GLOBAL experts on procurement called on governments to integrate sustainability and impact on the environment into the procurement system to ensure efficient public spending and reduce carbon emissions.
Eveline Venanzoni of the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment said governments’ legal and institutional frameworks should integrate Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) that focuses on the environment, social and economic impact of public spending.
“Policies and structures [in public procurement] should be aligned with the governments’ international commitments to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and improve biodiversity,” Venanzoni said during the Global Procurement Conference at the Makati Shangri-La.
She said that SPP considers life- cycle approach and total cost of ownership to facilitate procurement procedures by governments.
Venanzoni, also head of the Marrakech Task Force (MTF) on SPP, said the life-cycle approach involves planning, raw material, production, procurement, use and disposal when making public procurement.
The MTF is a group of 14 countries, including the Philippines, seeking to integrate environment, economic and social impact into the procurement system.
The task force defines SPP as “a process whereby organizations meet their needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that achieves value for money on a whole life basis in terms of generating benefits not only to the organization but also to society and the economy, while minimizing damage to the environment.”
Executive Director Jose Tomas Syquia of the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System said the country’s procurement system is still focused on checking the compliance of stakeholders.
“The bulk of the weakness [in the Philippine procurement] is in planning,” Syquia said at the opening of the two-day forum.
He said that the government needs to provide the public with the processed information such as guidelines on the most bought items by the government.
The two day global forum on procurement aims to highlight value for money with integrity, key regulatory as well as institutional reforms.