Procura+ European Sustainable Procurement Network announces new chair at sustainable and innovation procurement seminar in Oslo.
The city of Oslo‘s Vice Mayor for Finance Robert Steen has used the 15th Procura+ Seminar to highlight how innovative public procurement strategies can achieve ambitious targets at the city level.
Vice Mayor Steen delivered an opening speech to more than 100 delegates at the Procura+ European Sustainable Procurement Network‘s flagship seminar event hosted by the city of Oslo, a long-term network participant.
“Public procurement is one of the most powerful tools to lower emissions, and it can achieve its full potential through ambitious, coordinated strategies at the city and regional level,“ said Mayor Steen.
“Oslo‘s climate budget and procurement strategy will enable it to achieve significant and quantifiable emissions reductions. By working with other cities and public authorities through the Procura+ network, we hope that Oslo‘s approach can be replicated elsewhere,” he added.
The seminar was also used as the occasion to announce the Procura+ network‘s new chairperson, Mayor of Malmö (Sweden), Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh.
“Since Malmö joined in 2012, Procura+ has evolved from a campaign to a diverse network of public authorities and strategic partners with new interest groups on circular and socially responsible public procurement. The field of procurement itself is becoming more embedded and diversified, as policy-makers from local government to the European level realise the potential of public spend as a tool to achieve environmental and social objectives. It is through seminars like today‘s that public authorities build their capacity and confidence to implement sustainability measures with tangible results,“ said Mayor Stjernfeldt Jammeh.
The Procura+ Seminar, organised by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, a global network of more than 1,500 cities, towns and regions, gathered over 100 procurement practitioners and policy makers to discuss how sustainable and innovation procurement can be used to help public authorities meet strategic objectives in a cost effective way. The seminar was hosted by the City of Oslo and organised in the context of the SPP Regions sustainable procurement networking project.
Procura+ was founded by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability in 2004. It quickly grew into a significant Europe-wide movement, with participating cities playing an active role in driving its activities. As the number of members grew, the campaign transitioned into a network of European public authorities and regions in 2015. New public authority participants include the Greater London Authority Group (UK) and Haarlem (Netherlands). Public authorities use the network to connect, exchange, and act on sustainable and innovation procurement.
“Having been at the forefront of advancing the sustainable and innovation procurement agenda for twenty-two years, ICLEI is particularly proud of the success story of the Procura+ network. Going beyond merely identifying the potential of public procurement, the network actually supports and guides public authorities in implementing sustainable practices to achieve tangible emissions reductions, and often financial savings,“ said Mark Hidson, Global Director of ICLEI’s Sustainable Procurement Centre.
“The objectives of the Paris Agreement cannot be unlocked by national governments alone; it has never been more crucial that cities and regions lead the way collaboratively in setting and achieving emissions targets, and use their economic leverage to drive innovation for social and environmental ends,“ he added.