Norway has both a Public Procurement Act and a Regulation on Public Procurement № 974 that include the following RBC objectives:
Environment
Human rights
People with disabilities
Labour rights
Integrity
Other policy frameworks
Regarding environmental issues, more specifically on green energy and procurement of vehicles, the Norwegian government adopted the Regulation № 1 995 on Energy and Environmental Requirements when Purchasing Vehicles for Road Transportation (Green Vehicles) in December 2017.
In 2019, the Norwegian Government presented a white-paper on public procurement, which considers how to work with environmental issues, human and labour rights and integrity considerations in public procurement procedures.
The Norwegian Government is working on an action plan to increase green public procurement and innovation.
The Norwegian Digitalisation Agency (DigDir) is the national CPB, which has a strategic public procurement framework that in some aspects goes beyond the national one. This strategy states that human and labour rights clauses are mandatory in all of their procurement procedures.
2. Implementation
The Public Procurement Act and the Regulation on Public Procurement № 974 covers the following procurement phases:
Pre-tender phase
According to §6, when planning a procurement procedure, the Norwegian contracting authorities must take human rights, universal design and environmental consequences, including Life Cycle Cost (LCC), into account.
Tender phase
During the tender phase, contracting authorities must pay special attention to minimise the environmental impact of the purchase and to promote climate-friendly solutions. To this end, they shall set environmental requirements and award criteria in all stages of the procurement.
When purchasing vehicles, the contracting authorities, operators and subcontractors are obliged to take into account, at the very least, some environmental requirements and the energy and environmental effects.
It is mandatory for the contracting authorities to ensure short supply chains in contracts for construction and cleaning services.
Post-tender phase
It is mandatory for contracting authorities to ensure that contracts clearly stipulate that employees of suppliers or any subcontractors must have wages and working conditions that are in accordance with the Norwegian Regulation № 112.
The Norwegian Agency for Public and Financial Management (Direktoratet for forvaltning og økonomistyring, DFØ) uses special contract clauses for safeguarding human and labour rights in the supply chain.
3. Good Practices
The Norwegian Ministry on Trade, Industry and Fisheries and DFØ have developed extensive guidelines for stakeholders to better understand and comply with the sustainable policy objectives.
In 2020, the Office of the Auditor General conducted a special project to monitor how contracting authorities implement environmental considerations in their procurement practices.
DFØ has developed a risk analysis procedure for all of their public procurement and contract management processes. This risk analysis procedure identifies high-risk sectors in regards to human rights like construction, transport or furniture, among others.
