Procura+ Awards 2017 winners announced
Image by "Raigo Pajula"
Projects involving recycled textiles, eco-labelled school buildings and remanufactured furniture emerged as Europe's most sustainable and innovative public procurements at the 2017 Procura+ Awards held on 17 October in Tallinn (Estonia) as part of the eafip Conference on Innovation Procurement. The conference is held in the context of Estonia's Presidency of the EU. The winning public procurers were:
Municipality of Hyvinkää, Finland
Sustainable Procurement of the Year was awarded to the first Nordic Swan eco-labelled pre-school in Finland, which was constructed after a market dialogue process and included sustainability measures on energy use, chemical products, building products and health factors.
Ministry of Defence of the Netherlands
Innovation Procurement of the Year was awarded for two contracts supplying towels, cloths and overalls to Dutch military personnel. This produced estimated savings of 233 million litres of water and 69,000 kg of CO2, based on a technical requirement of textiles containing at least 10% recycled post-consumer textile fibres.
Public Health Wales (National Health Service, UK)
Tender Procedure of the Year was awarded for the use of a supplier open day and contracting social enterprises, Public Health Wales was supplied with over 2,500 furniture items of which only 6% were new purchases. This diverted 41 tonnes of waste from landfill with a CO2 saving of 134 tonnes, creating full time jobs for seven disabled and long term unemployed people.
For more information about the finalists and winners, visit the Procura+ website.