, the participants suggested several specific topics for deepening at coming stakeholder meetings: ICT (thin clients), utilisation of wood (by roof constructors, building contractors) (Fairtrade, FSC, PEFC), vehicles and machines. The main conclusion of this first stakeholder meeting however was that the number and diversification of stakeholders needs to be increased to enhance active participation.
