Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 15 October 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Update on the Public Sector Climate Action Mandate: Discussion

11:00 am

Ms Anne Stewart:

It is comply or explain. What that means is, for context, when it comes to green or sustainable procurement, it does not apply to everything. When public sector bodies are running tender processes, if green or sustainable procurement is required as part of those particular goods or that service, they are instructed they must use the green public procurement criteria as laid put by the EPA, which comes, by the way, from the EU. While it is not mandated, per se, it says the public sector body has to explain why if it does not use green procurement in its tender. We do not get into specifics in the way the Deputy outlined. We would not have the capacity to do that because the range of goods and services being purchased right across the system is so diverse. That is why we rely on the EPA to do the criteria for us and then, going back to the what and how, we built the tool to make it easier for public sector bodies to put that into there.

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