Green Governance Conference

Project: NonHazCity 3
Physical Meeting
The conference will bring together cities from the Baltic Sea Region and beyond.

Description

With Green Public Procurement as a central theme, the conference recognizes its vital role in implementing green governance and promoting sustainable consumption and production. Local governments possess significant potential to achieve sustainability goals through their procurement processes, particularly by ensuring they are not just climate-neutral but also circular and free from harmful toxins. During the event, the first-ever NonHazCity Award for tox-free, circular and climate-neutral buildings and building processes at municipalities will be launched.

Agenda

  •  
    Time
    Item
  •  
    09:00 - 09:15
    Opening of the event by Mayor of Tallinn, Mihhail Kõlvart
  •  
    09:15 - 09:30
    Keynote: Green Public Procurement – a great policy instrument for achieving Green Governance. How “green” can procurement be? What are the key barriers and biggest potentials? Evelin Piirsalu, Stockholm Environment Institute Tallinn Centre
  •  
    09:30 - 11:15
    Presentations by representatives of municipalities from the Baltic Sea region: Stockholm: The ChemClimCircle approach for an integrated procurement – more than CO2 emission reduction. Åsa Lindhagen, Vice Mayor for Environment and Climate (video speech) and Arne Jamtrot, Head of the Chemicals Centre Helsinki: An ambitious Green Deal for a tox-free environment: procuring (and building) a Nordic-Swan-labelled Kindergarten from A to Z. Katri Kuusinen, Head of Unit, Urban Environment Lithuania: Making Green Public Procurement mandatory all over Lithuania – an ambitious governance goal and first experiences from implementation. Kęstutis Kazulis, Public Procurement Office Smiltene: The Green Public Procurement vision and first experiences from its implementation. Mārtiņš Ulāns, Deputy Executive Director of Smiltene Municipality, Latvia Panel discussion among the speakers: How can GPP become a routine, not only a best practice example – how to make it a new norm?
  •  
    11:15 - 11:30
    Coffee break
  •  
    11:30 - 13:00
    Tallinn: Experiences from greening the public events – have the ambitions of procuring single-use plastic-free events come true? Joosep Vimm, Deputy Mayor Hamburg: The “early bird” – comprehensive guidelines on environmental criteria for procurers since 2016: a long way to go until sustainability criteria. Jens Kerstan, Senator for the Environment, Climate, Energy and Agro-Economy Västerås: The Plastic Reduction Action Plan: high-level political commitment for soft measures to reduce single-use plastic and plastic packaging in the municipality. Vicky Skure Eriksson, Deputy Mayor Riga: The Chemicals Action Plan as high-level commitment – first experiences with raising awareness of Riga City Council on hazardous substances in urban daily life. Viesturs Zeps, Chairman of the Housing and Environment Committee, Riga City Council Panel discussion among the speakers: How to make “voluntary” Green Governance instruments mandatory in a city?
  •  
    13:00 - 13:15
    Launch of the NonHazCity Award for tox-free, circular and climate-neutral buildings and building processes at municipalities. Joosep Vimm, Deputy Mayor of Tallinn and Alexandra Wandel, Chair of World Future Council
  •  
    13:15 - 14:15
    Lunch
  •  
    14:15 - 16:00
    Session 1: Evaluation of GPP implementation impacts
    • How and what exactly to monitor for “green” purchases at the procurement unit and/or municipality, regional entity level?
    • Experiences with CO2 emission reduction calculation of GPP implementation. With: Jens Johansson, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute & Mara Inzaina, ICLEI
  •  
    16:00 - 16:15
    Coffee break
  •  
    16:15 - 17:15
    Session 2: Certification and labelling as instruments for procurement decisions (thematic focus: construction materials & buildings as well as cleaning agents & detergents)
    • What exactly do different existing building certificates certify? Can they be an instrument to judge the integrated chemicals, climate and circularity aspects of a building?
    • Eco-labels as the preferred instrument for procurers: What do they really label with regard to construction materials and buildings? Do they sufficiently cover circularity and hazardous substance issues or mostly climate-relevant issues?
    • Eco-labels for cleaning agents and detergents: long time known, many products on the market at reasonable price – no problem for the procurers? All purchased goods are the “Green choice”?
    With: Andrzej Tonderski, POMInno LtD & NonHazCity team and Andreas Ahrens, Oekopol LtD.
  •  
    17:15 - 17:30
    Summary and conclusions: Martyn Futter, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
  •  
    17:30 - 19:30
    Social networking

Events

Upcoming events

29-31
October
The 2024 Annual Forum of the EUSBSR
Project: NonHazCity 3
Physical Meeting
29. - 31. October 2024

    Past events

    19-20
    June
    Building Green
    Project: NonHazCity 3
    Physical Meeting
    19. - 20. June 2024
    13-15
    May
    Project partner meeting and Inspiration seminar - Nordic Swan session on ecolabels
    Project: NonHazCity 3
    Physical Meeting
    13. - 15. May 2024
    13-14
    March
    Procura+ Conference
    Project: NonHazCity 3
    Virtual Meeting
    13. - 14. March 2024