Sustainable Public Procurement: Life-Cycle Costing in the New EU Directive Proposal

Abstract

The European Commission published its proposal for the new Public Procurement Directives,1 which, upon adoption, will have as effect the repelling of the current Public Sector Directives (Directives 2004/17/EC and 2004/18/EC)2 from 30 June 2014. The Commission’s stated objectives were twofold: improving the efficiency of procedures and allowing for greater strategic use of public procurement to further environmental, social and industrial/ innovation policies. One of the novelties of the proposal is a concept which did not exist in Directive 2004/18: That of life-cycle costing. The aim is to strongly encourage procurers to “think outside the (price) box” in the context of sustainable public procurement. In the last years, most of the EU Member States have already committed to the promotion of green public procurement (GPP) or sustainable public procurement (SPP).3 Studies show that many procuring entities in the EU include at least one green criterion among award criteria, while in Member States with a stronger record of sustainable purchasing, around half of the awards are made based on green criteria.4 Nonetheless, a certain degree of scepticism still lingers concerning both the legitimacy of using the award of public contracts to pursue sustainability-related objectives and its effective-