Based on our engagements with leading cities and organisations that are driving the transformation of procurement from linear to circular, we selected a variety of examples to illustrate the current progress and ambition.
Lisbon: Mainstreaming and standardising circular procurement
The City of Lisbon has taken steps to implement circular economy principles in a structured way across the municipality in the areas of goods procurement and infrastructure. They are doing that by developing a Procurement Planning Platform (PPP) and implementing the ISO 20400. The PPP allows departments to register their annual needs for goods, works and services, and identifies social, environmental and economic measures to consider in future tenders.
By doing this, the city is able to improve the way it procures school meals and develops road infrastructures and municipal buildings. The city already has an ongoing infrastructure project that carries out pre-demolition audits and creates reusable material deposits.
The platform sets sustainability targets at the pre-tendering stage and creates an annual plan and provides data for monitoring it. The roll out started In 2022 and the PPP was being used to register procurements from 2023 onwards.
Paris: Getting creative about training and capacity building
The City of Paris developed a Circular building pathways training program. This training was used during the renovation of Les Canaux, a building being developed to host social and solidarity companies, with an objective of using 100% reused materials, bio-sourced and/or containing 15% recycled material.
Including training clauses in tenders is one way that public procurers can have a direct impact on stimulating demand for circular construction skills. When the winning contractor is awarded a contract, these clauses ensure that they commit to training their staff during the project on a specific topic.
Malmö: Circular criteria for signs procurement
The City of Malmö pilot for circular road and navigation signs included both signs that are used in public buildings and on streets. For this tender, Malmö developed three circular criteria:
To promote reuse within the municipality, the tenderer had to have experience with stocking products for a customer.
To encourage reuse by the supplier, the tenderer had to have experience with reusing products that the customer no longer used.
To close the loop, the tenderer had to have optimal recycling processes for different materials (plastics, aluminium, glass, and electronics).
Out of five bidders, one company met all three circular criteria. This supplier has won a national sign award called “Svenska skyltpriset” for a sign made of reused material. Through this tender, the City of Malmö encouraged the supplier to adopt new circular business practices, scale their circular systems, and design innovative products with better materials.
Quimper: Railway station renovation project
This railway station renovation project in in Quimper, France, aimed to reuse as many materials as possible on site, as well as use reclaimed materials from other sites. The municipality collaborated with the cooperative design practice ROTOR to identify and integrate reclaimed and reused materials into the project's outdoor facilities and roadways. Through a site study, they identified various materials that could be reused including:
natural stones,
cobblestones,
and wooden elements.
16 trees were transplanted and reused in another community project. The tender specified which elements of the site were to be reused, but allowed flexibility regarding the non-essential characteristics of the materials. This flexibility has allowed the reuse sector to supply materials based on the availability of reclaimed materials. The project also led to local economic development, as it encouraged suppliers to provide locally-sourced materials.
Amsterdam: Ambitious but practical benchmarks for circular construction
The City of Amsterdam is facilitating the circular transformation in construction. Decisions on tenders for the land give a weighting of at least 50% to circular and sustainable construction. In addition, the municipality is responsible for soil decontamination, the construction of public space, and the preparation of municipal lots for construction. They make agreements with parties that own or lease land, ensuring that development takes place according to circular economy and sustainable principles. Amsterdam also recently started an auditing process which enables the city to monitor the implementation of the agreements that have been made.
Phoenix: Engaging other government departments
Although the City of Phoenix is still at the early stages of the circular procurement journey, they:
are actively engaged in pilot projects
are developing new employee circular procurement trainings
have established new contracts with circular vendors
are integrating circular economy principles into the citywide ‘Sustainable Purchasing Policy’ (SPP) that has been in effect since 2007.
Most recently, Phoenix has established contracts to acquire 100% recycled content uniforms for Public Works Department staff and launched a program at Phoenix City Hall for collecting and remanufacturing ink cartridges to be reused for printing needs across all departments. City staff are in the midst of actively collaborating to integrate circular economy guidelines and language into updates to the SPP. This is an effort being driven by the Finance department. It is exciting to see this cross-departmental collaboration which ensures embedding circular economy priorities across the organisation and avoids siloed approaches.
Salvador: Leveraging city priorities
In the City of Salvador’s Climate Action Plan, the city has set its intention to embed circular economy principles into its public procurement processes. Criteria will include:
The life cycle costs of materials
The percentage of biodegradable materials and components
The percentage of recycled or reused materials; and
Whether the company has provisions in place for reverse logistics.
It has also set monitoring indicators to measure its progress, including the publication of a regulatory framework, and to report on the number of contracts that include components of circularity, reverse logistics and material reuse. This effort is being led by the Mayor’s Office via the Municipal Secretariat of Management and will be supported by the Municipal Secretariat of Sustainability, Innovation and Resilience. At the same time, the city will also be supporting the growth of circular businesses in the city through its Be Circular Programme and Municipal Circular Economy Hub.
