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Sweden

Current national procurement legislation/standards for the project-relevant fields

  • IT                                                       no
  • household appliances                    no
  • public lighting                                 no
  • green power                                    no
  • vehicles                                            no  (public transport buses)  
  • building components                    no
  • other                                                no
  • general/universal                          no

There is a law concerning public procurement in Sweden.
The new Public Procurement Acts came into force on 1 January 2008. The Acts regulates almost all public procurement which means that contracting entities, such as local government agencies, county councils, and government agencies as well as certain publicly owned companies etc must comply with the Act when they purchase, lease, rent or hire-purchase supplies, services and public works.
The Swedish Competition Authority is responsible for information on and supervision of Public Procurement from the 1 September 2007.
There are no specific standards concerning the listed or other product groups.

Current national / regional practice

There is no obligation for green purchasing. However, according to the Statement of Government Policy 2006, environmental challenges should be used as a financial lever.
The Swedish Environmental Management Council (SEMCo) procurement criteria consist of proposals for environmental requirements to be used when purchasing goods, services and work contracts. Today, environmental criteria within ten different product areas are available.

Recognised barriers

The obstacles for successful implementation of the recommended criteria in procurement activities are both on the strategic and implementation level. Many organizations have not included energy efficiency as procurement criteria even though many of them have it in their environmental management system.
The attitudes among the purchasers in the public sector are positive towards the use of environmental criteria. The main obstacle for following this principle is that there is no sufficiently information and helping tools available to support the setting of the appropriate criteria without too much extra work for the limited personnel in the organizations.

Opportunities

The Swedish Government has endorsed a three-year National action plan for Green Public Procurement (GPP) 2007-2009.
Many cities and regions have objectives relating to energy use etc and most companies are working today with various forms of environmental profiles. Purchasing functions of corporate and public sector is a natural part of this.

Relevant sources of information

www.konkurrensverket.se     Swedish Competition Authority
www.msr.se             The Swedish Environmental Management Council

 

 

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News

European Commission publishes GPP criteria sets

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