Green Procurement

Austria

Current regional procurement legislation/standards from the project-relevant fields

• IT - yes
• household appliances - yes
• lighting - yes
• green power - yes
• vehicles - yes
• building components - yes
• other (that could serve as a relevant example) - yes
• general/universal - yes

Public procurement has to be made when the order value is more than 40,000 Euro (in sectors like electricity, water, traffic etc. more than 60,000 Euro). Therefore, it is important for all the project-relevant fields (if the order value exceeds the mentioned limits.)

In December 2005, a new law for public procurement in Austria, the "Bundesvergabegesetz 2006" was enacted to implement the directives 2004/18/EG and 2004/14/EG of the European Parliament. The law provides a legal framework for public procurement for authorised and reliable companies for prices that are in line with the market, to guarantee an efficient and transparent use of public money and to avoid wasting of funds, corruption, misuse and fraud and to make a fair competition possible.

The law includes new kinds of procedure and a reorganisation of the procurement standards in sectors like gas, heat or electricity, water, traffic, ports and airports and mailing services. The "Bundesvergabegesetz 2006" regulates in which cases a "procurement procedure" has to be made (for example how much money will be spent for the order etc.) and which type of procurement procedure has to be used (e.g. opened and not opened procedure etc.) and also how the procedure of public procurement has to be organised. No public procurement has to be made, if the order value is less than 40,000 Euro (in the above-mentioned sectors less than 60,000 Euro). In this case, the order can be made directly.

Public procurement is controlled on national level by the office for public procurement of the national government and on the level of the regions and municipalities by an autonomous senate.

Current regional practice

The public procurement procedure starts with the announcement of the procurement (in some cases some advance information is given). After that, interested contractors receive the procurement requirements and submit their bids. After the deadline for the submission of quotations, the offers are opened and assessed. The accepted bid will be published and after that the tender is accepted and the contractor that won fills the order.

Public procurement has only to be made when the order value is more than 40,000 Euros (in sectors more than 60,000 Euros).

Recognised barriers

In Upper Austria, standardised tools for public procurement already exist but the problem is that they don't include any green procurement standards. Therefore, such ecological criteria are not used regularly. Also, the awareness for implementing such criteria for public procurement proceedings is not given very much.

Opportunities