Once per year the Big Buyers Working Together (BBWT) brings together all 10 of its Communities of Practice (CoPs) in a special in-person event. In 2025, this annual event will be organised by ICLEI Europe and take place in ICLEI Member Helsinki (Finland) on 24-25 March, with the first day exclusively reserved for CoP members.
The event will focus on how public buyers can drive a more sustainable, social and innovative Europe, befitting the broader aims of the project. BBWT seeks to strengthen the collaboration between public buyers with strong purchasing power, and promote the wider use of strategic public procurement for innovative and sustainable solutions.
During panel discussions and interactive sessions, the event will bring CoP members and other relevant stakeholders together to reflect on BBWT’s progress in the past year, and discuss the future of strategic public procurement in Europe. It will do so by facilitating collaboration and interactions between members from different thematic CoPs, and other stakeholders. Participants will also get the opportunity to find out some great examples of how host city Helsinki has implemented public procurement in practice.
24 March is reserved exclusively for the members of the BBWT CoP's. Each CoP will have their own meeting adjusted to the objectives and activities of the group. The activities on 25 March are open to all interested stakeholders. The full programme for 25 March can be found below:
08:30 - 09:00 - Registrations & Coffee
09:00 - 09:30 - Welcome and introductions
- Danko Aleksic, BBWT project coordinator, Eurocities
- Jorma Lamminmäki, Procurement Director, Helsinki City Executive Office
- Blagoy Stamenov, Project Advisor, EISMEA, European Commission
09:30 - 10:45 - Panel Discussion: How can public buyers drive a more social, sustainable and innovative Europe?
This panel discussion will engage CoP members to dive into the role public buyers cover in driving a more sustainable, social and innovative Europe. It will be an opportunity to discuss the work done in this regard throughout the project’s CoP's.
Speakers:
- Sami Aherva, Unit Director, Stara, City of Helsinki
- Rita Campos, Director of the Department of Management and Urban Planning, Municipality of Horta
- Valentina Schippers-Opejko, Coordinator Urban Agenda Partnership on Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement, City of Haarlem
- Ioanna Palaiopanou, Public Procurement Economist - Department of Procurement, Athens University of Economic and Business
- Sophie Carlier, Head of European and Transformation procurement programs, Digital & Innovation Department, UniHA
10:45 - 11:15 - Coffee Break
11:15 - 12:30 - The future of the Public Procurement Landscape
This interactive session aims to gather feedback by the audience for policy makers in light of the revision of the Public Procurement Directives. Public procurement legal expert Abby Semple will present the functioning of the current Directives and provide predictions/proposals for the future. The presentation will be followed by an interactive session with attendees. Breaking into small groups they will consider the biggest challenges they face, and come up with proposals for how these can be overcome.
12:30 - 13:30 - Networking lunch
13:30 - 15:00 - Capacity Building & Interactive session on the role of Market Dialogues
This session will be led by Eeva-Riitta Högnäs, Senior Legal Counsel of the Association of Finnish Municipalities and it will be split into two parts
- Capacity building (30 mins) on the role of market dialogues and how to best carry them out.
- Interactive Session, where the audience will be divided into groups. Each group, in 15 mins, will have to design the best possible market dialogue for a procurement, based on the the topics provided by the expert. Each group will have one reporter who will remain in place. After 15 mins, the groups change places and the new group will continue to develop the idea of the previous group, based on the feedback they receive from the reporter.
For the remaining 15 mins, the reporters will present to the audience the main solutions from their groups.
15:00 - 15:15 - Wrap-up, conclusions, closing of the event
15:15 - 17:30 - Study visits
Following the annual event, three study visits will be conducted:
- Tram line from Kalasatama to Pasila and Closing Loops Storage Building.
- Nordic Ecolabelled Kindergarten Soittaja.
- The Olympic stadium and Circular Economy of Artificial Turfs by PlastLIFE Helsinki.
You can learn more about the study visits in this article.
The BBWT organising team is looking forward to an inspiring and interactive event in Helsinki on the future of strategic public procurment. Registration for the BBWT annual event is now closed.