With the expansion of the Covenant of Mayors initiative and the progress of Sustainable Energy Action Plans’ (SEAPs) implementation across Europe, the necessity of consistent improvement of the performance is growing. One of the main challenges that public authorities face in this process is achievement of higher results with limited resources. GreenS project is designed to focus the attention of public authorities to the Green Public Procurement (GPP), Life Cycle Cost of the products and Life Cycle Procurement analysis as part of their means to achieving the ambitious goals for exceeding the EU 20% CO2 reduction by 2020.

The successful application of the GPP and its prioritization by strengthening capacity of the public authority administration is the main goal of the GreenS project. Another aim of the project is to overcome the barriers and obstacles to implementation of GPP by establishment of Green Public Procurement Supporters (G.PP.S) units within the partner energy agencies. Thus project is tied with the Covenant of Mayors initiative by offering opportunity to the energy agencies in their role of CoM supporting structures to mobilize and improve their expertise in the area of GPP implementation, and to provide more comprehensive, efficient and highly professional technical support to the local and regional authorities.

The aims of the project are to be achieved by the following activities, that will be carried out by an European consortium of 14 partners from 8 EU countries.

• Analysis of best/bad practices in GPP implementation and identification of the main necessities, obstacles and issues faced by the public authorities
• Trainings for trainers and for public procurement experts will be carried out throughout the partner countries. The training materials will be elaborated by the project consortium and an e-learning platform will enable continuous capacity building.
  Each region will be equipped with a training and capacity building programme as well as with a concept for institutionalization of the GPP training
• Green Public Procurement Supporters units will be established within the partner energy agencies, which staff will be trained to give technical support to public authorities in the field of GPPs
• Steering Committees with main stakeholders will be created and will be actively involved in development of strategies, identification of obstacles to GPP process and for creation of policy recommendations
• A database with technical templates will be created and pilot GPP procedures will be carried out by 21 public administrations, with the active support of GreenS experts.
• The GreenS consortium is structured by seven Energy Agencies, and 7 institutional bodies thus ensuring the multilevel cooperation and policy improvement in the GPP area.