The workshop on Criteria and practical experience of Sustainable Public Procurement of food for educational institutions in Ukraine took place on 14 March 2023.
The objectives of the meeting were to:
- Present UNEP’s vision on how eco-labels can contribute to SPP practices.
- Present the SPP criteria developed for food catering and food products by the project experts.
- Present the opportunities for customers to apply the SPP approach in accordance with the national legislation of Ukraine.
- Educate the workshop participants on the approaches of applying the SPP criteria, in particular, providing recommendations on establishing non-price criteria and methods of confirming compliance.
- Present the practices of the SPP application in the implementation of projects in the field of catering in educational institutions in Ukraine.
- Discuss the next steps in strengthening the SPP potential in the field of catering in educational institutions collect customers’ opinions.
Participants
The meeting brought together the representatives of the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Economy, the EU Delegation to Ukraine, the UNEP, Prozorro State Enterprise, the Center for Central Development, procurement platforms, experts, customers in the field of public procurement, suppliers, as well as the representatives of businesses and non-governmental organizations.
Background
The implementation of SPP in Ukraine has a long history and it started in 2012 with the EU-funded EaP GREEN project support. Starting from 2019, new activities on SPP and eco-labelling have been supported within EU4Environment programme. The new stage of the project ensured further progress in the implementation of SPP through the definition of new priority categories for SPP pilot tenders, the development of SPP criteria and methodological recommendations for their application.
Thus, the product categories were prioritised as follows:
1. Repair and construction of roads;
2. Food services and food products.