Indicator 12.7.1 Degree of sustainable public procurement policies and action plan implementation

Indicator 12.7.1: Number of countries implementing sustainable public procurement policies and action plans

Target 12.7: Promote public procurement practices that are sustainable, in accordance with national policies and priorities

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Definitions:

The indicator measures the number of countries implementing Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) policies and action plans, by assessing the degree of implementation through an index. To produce the index, countries self-assess the following main elements:

- Public procurement legal and regulatory framework

- Practical support delivered for the implementation of SPP

- SPP priority products^[1] and corresponding sustainable procurement criteria

- Existence of SPP monitoring system

- Measurement of actual SPP outcome

More details are provided in the attached SPP Index Methodology (revised February 2021).

Concepts:

Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP): Sustainable Public Procurement is a “A process whereby public organizations meet their needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that achieves value for money on a whole life cycle basis in terms of generating benefits not only to the organisation, but also to society and the economy, whilst significantly reducing negative impacts on the environment” (Definition updated by the Multistakeholder Advisory Committee of the 10YFP SPP Programme).

Sustainable Public Procurement Action Plan: A Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) action plan is a policy document articulating the priorities and actions a public authority will adopt to support the implementation of SPP.

Plans usually/should address the economic, environmental and social dimensions of SPP, and recognise the potential for SPP to realise SDGs”. In some cases a country’s action plan may focus on a single aspect of sustainability, being either environmental (e.g. “Green” public procurement action plan), social (e.g. reference to human rights, fair trade, focus on employment of minorities, etc.), or economic (e.g. promotion of SMEs’ participation in tenders, focus on employment of minorities, etc.).

Best Value for Money: can be defined as the “optimum combination of whole-life cost and quality to meet the end-user's requirements".

Life-cycle costing (LCC): is used to evaluate costs which may not be reflected in the purchase price of a product, work or service, and which will be incurred during their lifetime.

MEAT: The Most Economically Advantageous Tender criterion enables the contracting authority to take account of criteria that reflect qualitative, technical and sustainable aspects of the tender submission as well as price when reaching an award decision.

More reference about the above and their contextualization can be found in the attached SPP Index Methodology.

Number of countries

Based on the contact list of focal points identified in the drafting of the 2017 SPP country factsheets and of the One Planet 10-year framework of programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production patterns, representatives from more than 70 countries were contacted from September to November 2020, to identify relevant focal points for SDG 12.7.1 data collection.

As a result of this process, 55+ national governments and 8 subnational governments (reporting independently from their national government) set a specific team or designated a relevant focal point to report on SDG 12.7.1 indicator, most often originating either from National Procurement Agencies, Treasury Boards (Ministries of Finance), Ministries of Environment. In rarer cases, from the Focal point works for the Statistical Departments in charge of reporting on SDGs at national level.

In 2020, the SDG 12.7.1 survey was sent out to those focal points and, as a result, submissions were received from 40 national/federal governments (some of which included subnational data as well from provinces or municipalities). 8 subnational governments also reported independently on their SPP policy and action plan implementation efforts. In 2022, 67 national governments reported to UNEP on the number of countries implementing Sustainable Public Procurement policies and action plans.

SDG 12.7 Focal Points nominated by governments.

The index aims to measure not only Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) but also GPP (Green Public Procurement) and SRPP (Socially Responsible Public Procurement). However, SPP, GPP and SRPP may be addressed in very different ways depending on the country. They may appear as a component of overarching policies such as Sustainable Development Strategies, Green Economy Roadmaps, etc. They may also be addressed directly with the adoption of a SPP action plan or policy, or through regulatory means, such as specific provisions in the Public Procurement legal framework.

The main issues faced during the development of this indicator are:

• Data on the proportion of sustainable public procurement are not available because there is no agreement on which products are green or sustainable and because data are very often not classified in terms of volumes and value of purchased products.
• Another limitation is related to the existence of multiple layers and components of public procurement: central government, provinces in federal countries, municipal level, public enterprises, hospitals, defence, etc. Procurement data from these different sectors are very often not aggregated.
• In addition, contracts below a certain threshold are not monitored.

As a result, and in line with the comment in the rationale section, it was decided to focus on process sub-indicators which will measure the means and efforts countries are investing in the implementation of their SPP plans, policies and programmes.

So as to evaluate the ‘number of countries implementing a sustainable public procurement policy and action plans’, a specific threshold above which a country will be considered as having a sound Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) policy or action plan has been set, to determine whether this country will be considered compliant with the indicator in the final calculation of SDG Indicator 12.7.1.

It is proposed that this assessment is based on the evaluation of a national government’s SPP implementation level, scope and comprehensiveness, through the appraisal of 6 specific parameters (described in the table below), which will lead to the calculation of a Government SPP Implementation Score.

SPP Implementation Score $=\mathrm{\ }\mathrm{\ }\mathrm{\ }\mathrm{\ }\mathrm{\ }{A}_{}\times {\sum }_{i=B}^F{i}_{}\mathrm{\ }\mathrm{\ }={\mathrm{\ }A}_{}\times \sum \left\{B_{}\cdots F_{}\right\}$

Table 1: Description of parameters and scoring used for the assessment of SPP implementation

It is proposed that the specific threshold above which a country is considered as having a sound SPP policy or action plan and considered compliant with SDG 12.7.1. indicator is set at a score equal to 1.

Five classification groups are proposed to classify submissions received, and reflect the different stages in the advancement of SPP implementation:

SPP Implementation Classification Groups

Level 0: Insufficient data or insufficient implementation of SPP policy/ action plan (SPP Implementation Score below 1), therefore not complying with the expected set level of implementation.

------------------------------------------ Threshold --------------------------------------------------------

Level 1: Low level of SPP implementation (SPP Implementation Score ranging from 1 to 2).

Level 2: Medium-low level of SPP implementation (SPP Implementation Score ranging from 2 to 3).

Level 3: Medium-high level of SPP implementation (SPP Implementation Score ranging from 3 to 4).

Level 4: High level of SPP implementation (SPP Implementation Score larger than 4).

The full calculations and explanation of the index can be found in the attached SPP Index methodology.

2024-01-31

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

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