Green products and public procurement

Description

The Single Market for Green Products  (SMGP) initiative refers to the methodologies needed to identify the optimum resource consumption and environmental footprint of manufacturing from the perspective of a product’s life cycle. In this sense, EU4Environment provides opportunities for companies wishing to market their product as environmentally friendly in several markets (particularly EU) to use a practical approach assessing the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF). Based on the PEF, the initiative promotes a common way of measuring environmental performance, essential in achieving circular economy and new growth opportunities for the partner countries’ industries.

Sustainable public procurement holds tremendous potential for transforming markets by promoting the purchasing and production of more sustainable products and services. EU4Environment builds the capacities of policy-makers and procurers to develop and implement sustainable public procurement policies and tools, such as eco-labels. It also trains private enterprises to better respond to government purchasing tenders with sustainability criteria.

The work is implemented by UNEP and UNIDO.