17 April from 10.30h

Making the EU economy future-proof requires a deep transformation towards circular and sustainable production models, as well as the development of net-zero industries in Europe.

The recent Net-Zero Industry act is a good example of the recent paradigm shift towards an active European industry policy. It contains interesting provisions on sustainability and resilience contribution in public procurement procedures, including the use of mandatory criteria. The EU Farm-to-Fork strategy is also another example of how EU policies have evolved in the right direction, as it includes an action point on developing mandatory sustainable food public procurement criteria.

Public procurement is an essential tool to redirect our economy towards a more sustainable path. Unfortunately, the uptake of sustainable public procurement varies a lot from Member State to Member States, and is often lagging behind what is needed to create a broad market for sustainable products.

In this event, experts and representatives from the European Commission will take stock of recent Green Deal legislation including elements on sustainable public procurement, discuss how those will be used by procurement professionals on the ground, analyse how public procurement can support the objectives of the Green Deal Industrial Plan, and discuss whether the 2014 Public Procurement directives are fit to support these efforts, and whether they need to be revised.

This event will be based on the study: "Shaping Sustainable Public Procurement laws in the European Union -  An analysis of the legislative development from 'how to buy' to 'what to buy' in current and future EU legislative initiatives", sponsored by the Greens/EFA group.

The event is organised by IMCO Chair Anna Cavazzini and MEP Kim van Sparrentak