PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Green Public Procurement (GPP) is an important instrument to accomplish the general goal of sustainable development, since it enables public authorities to address current challenges relating to legislation and sustainability. GPP criteria can contribute to reductions in energy consumption, greenhouse gases and waste production, and can promote the use of renewable resources and eco-design.
GPP is of crucial importance to the Europe 2020 Strategy, since it is a market-based instrument for accelerating the shift towards a resource efficient and low-carbon economy, while improving framework conditions for business to innovate in green technologies. However, in terms of sustainable urban furniture (aka street furniture), there are barriers to be overcome, for instance, due to insufficient knowledge of the products by personnel and the lack of standard criteria.
OBJECTIVES
The main objective of the LIFE FUTURE project was to develop a tool – the Green Urban Furniture (GUF) Tool – to perform an accurate and simplified environmental analysis of urban furniture to facilitate Green Public Procurement (GPP). The GUF Tool would be based on the methodology of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The project would study different elements of urban furniture, focusing on two categories selected to validate the functionality of the tool. Moreover, the tool would be used by public bodies for real-life procurement processes to demonstrate its effectiveness and practical applicability for GPP, with at least 200 urban furniture items being acquired using the GUF Tool. The use of the tool would help ensure a range of environmental benefits, for example, in terms of climate change, eco-toxicity and resource depletion. In particular, the project would:
- Help users to understand GPP criteria;
- Aid in the selection of the best solutions in terms of GPP; and
- Encourage public bodies to include green procurement clauses, based on GUF Tool results, in their tenders.
RESULTS
The LIFE FUTURE project developed a green urban furniture (GUF) tool for carrying out accurate and simplified environmental analysis of urban furniture in order to support the implementation of local green public procurement (GPP).
The project showed how environmental criteria can be included in public procurement processes, thus contributing to the reduction of the environmental impact of overall lifecycle of an item of urban furniture.
Specifically, the tool developed by the project has three aspects:
- Helping users understand the criteria of green procurement;
- Assisting in the selection of the best solutions in terms of green public purchase; and
- Encouraging public authorities to include green procurement clauses based on the tool results in their public tenders.
Once the methodology to assess the environmental parameters is adopted, the main challenge is then to convince local, regional and national public entities to include and prioritise environmental criteria in the evaluation of public tenders.
The environmental benefits derived from the GPP and the use of the GUF tool are related to the reduction of the environmental impacts derived from the urban furniture purchased. The project achieved greater environmental savings than those foreseen:
- 40.2% reduction in global warming potential (expected: 26.5%)
- 43.1% reduction of acidification (expected: 28.7%)
- 25.5% reduction in eutrophication (expected: 12.2%)
- 40.8% reduction in energy demand (expected: 15.5%)
- 56.1% reduction of waste (expected: 8%)
However, the impact savings achieved during the project execution was low:
- Eutrophication reduced by 4 kg PO4 (0.22%) (expected: 1 800 kg PO4)
- Global warming potential reduced by 5 323 kg CO2, (1.42%) (expected: 374 000 kg CO2)
- Waste reduced by 1 953 kg (0.84%) (expected: 232 000 kg)
The lower-than-expected results were due to the lower number of items procured (74) than planned (200), time constraints, and the category of items procured (benches, bins, flowerpots) having lower environmental impacts.
Further information on the project can be found in the project's layman report and After-LIFE Communication Plan (see "Read more" section).
