BT-06, BT-774, BT-775, BT-776: Green or sustainable procurement

[LindseyAM]

Potential resources on this topic:

EU green public procurement criteria: https://ec.europa.eu/environment/gpp/eu_gpp_criteria_en.htm

EU library of use cases: https://ec.europa.eu/environment/gpp/case_group_en.htm

[jpmckinney]

eForms also has some modelling done for this.

[jpmckinney]

eForms has: ID	Name	Description
BG-713	Strategic Procurement	Information about strategic procurement. This information may differ per lot. In case of a prior information notice or a periodic indicative notice used only for information, this information may differ per part of the notice that may later become a lot or a self-standing procedure.
BT-06	Strategic Procurement	Use of a technical specification, selection criterion, award criterion, or contract performance condition aims to reduce the environmental impacts of the procurement, fulfil social objectives and/or buy an innovative work, supply or service.
BT-777	Strategic Procurement Description	Description of the use of a technical specification, selection criterion, award criterion, or contract performance condition aims to reduce the environmental impacts of the procurement, fulfil social objectives and/or buy an innovative work, supply or service.
BT-774	Green Procurement	An approach to reducing the environmental impacts of the work, supply or service (e.g. requesting compliance with an environmental label)
BT-775	Social Procurement	A social objective promoted by the works, supplies or services (e.g. fair working conditions)
BT-776	Innovative Procurement	An indication that innovative works, supplies or services are being bought (e.g. the procured works, supplies or services being novel for the whole market).

Each has a short codelist:

BT-06:

• Reduction of environmental impacts
• Fulfilment of social objectives
• Innovative purchase

BT-774:

• Requesting compliance with an ISO 14024 Type I environmental label
• Requesting compliance with the eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS), established by Regulation (EC) No 1221/2009
• Requesting compliance with an ISO 14001 environmental management system, other than the eco-management and audit scheme (EMAS) established by Regulation (EC) No 1221/2009
• Requesting compliance with the highest energy efficiency class (as defined by various legislation such as, for example, Regulation (EU) 626/2011 on air conditioners)
• Requesting, for the majority of the relevant purchase, the compliance with Regulation (EC) 834/2007 on organic production and labelling of organic products

BT-775:

• Employment opportunities for the long-term unemployed, disadvantaged and/or for persons with disabilities
• Accessibility for all
• Fair working conditions
• Human and workers' rights protection in global supply chains
• Gender equality
• Ethnic equality

BT-776:

• The procured works, supplies or services are novel for the organisation.
• The procured works, supplies or services are novel for the whole market.
• The technical specifications are primarily based on functional and performance requirements, not on describing the technical solution.
• The procured works, supplies or services involve research and development activities.
• The procured works, supplies or services are likely to make the work of the buyer more effective.

An extension will be created in our updates to the OCDS for EU profile for eForms, once the Publications Office publishes a mapping from TED to eForms. That work is tracked here: https://github.com/open-contracting-extensions/european-union/issues

[jpmckinney]

MAPS glossary defines:

Term	Definition
Horizontal policy objectives	Any of a variety of objectives of an economic, environmental and social nature (such as sustainable green growth, the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, innovation, standards for responsible business conduct or broader industrial policy objectives), which governments increasingly pursue through use of procurement as a policy lever (sometimes referred to as “secondary” policies, in contrast with the so-called “primary” objectives of delivering goods and services in a timely, economical and efficient manner).
Sustainability	(a) Use of the biosphere by present generations while maintaining its potential yield (benefit) for future generations; and/or (b) non-declining trends of economic growth and development that might be impaired by natural resource depletion and environmental degradation.
Sustainable development	Development “that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”, World Commission on Environment and Development (1987), Our Common Future, http://www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf.
Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP)	A “process whereby organisations 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 organisation, but also to society and the economy, whilst minimising damage to the environment”, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2006), “Procuring the Future: Sustainable Action Plan: Recommendations from the Sustainable Procurement Task Force”, London, in: http://collections.europarchive. org/tna/20080530153425/http:/www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/publications/procurement-action-plan/documents/full-document.pdf.

