1. Testing National Preparedness for Sustainable Public Procurement in Vietnam June 2008

2. Part 1 The Business Case for Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP)

3. Public Procurement refers to the process used by government and the public sector to enter into supplier contracts for the purchase of good and services and for the commissioning of public works.

4. Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) refers to the laws, policies and practices to integrate economic, social and environmental risks into public procurement processes and decisions.

7. Sustainable public procurement also rewards sustainable enterprise by signaling to the market that there is a consistent demand for sustainable goods and services. This in turn will stimulate innovation, economies of scale and the wider commercialization of sustainable goods and services.

8. Part 2 Testing national preparedness for sustainable public procurement

12. Part 3 About the IISD’s work on Sustainable Public Procurement ‘

13. The IISD Global Survey In 2006, IISD conducted global survey and an ensuing analysis of sustainable public procurement (SPP) initiatives by national governments. Read further at: http://www.iisd.org/markets/procurement ‘

14. The IISD country projects: In South Africa, IISD worked with the Provincial Government of the Western Cape and Incite Sustainability to enable the launch of an environmental procurement policy in May 2008. IISD will continue to support the Provincial Government in the roll-out of this policy in 2008-09. In Chile, IISD is working with the Ministry of Labour and RIDES to conduct a comprehensive SPP assessment and stakeholder consultation. This has lead to the Chilean prime minister’s public statement of commitment to SPP, in June 2008. IISD is now working on strengthening prevailing SPP frameworks at the national level. In India, IISD is working with the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forestry and the Confederation of Indian Industry to develop national guidelines and policies on ‘green procurement ’. ‘

15. Whole life costing IISD is planning looking to study how whole life costing can be better integrated into public procurement. The higher capital costs commonly associated with environmentally and socially preferable alternatives is one of the biggest barriers to enabling SPP. Whole life costing methodologies are needed to encourage net present value costing across project life cycles. The project is to be undertaken with the Marrakech Task Force for Sustainable Procurement. Procurers Talk In August 2008, IISD will launch Procurers Talk which will feature interviews with procurers on their early SPP experiences . ‘

16. IISD can be visited at www.iisd.org Project lead: Oshani Perera, [email_address]