Harnessing Public Procurement for the Green Transition

Denmark

Framework, scope, action-plans

At state-level, sustainable public procurement (including green public procurement) has been advocated for many years, e.g. with the establishment of the Forum for Sustainable Procurement in 2010. In October 2020, the previous government introduced the strategy for green public procurement (the GPP strategy). This strategy aimed at ensuring that the public procurement at state-level would contribute to the national target of reducing Denmark's greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent in 2030.

Denmark has implemented several initiatives to promote green public procurement at state-level, i.e. for governmental entities. Furthermore, several Danish municipalities and regions have implemented green public procurement initiatives of their own, which the following description will not cover.

At state-level, such initiatives – among others – include guides for setting green requirements in public tenders, a joint food policy, a charter for good and green procurement, carbon offsetting for state air travel, plans for increased energy efficiency, and calculating the aggregated carbon footprint of the public sector yearly. In the following, selected initiatives are briefly introduced:

Guides in green requirements in public tenders aims at helping the public procurement officers incorporate green requirements in public tenders. It is not mandatory to follow the instructions.

The joint food policy requires the canteens of governmental entities to buy a minimum of 60 pct. organic food, reduce food waste, and the vendors are required to offer healthier and climate friendly food upon local request.

The charter for good and green procurement comprises standards that each ministry must implement. These standards pertain to the organisation of procurement offices, competence development of procurement officers, the development of procurement strategies, and annual progress reporting.

The carbon offsetting means that all work-related flights by state-employees are subject to carbon offsetting, which is included in the National Budget each year.

The plans for increased energy efficiency refer to the revised circular letter on energy efficiency in the state, requiring all ministries to create and publish plans for reducing their respective energy consumption.

The calculation of the aggregate carbon footprint is conducted every year since 2019, since 2023 the footprint is subsequently published by the Danish Energy Agency as part of the global reporting initiative.

Implementation

For the majority of the above-mentioned initiatives, the integration of the green requirements are incorporated in concerted state tenders. However, there is a mandatory requirement to develop ministry-specific plans for energy efficiency. To ensure the implementation, the Danish Energy Agency continuously follows up on the progress. Furthermore, the charter for good and green procurement requires the ministries to implement a wide-ranging list of standards. To support the implementation, the Agency for Public Finance and Management runs two separate network groups for the state procurement officers to ensure knowledge sharing, as well as the agency conducts an annual progress report.

In addition to that, Rådgivningsenheden - Statens Indkøb is a competence center that provides guidance and help desk services for public procurement, including for questions related to the use of GPP. Furthermore, Den Ansvarlige Indkøber (The Responsible Purchaser) is a unified digital portal with an overview of the latest knowledge on options, requirements and tools to support green public procurement at local level in public institutions.

Measurement and impact

As stated above, an estimation of the carbon footprint for the public sector is calculated annually. The estimation is currently primarily based on monetary data but is supplemented with physical units for energy consumption in the state. Hence, the estimation will inevitably be linked to uncertainties. To improve the estimation, the Danish Energy Agency as well as the Agency for Public Finance and Management are working to enrich the data with activity-based data and updated emission factors.

In Denmark, there is no requirement for contracting authorities to publish procurement plans and report on the use of GPP in public tenders. Nonetheless, a report by the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority found an increase in the use of ‘green words’ in Danish EU tenders between 2020 and 2022. The report found that in 2022, nearly 60 pct. of EU tenders included green words, whereas only 44 pct. of Danish EU tenders included green words in 20201.

Recent developments

In 2024 Denmark joined the initiative Net Zero Government Initiative which oblige Denmark to achieve net-zero emissions from national government operations, in which green public procurement plays a crucial role, by no later than 2050.

Furthermore, the Danish Ministry of Digital Government and Gender Equality has recently published a report with recommendations on how public authorities can incorporate green requirements when procuring IT services. The report describes how the Agency for Digitalization and several other authorities have collectively tested EU’s Green Public Procurement Criteria (GPP) for data centers, server rooms and cloud services in a number of public tenders across state, regions and municipalities. The purpose of the testing has been to assess the applicability as well as any potential economic and competitive consequences of using the GPP criteria.

In addition to the above, on June 9, 2022, a revision of the Procurement Law was passed in the Danish parliament. The bill provides the legal basis for the Minister of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs to establish a so-called 'buy green or explain' principle. This means that the Minister of Industry, Business and Financial Affairs can define regulation requiring contracting authorities to explain why environmental or climate considerations were left out of a public tender. However, the principle is not deemed relevant to implement at this moment due to several other national and EU initiatives that has been initiated to promote green public procurement such as Ecodesign (ESPR). Hence, it has been decided to put the implementation of the principle on hold.