Harnessing Public Procurement for the Green Transition

Poland

Framework, scope, action-plans

The fourth National Action Plan on Sustainable Public Procurement for the period 2017-2020 has been replaced by the State Purchasing Policy (adopted by the Council of Ministers on 11 January 2022) for the period 2022 – 2025. The State Purchasing Policy defines Poland’s priority actions in public procurement and encourages contracting authorities to purchase innovative or sustainable products and services.

The Policy includes training and capacity-building activities targeted at contracting authorities to help them familiarising with the (i) practical aspects of GPP, including GPP-related benefits such as enhanced well-being of citizens and cost savings, (ii) the opportunities provided by the existing legal framework (i.e. Public Procurement Law) to integrate environmental considerations in public tenders, (ii) the green solutions offered by the market. Relevant education and information activities are also provided to control bodies and economic operators.

The Policy also foresees the creation of a catalogue of products and services for which State’s contracting authorities will be required to apply certain environmental criteria. The catalogue of products and services, together with the environmental criteria is to be updated periodically (i.e. at least every 2 years) by an Inter-ministerial Team responsible for GPP. Moreover, the policy discusses different implementation instruments (e.g. life cycle costing, competence programme, EU GPP criteria, co-operation across units, creation of a GPP Team, etc.) that can be used by contracting bodies to greening their procurement activities and procedures.

The fourth National Action Plan on SPP was part of the 2030 National Environmental Policy (2019). For this reason, Poland is now committed to align the 2030 National Environmental Policy with the new strategic framework for GPP, as outlined in the 2022 State Purchasing Policy.

Implementation

Poland’s Public Procurement Law requires contracting bodies within the government administration to strive for a wide consideration of environmental aspects in their procurement procedures, also considering the contracting body’s needs and interests.

Measurement and impact

Art. 23 of the Public Procurement Law in Poland requires certain contracting authorities to provide their procurement plan for the given financial year in the Public Procurement Bulletin, as well as to publish it on the contracting body’s official website. The planning of procurement procedures needs to comply with the standards set out in the Regulation by the Minister of Development, Labor and Technology (18 December 2020) on the standard form of the plan of procurement procedures. The standard form includes an "additional information" column, where contracting bodies can add information related to GPP (on a voluntary basis).

Moreover, contracting bodies are required to submit data on the use of GPP through a digital platform linked to the e-Procurement system. More specifically, data on the use of GPP in public tenders is provided by contracting bodies through an annual report on awarded contracts, that must be submitted to the Public Procurement Office. The annual reports on awarded contracts are submitted by all the contracting bodies by means of an online form available within the e-Procurement Platform. A standard form of the annual report on awarded contracts was defined by the 2020 Regulation (i.e. a secondary legislation to the Public Procurement Law). The standard form also contains a special table, where contracting bodies provide information on awarded contracts containing environmental aspects.

Moreover, the data on GPP is provided in the Annual Report of the Functioning of the Public Procurement Market, which is published on the official website of the Public Procurement Office.

Recent Developments

The Public Procurement Office of Poland published a guide in 2022 on ecolabels, available from the PPO website, as well as information material on ‘’The use of cost criterion with a life cycle costing method for buildings based on the regulation of the Minister of Development and Technology of November 23, 2021 on the method of calculating the life cycle costs of buildings and the manner of their presentation’’.

Furthermore, the ‘’New guidebook on exemplary GPP/SPP was elaborated in 2022 and published in early 2023, and the 2021 version of the ‘’Guidebook on GPP related legislation’’ was updated.

The PPO also organised on 24 March 2022 the 16^th annual GPP Conference as well as 3 GPP online training events, which took place in 2022.