Green public procurement
Green public procurement is public purchasing that applies environmental criteria to reduce lifecycle impacts while meeting the procuring authority's needs. Applying Green public procurement requires a stated affected people, rights, value-chain tier, geography, remedy, and distribution of benefits or harms.
In simple terms
In practical use, Green public procurement is public purchasing that applies environmental criteria to reduce lifecycle impacts while meeting the procuring authority's needs. For Green public procurement, its suitability depends on local conditions, implementation quality, assigned responsibility, and monitored outcomes within a declared affected people, rights, value-chain tier, geography, remedy, and distribution of benefits or harms. Green public procurement connects with Sustainable procurement and Supply chain due diligence; each can affect its application without sharing its definition. The candidate link between Green public procurement and Informal economy remains a separate expansion question supported here by European Commission.
Why it matters
Green public procurement matters because decisions about it determine which workers or communities are visible, what rights or harms are assessed, and where prevention or remedy is assigned. A defensible use of Green public procurement therefore exposes its boundary, method, evidence, responsible actor, and uncertainty before a conclusion is accepted. That discipline keeps Sustainable procurement and Supply chain due diligence from being treated as proof of Green public procurement when their criteria, scope, or results differ.
Example
A procurement and human-rights team evaluates Green public procurement for a defined decision and records the relevant affected people, rights, value-chain tier, geography, remedy, and distribution of benefits or harms. For Green public procurement, the team uses cited material from European Commission to plan the intervention, assign responsibility, and monitor outcomes, documenting the period, data, assumptions, and comparison with Sustainable procurement. It treats Supply chain due diligence and Informal economy as separate questions rather than proxies for Green public procurement.
How it differs
Sustainable procurement
Green public procurement is a practice or intervention; Sustainable procurement has a different function. Evidence for Sustainable procurement does not establish Green public procurement unless both sets of applicable criteria are met.