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SEI brief

Decarbonizing the EU’s road and construction sectors through green public procurement: the case of Sweden and the Netherlands

The practice of green public procurement (GPP) is mostly voluntary in Sweden and the Netherlands. While a patchwork of targets and tools exist to support procurers, interviewees say that standardization of GPP rules, as well as added capacity and resources, would help increase the uptake of more environmentally friendly actions in the road and construction sectors.

Astrid Nilsson Lewis, Magdalena Machlowska / Published on 18 August 2022
Citation

Nilsson Lewis, A. and Machlowska, M. (2022). Decarbonizing the EU’s road and construction sectors through green public procurement: the case of Sweden and the Netherlands. Policy brief. Stockholm Environment Institute, Stockholm. http://doi.org/10.51414/sei2022.026

Government spending on public works, goods and services accounts for about 14% of the EU’s GDP. Consequently, the EU and its Member States can help accelerate the development and adoption of low-carbon technologies through green public procurement (GPP).

Funded by Breakthrough Energy, this brief is part of a larger project comparing GPP uptake in different EU Member States and identifying key barriers to greater adoption, as well as opportunities ahead. Ultimately, the project’s goal is to contribute to greater policy coherence among Member States to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as to increase policy support for GPP implementation and harmonized GPP target-setting. This brief studies the cases of Sweden and the Netherlands.

Here, researchers highlight the construction and road transport sectors because of their high share of both GHG emissions and total government procurements. This highlights the large mitigation potential procurers can support by including environmental criteria in their purchasing.

SEI authors

Magdalena Machlowska

Design and development by Soapbox.