The finalists for the 2022 Procura+ Awards have been unveiled. The Awards, supported by ICLEI Europe, reward successful, sustainable, circular, and innovative public procurement projects. These year awards will be given out in four categories: Circular Procurement of the Year, Innovation Procurement of the Year, Procurement Initiative of the Year, and Sustainable Procurement of the Year.

Two nordic ICLEI members are finalists in the Circular Procurement category. Malmö (Sweden) has replicated its approach from the Circular PP project, aimed at non-furniture for its city hall, for the procurement of road and navigation signs. The municipality aims to reuse the signs as much as possible with recycling being the last resort option. Tampere (Finland) is renovating one of its main streets using new public circular economy criteria it developed as part of a multidisciplinary cooperation with stakeholders from different sectors. Tampere and Malmö are joined by Quimper (France) which aimed to reuse on-site materials while renovating its railway station.

ICLEI member Lisbon (Portugal) is a finalist in the category Innovation Procurement of the Year, for its development of a Procurement Planning Platform. The Platform will serve as the backbone for a strategic sourcing approach aimed at sustainability and innovation. Lisbon is competing here with the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy. Its IWR2021 project applied an innovative approach to the sustainable procurement of ICT hardware.

ICLEI members Gent (Belgium) and Copenhagen (Denmark) are recognised in the category Procurement Initiative of the Year. The Belgian city, together with the Flemish Energy Company (VEB), set up a virtual power purchase agreement (PPA) for delivering locally produced solar power. The PPA protects the city against volatility in electricity prizes. The Danish capital, aiming to become the first carbon-neutral capital by 2022, implements criteria in all its civil works tenders to promote fossil- and emission-free, non-road mobile machinery.

The City of Utrecht (Netherlands) applied far-reaching social and sustainable criteria in its food procurement to ensure sustainable, circular, high quality food products for its citizens, reduce packaging and residual flows, and minimise food waste. For this, the ICLEI member was chosen as a finalist in the Sustainable Procurement of the Year category. It is joined here by the Irish Prison Service, which conducted a tender for the removal and recycling or repurposing of discarded mattresses across all 12 of its prisons.

The winners will be announced on 12 October during a live awards ceremony at the Procura+ Seminar in Brussels (Belgium). The jury selecting the winners and finalists consists of:

• Erika Bozzay, Senior Policy Adviser at the Infrastructure and Public Procurement Division, OECD
• Katharina Knapton-Vierlich, Head of Unit, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, European Commission
• Mark Hidson, Global Director ICLEI's Sustainable Procurement Centre
• Sarah O'Carroll, Cities Lead, Institutions, Governments & Cities, Ellen MacArthur Foundation

For more information on this year’s finalists visit the Procura+ website.