UNCITRAL glossary defines:

ID	Term	Definition	Reference
78	Socioeconomic policies	Defined in the Model Law as: “Environmental, social, economic and other policies of this State authorized or required by the procurement regulations or other provisions of law of this State to be taken into account by the procuring entity in the procurement proceedings.” For the explanation of the terms “procurement regulations” and “procuring entity”, see ## 61 and 62 above.	special and differential treatment for developing countries (the 1994 WTO GPA, article V:1) offset (the 2012 WTO GPA, article I:l) obligations relating to taxes, environmental protection, employment protection provisions and working conditions; environmental management standards (directive 2004/18/EC, articles 27 and 50) project sustainability; social objectives of the project; preferences for domestically manufactured goods or domestic contractors (the Wold Bank procurement guidelines)

[jpmckinney]

Moved the issue and re-opened it in an appropriate repository.

[odscjen]

Suggest that each of these BT's map to additionalProcurementCategories. We'll however need to create a mapping table along the lines of existing mapping tables for each associated code-list to extend extendedProcurementCategories.csv

[duncandewhurst]

Did you consider using the sustainability extension (discussed in https://github.com/open-contracting/standard/issues/1543)?

[odscjen]

@duncandewhurst thanks for pointing that out, I wasn't aware of that extension. I think it could be a good fit. Mapping tables will still need to be created to extend the sustainabilityGoal.csv codelist.

@jpmckinney do you agree that sustainability would be a better place for these BT's than additionalProcurementCategories? Innovation (so BT-776 (Innovative procurement)) was discussed in #1543 and agreed to exist under the broader frame of sustainability so would still fit into this mapping. sustainability.strategies would only appear to be possible to fill in for BT-06 and BT-775.

We would need a new field (e.g. description) in the extension to allow the information in BT-777 to be recorded. This is a description field that is used with BT-06 to provide additional information about the strategic procurement.

[odscjen]

@jpmckinney Suggesting the following mapping tables:

BT-06: strategic procurement

Code	Label	OCDS code	OCDS label/title
env-imp	Reduction of environmental impacts	environmental	Reduction of environmental impacts
inn-pur	Innovative purchase	innovation	Innovative purchase
none	None	none	None
soc-obj	Fulfilment of social objectives	social	Fulfilment of social objectives

here I've stuck to environmental and social as these are already in the sustainability extenstion sustainabilityGoals codelist. I've added innovation rather than using the existing economic as that didn't feel like the right fit based on the discussion in https://github.com/open-contracting/standard/issues/1543. If code used is none the guidance will just be to discard this BT.

BT-774: environmental impact

Code	Label	OCDS code	OCDS label
biodiv-eco	The protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems	environmental.biodiversityProtectionRestoration	The protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems
circ-econ	The transition to a circular economy	environmental.circularEconomy	The transition to a circular economy
clim-adapt	Climate change adaptation	environmental.climateChangeAdaptation	Climate change adaptation
clim-mitig	Climate change mitigation	environmental.climateChangeMitigation	Climate change mitigation
other	Other	environmental	Reduction of environmental impacts
pollu-prev	Pollution prevention and control	environmental.pollutionPrevention	Pollution prevention and control
water-mar	The sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources	environmental.waterResources	The sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources

The 2 part codes are to fit with the sustainability extension pattern. Using environmental as other works as the general definition of this codelist matches that of env-imp in BT-06 which is also mapping to environmental. However if it's important to be able to backwards map from OCDS to eForms this would make it impossible to tell which BT this code came from.

BT-775: social objective

Code	Label	OCDS code	OCDS label
acc-all	Accessibility for all	social.accessibility	Accessibility for disabled and not disabled persons
et-eq	Ethnic equality	social.ethnicEquality	Ethnic equality
gen-eq	Gender equality	social.genderEquality	Gender equality
hum-right	Human rights due diligence in global supply chains	social.humanRights	Human rights due diligence in global supply chains
opp	Employment opportunities for the long-term unemployed, disadvantaged and/or for persons with disabilities	social.disadvantagedEmploymentOpportunities	Employment opportunities for the long-term unemployed, disadvantaged and/or for persons with disabilities
other	Other	social	Fulfilment of social objectives
work-cond	Fair working conditions	social.fairWorkingConditions	Fair working conditions

As for the environmental codelist I've used the 2 tier codes and social for other. The same caveat applies.

