Green Purchasing
Green Public Purchasing
Current position
Government carries a great responsibility for ecologically and socially responsible economic management, not only in the parameters laid down in regulatory policy but also directly, through its procurement policy. Until now, expenditure on public procurement in Germany lay at approximately 17 per cent of GDP and because of the stagnant or decreasing GDP, this number will probably increase.
Our proposals
The EU directive on public procurement must be implemented ambitiously. Government purchasing must be tied to concrete environmental and social criteria. These criteria must already be respected at the point that government purchases are made so that possibly more expensive, but more environmentally and socially compatible and thus more favourable expenditures from the viewpoint of society as a whole, can be considered. In this way, the state should lead by good example by purchasing only green electricity from now on.
