The Government has published a draft National Action Plan on Green Public Procurement for public consultation. In 2010, public procurement in Ireland amounted to Eur15 billion.
The Action Plan, when it is finalised later this year, will apply to all personnel involved in procurement across the Public Sector. It will also be of major interest to their partners in the business community, as well as to other stakeholders in the academic community, NGOs, and other parts of civil society.
It is intended that this Action Plan will highlight existing best-practice procurement as an example to procurers of similar products and services across the public sector. It will also outline what further improvements could be made that would boost the percentage of GPP in Ireland to the most ambitious level possible.
The draft Action Plan proposes seven priority product groups for which the public sector should seek to ‘green’ their tendering processes on a national basis. These seven product groups are:
* Construction
* Energy
* Food and catering services
* Transport
* Cleaning products and services
* Paper
* Uniforms and other textiles.
The draft Action Plan is now available for public consultation and may be downloaded on the webpages of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government www.environ.ie.