According to the monitoring report on the Basque Government's Green Procurement Programme, which was recently published by its technical secretariat, the public company Ihobe, the volume of green procurement through public tendering by the entities that joined the Programme represented 49% of the total purchases made by these companies in economic terms last year, just one point below the 50% set as a target by the Basque Government for 2020.

The entities that are part of this Programme have a level of greening that is more than double the rest of the public sector (in terms of economic volume), which is very close to the objective set of 50% by 2020. The rest of the Basque administration achieved green procurement levels of 22% in terms of economic volume in 2019. 

The 2019 report shows that companies in the Basque Country are well prepared to deal with the demands and commitments of any public tender with environmental criteria

At large, the indicators in the report demonstrate the suitability of this type of procurement and public contracting to promote an overall greening of the market, together with the facilities for making tenders with environmental criteria, thanks to the advice provided by the programme's technical secretariat.

The report notes that in 2019, companies based in the Basque Country were awarded 72% of the tenders, representing 80% of the economic volume of green tenders.

The 2020 Green Public Procurement Programme has set a target for 2020 of 50% green procurement in 20 priority product, work and service groups. In terms of economic volume, this goal has been achieved in the groups related to paper, building cleaning, bus transport and gardening. On the other side, the report highlights the need to “concentrate efforts to encourage changes in the corresponding tenders and/or markets - such as in textiles, courier services, travel and even in the purchase of computers and electricity”.

The good progress made in terms of adhesion to the Green Procurement Programme fosters the introduction of environmental criteria in calls for tenders and facilitates their adoption by the entire public sector

The work carried out in 2019 by the technical secretariat led to the adhesion of entities such as the Basque Parliament, the Euskalduna Conference Centre and the town councils of Barakaldo and Bergara. It also led to the adhesion, in January 2020, of the University of the Basque Country - Bizkaia Campus, the Cuadrilla de Gorbeialdea and Zamudio town council.

In total, 2019 ended with 35 entities having joined the Basque Government's Green Procurement Programme, 34 of them with purchasing power. Of these, one third are entities of the Basque Government, such as EiTB and Ihobe; another third are Industrialdeak industrial companies, and the final third is an amalgam of entities ranging from town and city councils to Mutualia and the Euskalduna Conference Centre.

As technical secretariat of the programme, Ihobe has published several guides to facilitate the integration of the Basque Administration into this programme, such as the document “Claves para sumarse a la compra pública verde en el País Vasco” (Keys to joining green public procurement in the Basque Country), which is aimed at encouraging entities to join the programme and offering incentives to companies that have already joined it to reinforce their commitment.