BT-776: innovative acquisition

Code	Label	OCDS code	OCDS label
mar-nov	The procured works, supplies or services are novel or significantly improved compared to other works, supplies, or services already on the market.	innovation.novel	Procured goods, services or works are novel or significantly improved compared to existing goods, services or works already on the market.
proc-innov	The procured works, supplies, or services entail process innovation	innovation.process	Procured goods, services or works entail process innovation
prod-innov	The procured works, supplies, or services entail product innovation	innovation.product	Procured goods, services or works entail product innovation
rd-act	The procured works, supplies or services involve research and development activities.	innovation.researchDevelopmentActivities	Procured goods, services or works involved research and development activities

[jpmckinney]

@yolile I think in the end we put innovation into 'economic', yes? (with 'economic.marketInnovationPromotion'). In that case, the EU's innovation subcodes would be subcodes of 'economic.marketInnovationPromotion'.

Can you also review the new suggested codes?

I don't know if social.disadvantagedEmploymentOpportunities is the same meaning as economic.formalEmploymentPromotion

[odscjen]

@yolile have you had a chance to look at this issue yet?

[yolile]

@yolile have you had a chance to look at this issue yet?

Sorry, this was somehow lost in my inbox, thanks for the reminder!

@yolile I think in the end we put innovation into 'economic', yes?

Yes.

Can you also review the new suggested codes?

We could rename "humanRigths" to "humanRightsInSupplyChain", to make it less generic

I don't know if social.disadvantagedEmploymentOpportunities is the same meaning as economic.formalEmploymentPromotion

I don't think so, as social.disadvantagedEmploymentOpportunities includes "disadvantaged and/or for persons with disabilities" however, informal employment or informal economy is defined differently https://www.ilo.org/employment/units/emp-invest/informal-economy/lang--en/index.htm. As I understand, this one is social and not economic-related because it is related to giving opportunities to persons with some disadvantage.

The one that sounds similar to me is "social.fairWorkingConditions" (defined as "The social objective aims to provide just and equitable working conditions") with "social.laborRightsPromotion" as fair working conditions usually are part of labor rights.

[odscjen]

Great, thanks! Those changes to "humanRights" and "social.fairWorkingConditions" make sense.

For "innovation" if it matches to "economic.marketInnovationPromotion" then are we saying that 3 tier codes are acceptable for thecodes in the 'innovation acquisition' table?

Also there's a new business term in this BG, BT-805 Green Procurement Criteria, which takes codes from gpp-criteria. There are 4 codes:

• EU GPP criteria
• National GPP criteria
• No GPP criteria
• Other GPP criteria

These could be mapped as sub-codes of "environmental" but I'm not sure the semantics fit as they're stating the criteria the procurement meets rather than a sustainability goal that is being pursued? This BT might be better placed in additionalProcurementCategories which is the current guidance for BT-06?

[yolile]

For "innovation" if it matches to "economic.marketInnovationPromotion" then are we saying that 3 tier codes are acceptable for thecodes in the 'innovation acquisition' table?

I think we can match "mar-nov" with economic.marketInnovationPromotion, and then create a new one under economic for the other 3, eg processInnovation, productInnovation, etc

Also, there's a new business term in this BG, BT-805 Green Procurement Criteria, which takes codes from gpp-criteria. There are 4 codes:

Hmm, the Sustainability extension also adds two other fields: the boolean hasSustainabilty and sustainability.strategies. I think this new term can be mapped as a strategy. The strategies codelist is an open one, so I guess for the EU, we could add these ones as additional strategies (and set hasSustainability to true when != "No GPP criteria"). I see the EU GPP criteria includes a series of strategies, one per the product category, e.g., https://ec.europa.eu/environment/gpp/eu_gpp_criteria_en.htm, and the guide says procuring entities may choose which recommended criteria they will use for each tender. So I guess data users will need to rely on other OCDS fields (such as the requirements extension) to know exactly which strategies are being used. If it is possible somehow to know what exact strategy the procuring entity is using, we can include both the general one, e.g., "euGPPCriteria" and "techinicalSpecifications," etc, as the strategies field is an array.

