Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 1 March 2022
82. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the progress that has been made in transforming the various public procurement protocols to embrace circular economy principles. [11136/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe existing legal framework for public procurement provides considerable opportunity to incorporate environmental, including circular economy, considerations into procurement projects. Under the European Union Procurement Directives, cost may be calculated using Life-Cycle Costing (LCC), which takes into account costs at end-of-life, such as those associated with disposal, as well as operational costs, such as energy use, and purchase price and associated costs, such as delivery. LCC may also include the cost of externalities, such as greenhouse gas emissions. The Directives allow inclusion of criteria relating to any stage in a product’s life-cycle, including production and end-of-life. Such criteria must be defined, quantifiable, verifiable, and measurable.
In 2019, my Department published Circular 20/2019: Promoting the use of Environmental and Social Considerations in Public Procurement. This instructs Departments to consider using green criteria in their procurements. In 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published updated and expanded ‘Green Public Procurement – Guidance for the Public Sector’, accompanied by 10 sets of green criteria. These are mostly modelled on EU Green Public Procurement (GPP) criteria, which were developed using Life-Cycle Assessment i.e. considering environmental impacts throughout the entire life-cycle. The EPA, Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC), and the Office of Government Procurement (OGP) have all actively promoted use of these criteria and the guidance. The guidance includes a section specifically on GPP and the Circular Economy. Elsewhere, it highlights circular approaches such as reuse, procurement of products with recycled content, resource sharing, procuring equipment that can be adapted over time or repaired, and LCC.
In 2021, the establishment of an Environmental subgroup of the Strategic Procurement Advisory Group, co-chaired by the OGP Policy and the Circular Economy unit in the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, has ensured coordination between Circular Economy policy and public procurement.
