Energy Efficiency Policies in Europe: Sustainable Public Procurement – The Netherlands

The goal of Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) of Nether land is to ensure that public procurers, despite working under tight budget constraints, consider the lifecycle costs and not only the purchase price of products and services. No quantitative targets were set. The general objective is to reach ambitious sustainability targets by making public purchasers add social and environmental selection criteria for 45 product groups in case of purchasing. The policy aims to be simple and easily replicable: for 45 product groups (such as e.g. paper, hardware, green spaces) specific minimum environmental criteria have been developed which can be easily used by all public purchasers in the field. This is intended to leverage the role model of the government. However, other European countries as well have policies in place purchasing products based on environmental criteria.

This research from the Energy Efficiency Watch 3 project informs on the progress of EU Member States with regards to energy efficiency policies. The core objective of EEW3 is to establish a constant feedback loop on the implementation of European and national energy efficiency policies and thus enable mutual learning on effective policy making across the EU. It compiles 28 country reports, provides strategic conclusions for more effective policies and presents 10 case studies of well-established policy packages and a Feedback Loop Report. It thereby intends to improve the implementation of European energy efficiency policies on the energy demand side.