Ways to include environmental requirements

The contracting authority shall include environmental objectives in the public procurement process by defining them in one or more of the following ways:

• in technical specifications (technical standard, performance requirement, functionality or other characteristic of the subject of public procurement),
• as a reason for exclusion,
• as a condition for the economic entity's participation in the execution of a public contract,
• as a criterion for awarding a public contract (especially considering lifetime costs),
• as a special provision of the public procurement contract.

Most often, clients define environmental goals in technical specifications. The method of including environmental objectives is in the domain of the public contracting authority. The client can include environmental goals in an individual order in several ways (e.g. part of the technical specifications and additionally as a criterion). In doing so, it is necessary to observe the rules of public procurement. For example, it is not permissible to specify a certain distance from the provider as a condition for cooperation, but this can be defined as a criterion.

Unlike the reason for exclusion, the criteria do not exclude the provider from the public procurement process, but only place it in a different position compared to the other providers. For example: a bidder who submits an offer for EURO 5 instead of the EURO 6 standard will be able to be selected if the EURO 6 standard is defined in the criteria. If the client defines the EURO 6 standard in the technical specifications, such an offer will be excluded as inadmissible.

The advantage of the environmental goals from the Regulation is that they bind the client in the goal, but not in the way to achieve it. The disadvantage of this arrangement is that the environmental goals are not directly applicable. For this purpose, it is determined that the competent ministries prepare examples of environmental requirements and criteria, which the contracting authorities can directly include in the tender documentation.

For as many as half of the objects from the regulation, the environmental goals can be achieved by submitting the appropriate environmental label.

They are available at this link. The cases are updated at least every two years.