Green procurement strategy

A green procurement strategy is an organized approach to purchasing goods and services that builds environmental performance, across the full life cycle, into the buying decision. Environmental impact is weighed alongside price, availability, quality and performance rather than treated as an afterthought. The Public Services and Procurement Canada guidance on applying the policy sets out this approach for federal buyers.

In Canadian federal policy, green procurement means purchasing environmentally preferable goods or services that have a lesser or reduced environmental impact over their life cycle than competing goods or services serving the same purpose. Federal documents use the terms "green procurement" and "green procurement plans". A green procurement strategy is how a department or organization puts that policy into practice. The Treasury Board Policy on Green Procurement requires environmental considerations to be integrated into procurement planning, acquisition, use and disposal.

The federal Policy on Green Procurement behind the approach

The Policy on Green Procurement came into effect on April 1, 2006, and was updated in 2018, according to CanadaBuys. It rests on life-cycle management and the federal value-for-money framework. It is connected to the Greening Government Strategy, the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy and the Directive on the Management of Procurement.

The policy applies to all federal government procurement. As the CanadaBuys buyer's guide explains, environmental-performance considerations are embedded in procurement decisions alongside price, performance, quality and availability.

Green procurement plans and departmental targets

Federal departments must identify environmental opportunities when they develop procurement strategies. They must also establish green procurement targets, and monitor and report their performance through departmental planning and results-reporting processes.

Green procurement plans are the working documents. According to Public Services and Procurement Canada, a plan identifies the key environmental impacts of a good or service, specifies procurement actions to mitigate those impacts, and tracks implementation of the policy.

Federal green procurement applies life-cycle assessment principles and focuses on high-value purchases and on categories with high environmental impact, as described by the Treasury Board Secretariat.

What the Greening Government Strategy adds

The Greening Government Strategy targets a 40% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions from federal operations by 2030 and a 90% reduction by 2050, relative to 2005 levels. Procurement is one of the tools used to get there.

• High-environmental-impact procurements are expected to include criteria on greenhouse-gas reduction, sustainable plastics and broader environmental benefits.
• Major suppliers are to be incentivized to adopt science-based emissions targets aligned with the Paris Agreement and to disclose their greenhouse-gas emissions and environmental performance.
• Federal action also addresses embodied carbon and clean technologies.

Federal sustainable-development planning also identifies greenhouse-gas life-cycle assessment reports as potential deliverables for new high-value procurements, as noted in a Public Services and Procurement Canada publication.

Environmental criteria in defence purchasing

NATO materials describe related practices that are not identical to the Canadian federal policy. NATO's climate change best practices report that some Allied governments use environmental criteria when purchasing products, and that energy efficiency is becoming a criterion in developing military equipment. The NATO procurement policy also refers to integrating energy resilience and security considerations where relevant and possible.

What it means for a supplier bidding on Canadian public contracts

The policy sets the procurement framework. It is not a single checklist that applies to every bid, so the exact obligations depend on the solicitation and the resulting contract. Depending on the buyer's requirements, a supplier can be asked to:

• provide environmentally preferable goods or services;
• demonstrate life-cycle environmental performance;
• meet environmental criteria written into the solicitation;
• supply emissions or life-cycle information; and
• satisfy environmental reporting or deliverable requirements.

Read each solicitation for environmental criteria and deliverables, and prepare life-cycle and emissions data before bid deadlines. This matters most on high-value purchases and in categories with high environmental impact.