Binhai wins Chinese Public Procurement Award
Tianjin Binhai New District won the 2018 China Government Procurement Award for innovation in green procurement. The Award recognizes their green furniture procurement evaluation system, which helps to assess and weigh environmental performance of bidding products on a large scale with full life cycle perspective.
In 2017, the Binhai Government Procurement Center pledged to advance green public procurement (GPP) by establishing a local green evaluation system. To this end, the Binhai Government Procurement Center joined the 10YFP SPP Working Group 1A “GPP Implementation and Impact Monitoring” as one of the East Asian pilot local governments - along with Suwon (Korea), Guiyang, Shenzhen Guangming District, Urumqi Economic and Technological Development Zone, and Tianjin Jizhou District (China).
Under the project, ICLEI East Asia worked closely with the Binhai Government Procurement Center and domestic partners, and identified the furniture sector as the entry point to pilot the green procurement evaluation scheme. ICLEI East Asia helped formulate a set of specifications, award criteria, and verification methods covering phases of raw materials extraction, design, manufacturing, assembling, transport, and end of life treatment. In June 2018, the Binhai Government Procurement Center applied the criteria to two tenders of procuring 6,160 sets of school desks and chairs for public campuses. From 2019 onwards, the district of Binhai is looking into issuing a local document to accelerate the adoption throughout the district.