IN PROGRESS
Green Public Procurement
Project Description
The goal of the project is to raise awareness of the role that green public procurement can play in accelerating the decarbonisation of energy- and emission-intensive industries such as steel and cement.
Despite this key role played by industry in the economy and the large GHG emissions footprint, there is no national plan or support for industrial decarbonisation. In this context, large industrial producers are struggling to develop and implement ambitious investment plans in cleaner production methods, but a lack of direction from national government is frequently quoted as a barrier to engagement.
Green public procurement can represent a key instrument for lead market creation, especially in Central and Eastern European countries such as Romania, where large scale infrastructure projects are being implemented as part of the EU’s cohesion policy.
All such investments, in addition to municipality-level investments in social housing and healthcare infrastructure amount to a great demand for steel and cement – particularly as many near-term investments, such as those put forward under the Recovery and Resilience Plan, commit to meeting “green” criteria.
Through this project, we aim to highlight that by introducing standards and criteria for green public procurement, these infrastructure investments could turn into a market pull instrument for decarbonised steel and cement produced in Romania.