[yolile]

I think we can match "mar-nov" with economic.marketInnovationPromotion, and then create a new one under economic for the other 3, eg processInnovation, productInnovation, etc

The other option is just to add the top-level "innovation" code, now that we have a clear use for it

[yolile]

For reference, the discussion about "innovation" starts from this comment and below https://github.com/open-contracting-extensions/ocds_sustainability_extension/pull/2#issuecomment-1248565912

[odscjen]

Thanks @yollie, using sustainability.strategies for BT-805 seems sensible.

The other option is just to add the top-level "innovation" code, now that we have a clear use for it

For 'innovation' there's also 'inn-pur' from BT-06. The codes in that table appear to act as high level codes with the codes for BT-774, BT-775 and BT-776 being essentially sub-codes. Which does argue for a top-level 'innovation' rather than just putting them all in 'economic' as we'd need 4 more innovation related codes as well as 'mar-nov', something for process, something for product, something for R&D AND something for generic "Innovative purchase".

@jpmckinney This also still leaves the issue of where to map BT-777: Strategic Description. This is used to provide further description of the codes selected in BT-06. Multiple codes, and therefore multiple associated descriptions, are possible. We could just add a sustainability.description field, or sustainability.goals.description and in the guidance specify that if multiple versions of BT-777 are present then concatenate them all into this .description field? But this does separate the descriptions from the code they are attached to in eForms, i.e. a loss of structure.

[jpmckinney]

I agree that a top-level innovation code would be a better match for the EU's approach. However, "innovation" is so generic – it doesn't seem like good ontology design to put it at the top. Of course, it may very well be the case that the EU and other jurisdictions don't design ontologies well – or that legislators (or lobbyists, I don't know) get so excited about innovation that it waters down the purpose (sustainability). For now, we'll try to fit their terms into our ontology that at least tries to relate things back to sustainability.

I don't know a good solution for BT-777. We can maybe have the concatenation be "code: description[newline]code: description[etc.]" so that it's easy to reconstruct the structure.

[odscjen]

OK, so for the innovation codes then we'll have the following:

BT-06: strategic procurement

Code	Label	OCDS code	OCDS label/title
env-imp	Reduction of environmental impacts	environmental	Reduction of environmental impacts
inn-pur	Innovative purchase	economic.innovativePurchase	Innovative purchase
none	None	none	None
soc-obj	Fulfilment of social objectives	social	Fulfilment of social objectives

BT-776: innovative acquisition

Code	Label	OCDS code	OCDS label
mar-nov	The procured works, supplies or services are novel or significantly improved compared to other works, supplies, or services already on the market.	economic.marketInnovationPromotion	The goal is to promote market innovation.
proc-innov	The procured works, supplies, or services entail process innovation	economic.processInnovation	Procured goods, services or works entail process innovation
prod-innov	The procured works, supplies, or services entail product innovation	economic.productInnovation	Procured goods, services or works entail product innovation
rd-act	The procured works, supplies or services involve research and development activities.	economic.researchDevelopmentActivities	Procured goods, services or works involved research and development activities

@jpmckinney I think for BT-777 concatonating with the code and the description is probably the simpliest solution EDIT I've re-read the sustainability extension and realise that each code will be mapped to a sustainability object in the sustainability array so description can just be an additional field in sustainability without any need to any concatonation.

[jpmckinney]

I see your edit. Yes, looks good!

[odscjen]

guidance.yaml for all BT's mentioned (BT-06, BT-774, BT-775, BT-776, BT-777 and BT-805) is now up-to-date according to the discussion in this issue and mapping tables have been created and uploaded. I'm closing this issue now.