Project Story: Measuring the Impact of Public Procurement

CCC-2 project is focused on making green public procurement more effective in practice. One of the project’s key innovations is the Impact Assessment approach, designed to make measuring the impacts of procurement more practical and accessible.

In this project story, we talk with 1.4 Group of Activity Lead Ieva Markucevičiūtė-Vinckė – key expert involved in developing the CCC-2 Impact Assessment methodology. The interview is conducted by Ugnė Masilionytė, ChemClimCircle-2 project’s Communication Manager.

U.M.: For those who may not yet be familiar with ChemClimCircle-2 (CCC-2), could you briefly introduce the project and explain what challenge it is trying to address?

I.M-V.: CCC-2 is an Interreg BSR project helping public authorities integrate three environmental priorities into green public procurement: chemicals safety, climate action and circularity. Bringing these three dimensions together is what we call the ChemClimCircle (CCC) approach, or simply the “three Cs”. These priorities are often addressed separately, while procurement decisions can affect all three at the same time. Translating environmental priorities into everyday procurement practices remains a difficult task for majority of procuring organizations. CCC-2 therefore focuses on developing a more systematic and practical approach that public authorities could immediately apply in real procurement processes.

U.M.: The project is developing several practical tools for municipalities. Why did you decide that the Impact Assessment should be one of them?

I.M-V.: Working with procurement units, we realised that green public procurement is applied differently across organizations and perception of what is considered “green” is also very diverse. We decided to include Impact Assessment tools to help design procurements with more than general sustainability claims or “green” criteria that do not prove tangible environmental benefits. Procurement units need a practical way to understand where the main environmental impacts of a purchase occur, decide which issues to prioritise, justify procurement choices and later assess whether those choices actually delivered improvements.

U.M.: If you had to explain the Impact Assessment in just one sentence, how would it sound?

I.M-V.: At least I do not have to explain this to a five-year-old! The Impact Assessment is a flexible, step-by-step approach that helps municipalities identify, prioritise, calculate and track the chemicals, climate and circularity impacts of their procurement decisions.

U.M.: When municipalities prepare procurements today, how are environmental impacts usually considered? What is currently missing?

I.M-V.: Today, municipalities often consider environmental impacts by adding selected (or mandatory) green criteria to tenders, following existing guidance or procurement policies, and addressing issues such as energy use, emissions, hazardous substances or recycled content. However, these considerations are frequently handled separately and sporadically. What is missing is a consistent process that connects environmental objectives with procurement decisions and later monitoring. CCC-2 worked closely with procurement units and identified typical challenges:

• Distinguishing and selecting highly effective criteria from requirements that are merely “green” in a general sense;
• Lacking data, indicators and calculation methods to estimate actual or expected impacts;
• Insufficient internal processes and approaches for collecting information, assessing results and following up during contract implementation;
• Limited understanding of the environmental impacts across chemicals, climate and circularity, and when considered together.

U.M.: What makes the Impact Assessment developed in ChemClimCircle-2 different from existing approaches?

I.M-V.: CCC-2 Impact Assessment approach was designed to support those procurement units that are just starting to integrate impact assessment in their practices. We aimed to provide flexible tools that allow to already do something at each procurement stage, even if there is no prior data or experience. Four main differences of our approach:

• It integrates the CCC environmental dimensions in one workflow, allowing to prioritize one or several dimensions, but still address all of them.
• It begins when procurement starts, supporting analysis and preparation with practical tools, such as a traffic-light overview, hotspot analysis and an ambition matrix, that help procurement units build their green public procurement before they start collecting detailed data.
• It is proportional and flexible. Procurement units can begin with accessible information and simple estimates, then move towards a more detailed assessment when the procurement, data and organisational capacity permits. It does not require every municipality to carry out a full life-cycle assessment, but to already do something tangible even with minimum knowledge available.
• It links assessment to implementation. The approach follows procurement from preparation and tendering through contract management and post-procurement review, helping organisations set objectives, document expected impacts and monitor results, with guidance for each procurement stage.

U.M.: Could you give us a practical example? How would a municipality use this assessment when procuring something like furniture, road infrastructure or cleaning products?

I.M-V.: For example, consider a municipality procuring furniture. It would first use the traffic-light tool to identify whether climate, chemicals or circularity are likely to be the most significant to reach environmental priorities. It would then use the hotspot analysis to discuss the product’s life cycle and where environmental impact actually happens during materials extraction and production, transport, use and end-of-life. For furniture, this could point the team towards material efficiency, durability, repairability, restrictions on hazardous substances, and take-back or recycling arrangements. The municipality could then use the ambition matrix to decide which requirements are likely to make the greatest difference, rather than simply adding many general environmental clauses. For example, it might require durable and repairable designs, documentation of material composition, avoidance of substances that hinder reuse or recycling, and a supplier take-back system. During the tender, the municipality would request the relevant evidence and use the available data to make an initial impact prediction. During contract implementation, it could monitor indicators such as product quantities, recycled or reused content, repair or take-back arrangements and compliance with chemical requirements. The results could then be recorded in the CCC-2 assessment summary, even if some impacts were initially assessed qualitatively or with limited confidence.

With modifications, these same steps can be implemented for any other procurement case; however, tools help procurement users along the journey, not completely replace it.

U.M.: How will this methodology be integrated into the “ChemClimCircle Navigator for Green Public Procurement”, and how do you expect municipalities to use it in practice?

I.M-V.: The Navigator concept is getting more and more mature. We designed the Impact Assessment using common CCC-2 framework and concepts, to make it into step-by-step sequence of actions. We are hoping procurement units will be able to choose supporting materials in whichever step they are with specific procurement. Navigator permits a more visual way of structuring information and we are very excited to see how it turns out.

U.M.: What has been the biggest challenge (or perhaps the biggest surprise) while developing this methodology?

I.M-V.: It took us quite a while to find an approach that permits to address each C both individually and as an integrated overview. There is a broad variety of existing approaches and methodologies for some specific niches and nearly non-existing approaches for major environmental concerns. We are now going into piloting to see if this challenge has been already conquered, or if more surprises are still waiting.

U.M.: Looking ahead, what impact do you hope this innovation will have after the project ends?

I.M-V.: Our ambition is to de-mystify impact assessment calculations and make them more accessible to procurement specialists. It is not an easy task, but it is also not such a difficult task as some methodologies make it appear. If we can make this journey easier and actually contribute to more impactful green public procurements, then our mission is successful.

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