Environmental Aspects in Polish Public Procurement System

Abstract

Nowadays one of the key responsibilities of the state is to build a system of sustainable public procurement, whose functioning contributes directly to emphasizing environmental aspects (the policy of green public procurement). Green public procurement is understood as a process whereby public institutions attempt to purchase goods, services and construction works whose environmental impact during their life cycle is limited, compared to the goods, services and construction works with the same purpose as would be ordered otherwise. The interest in the issues of green public procurement took place relatively early on the OECD level—since 1996. A specific milestone in the development of the idea of green public procurement was the 2002 issue of OECD recommendations and the European Commission documents in 2003. Green public procurement is also an important element of the EU 2020 economic strategy implemented at EU level, as well as building a model of the economy in closed circulation. Wider consideration of environmental aspects within the public procurement procedure is possible thanks to two new EU directives from 2014 and amendments to the Polish Public Procurement Law from 2016. The level of green public procurement in Poland is low and deviates from the expected value to a large extent (currently set at 25%). Contracting authorities applying environmental criteria in the proceedings focus mainly on the application of environmental criteria for the evaluation of offers and consideration of environmental aspects in the description of the subject of the contract.