Towards a strengthened Sustainable Public Procurement policy with greater impact

The Netherlands is currently revising its National Plan for Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP). Key insights from the Strategic Public Procurement Dialogues have served as input for the evaluation of the current National Plan and for developing new approaches towards a strengthened SPP policy with greater impact. 

In April 2024, a dialogue was held with relevant stakeholders in the Netherlands on how to move forward with strategic public procurement. What were the main challenges and obstacles identified during the workshop, and how could they affect the successful implementation of current or future strategies? 

There was a wide variety in challenges and obstacles mentioned by the stakeholders. We grouped these into four themes: governance, leadership, effectiveness of policies and feasibility of execution. To give a few examples: regarding governance, stakeholders identified that in the scope of our National Plan SPP 2021-2025, decision-making criteria were missing to identify when procurement is an effective policy tool to reach policy goals. Looking at leadership, it was said that SPP required more vision, courage and knowledge at the top of procuring organisations. Bolder leadership would ensure a less-non-committal character of SPP and allow for SPP to be embedded throughout the whole organisation and value chain, with clear roles and responsibilities. 

In terms of effectiveness of policies, it was clear that increased market dialogue should be encouraged as well as a longer-term, economic focus and a more sectoral approach in policy-making. This would allow for more coherence between SPP and other relevant policy instruments. Lastly, regarding feasibility of execution, concerns were raised regarding the applicability of the EU sectoral legislation, the lack of expertise and financial means to implement SPP within contracting authorities and the perceived constraints of procurement legislation. 

These obstacles served as input for both the evaluation of the current National Plan SPP as well as the revision of our National Plan SPP, whereby we are looking at ways to address these challenges.

The current National Plan covers the period from 2021 to 2025. How is collaboration with other ministries being established and strengthened to ensure a coherent and coordinated approach in the development of the next strategy?

In our current governance structure we have an interdepartmental body consisting of the involved ministries together with the umbrella organisations of the local authorities (municipalities, provinces and water authorities) on three levels: a working group, on directors level and administrative level. Here we discuss best practices in scaling and embedding SPP as well as horizontal themes such as a uniform approach to monitoring SPP.

Through instruments, such as the Buyer Groups or the SPP criteria tool, we strive towards an integral approach whereby the different SPP themes are translated into practice. Currently, we are exploring how to further strengthen this governance structure.

For this new strategy, what is the desired outcome? What are the main objectives and measures being considered for the next strategy, and how do they align with national or international commitments?

In the revision of our National Plan SPP, we will continue to stimulate and facilitate public contracting bodies in applying SPP. We are looking at broadening the scope of contracting authorities beyond the central and local governments, such as to special sector entities, to leverage a larger spend. 

We are developing a more focused approach whereby we will select a number of value chains for which there is still a lot to gain in terms of impact through SPP, in order to create market demand for green, social and innovative goods, works and services. In other words, rather than applying SPP to many different value chains, we will focus our energy and financial means towards this selection. In addition, for those value chains where the private sector also has a large spend, we will broaden the scope to include these actors through stimulation and facilitation. 

The National Plan SPP thereby contributes to many different national policy programmes and goals - such as our National Programme Circular Economy, Biodiversity Strategy, Climate Goals and Jobs Agreement goals - and underlying international policy frameworks.

What mechanisms are being planned or considered to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the new strategy over time, and how will stakeholder views be integrated into this process?

Through our bi-annual SPP Monitor 2021-2022 we monitor the application of SPP as well as the estimated impact in terms of emissions, raw materials use and water consumption. The methodology for this monitor is currently being revised. Furthermore, since last year we have been working towards a uniform approach of monitoring across all government levels. In this trajectory, we have developed a uniform set of definitions, goals, KPI’s and instruments as well as product/sector specific cards identifying opportunities for applying SPP. 

Lastly, in our governance structure, we also have a sounding board consisting of civil society organisations. We have expanded this group with participants from the EC’s Strategic Public Procurement Dialogues and involve the latter group in the revision of our National Plan SPP. We envision that this group of stakeholders will remain of value for feedback on the execution of the Plan.

A Sustainable Procurement Manifesto was adopted in 2022. Can you explain the purpose of the manifesto and how do you engage stakeholders with this?

The Sustainable Procurement Manifesto adopted in 2022 is the second Manifesto since 2016. It aims to commit contracting authorities to implement SPP within their organisations and is signed on an administrative level. Since its adoption, the group of signatories continues to grow and to date, there are 127 signatories. They have committed to setting up an action plan with annual reporting. In 2025, it was decided to extend the Manifesto with another 5 years, following a positive evaluation of this instrument. 

In the revision of the National Plan SPP we envision to further strengthen the governance of the Manifesto to increase its impact, whereby an underlying ‘comply or explain’ model is applied. We will also look at ways to leverage the network of signatories to address key challenges in scaling SPP. Lastly, in 2023, the private sector also launched a Sustainable Procurement Manifesto, based on the framework of the Manifesto for public bodies.