Recital 100

(100) Public procurement amounts to 14 % of the Union’s GDP. To contribute to the objective of reaching climate neutrality, improving energy and resource efficiency and transitioning to a circular economy that protects public health and biodiversity, by ensuring that there is sufficient demand for more environmentally sustainable products, contracting authorities and contracting entities should, where appropriate, align their procurement with specific green public procurement requirements. Compared to a voluntary approach, mandatory green public procurement requirements will ensure that the leverage of public spending to boost demand for better performing products is maximised. It is important that Member States provide assistance to national contracting authorities to upskill and reskill staff in charge of green public procurement. Those green public procurement requirements should be minimum requirements, meaning that contracting authorities and contracting entities should be able to set additional and more demanding requirements. Those requirements should be transparent, objective and non-discriminatory. The public procurement procedure should be conducted by contracting authorities and contracting entities in compliance with Directives 2014/24/EU (51) and 2014/25/EU (52) of the European Parliament and of the Council, and applicable sectoral legislation, as well as with the Union’s international commitments, including the Government Procurement Agreement and other international agreements by which the Union is bound. Those requirements are without prejudice to the possibility for contracting authorities and contracting entities to rely on derogations or exemptions regarding public contracts set out in Union law, in particular Directives 2014/24/EU and 2014/25/EU. The requirements set for specific product groups should be complied with not only when directly procuring those products in public supply contracts but also in public works or public services contracts, where those products will be used for activities constituting the subject matter of those contracts. Those requirements should be set in relation to the product aspects addressed in the delegated act regulating the products in question. As part of those requirements, the Commission might set out minimum mandatory technical specifications requiring products to comply with the best possible performance levels as set out in the relevant delegated acts, including where available with the two highest classes of performance or scores. As a result, for example, it would be mandatory for contracting authorities and contracting entities to require that the tenderers’ products meet specific carbon footprint requirements. In compliance with the public procurement framework, those minimum mandatory technical specifications should avoid artificially restricting competition and avoid favouring a specific economic operator. The Commission might also set up minimum mandatory award criteria including assigning a specific weighting, between 15 % and 30 %, to those criteria for the purpose of ensuring that they can significantly influence the choice of products in favour of those that are the most environmentally sustainable. As a result, for example, it would be mandatory for contracting authorities and contracting entities to give the recycled content of the products in question a minimum weighting between 20 % and 30 %. As a consequence, contracting authorities and contracting entities, in the specific award procedure, would have the possibility of assigning a weighting higher than 30 %, but not lower than 20 % to recycled content. Award criteria should be preferred to technical specifications when there are uncertainties about the availability or cost of the best performing products in the Union market. The Commission might also set contract performance conditions and targets according to which, for instance, contracting authorities and contracting entities should award at least 50 % of their annual procurement of certain products to those with more than 70 % of recyclable material. As a result, Member States could still set higher targets for the procurement of those products. When developing implementing acts and in particular when considering the economic feasibility for contracting authorities and contracting entities, the Commission should take into account the best possible environmental products and solutions available on the market, the effects of the requirements on competition and the fact that different contracting authorities and contracting entities in different Member States might have different budgetary capacities or other constraints such as with regard to climate conditions or network infrastructure.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-10-12 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.