Shaping a Sustainable Future - Romania's National Green Public Procurement Program (PNAE)

As a long-time advocate for GPP, Miruna Bohaltea is dedicated to advancing sustainable practices in Romania and beyond. Leveraging her comprehensive grasp of both EU and national public procurement policies, she consistently promotes innovative and environmentally responsible procurement solutions for the public sector. Her work is instrumental in driving efficiency, transparency, and sustainability across Romania's public purchasing landscape. 

What were the key steps, challenges, and institutional actors involved in the development of Romania’s National Green Public Procurement Plan (PNAE)?

Romania recently marked a significant milestone with the adoption of its comprehensive National Green Public Procurement Program (PNAE) 2025-2030. This development positions Romania more firmly within the European Union's sustainability agenda, aligning its public spending with environmental objectives. 

The journey to this point, however, has been complex, marked by persistent challenges, and the collaborative efforts of numerous institutional actors.

For years, Romania stood as the sole EU Member State without a comprehensive, target-driven National Action Plan for GPP, often relying on voluntary implementation.  While previous regulatory efforts had established some minimum environmental requirements for certain product categories, they collectively lacked the strategic depth and binding targets characteristic of a full national plan. The PNAE now sets mandatory green targets for 22 categories of products, services and works.

The development of PNAE was an iterative and multi-faceted process. First, there was an acknowledgement that GPP isn't merely an environmental add-on, but a powerful strategic tool for economic transformation, innovation, and achieving climate targets. 

Extensive preparatory work was undertaken, involving an analysis of Romania's existing public procurement landscape, the modest uptake of green criteria, a review of GPP best practices from other EU countries, and initial data collection to establish a baseline against which future progress could be measured.

A crucial stage involved broad consultations with stakeholders: ministries, contracting authorities, industry associations, environmental NGOs, and academic experts. Their input was vital to ensure the plan was practical, implementable, and addressed real-world concerns.

The drafting phase focused on setting clear, measurable objectives and targets for GPP uptake across 22 product, service, and work categories. This involved establishing categories for which GPP would become mandatory, actionable environmental criteria, and outlining support measures (training programs, guidance documents, and digital tools to assist contracting authorities).

The culmination of these efforts was the inter-ministerial approval process, led by the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests, in close collaboration with key partners like the National Agency for Public Procurement (ANAP). This process concluded with the Romanian Government's official approval of the PNAE in April 2025, solidifying its status as a national strategic document.

Despite the positive outcome, the development process was not without significant hurdles. For many years, GPP was often relegated to a secondary priority. A widespread lack of awareness among public procurement professionals regarding GPP benefits, the misconception that green products are invariably more expensive, without consideration of life-cycle costing, and concerns about the Romanian markets’ readiness proved to be a persistent barrier. 

A critical challenge remains insufficient training, knowledge, and practical skills among contracting authorities to effectively integrate complex environmental criteria into their procurements. Addressing this fundamental capacity gap is a central mission of ANAP’s Centre of Competences.

The adoption of Romania's PNAE marks a pivotal moment, shifting public procurement from a purely administrative function to a powerful instrument for achieving national sustainability goals. The Competences Centre in Strategic Public Procurement at ANAP will now play an even more vital role in operationalising this plan, transforming policy into tangible environmental benefits across Romania.

How does the PNAE determine and prioritise the product and service groups to which environmental criteria apply, and what role do EU GPP criteria, national impact assessments or market readiness play in this decision?

The EU GPP criteria serve as the primary basis for identifying the products/services/works categories for which green targets have been set in the PNAE. The European Commission has developed a comprehensive set of voluntary GPP criteria for numerous groups, grounded in robust scientific evidence and a life-cycle approach. These EU criteria, developed through extensive stakeholder consultation at the EU level, directly guide Romania's choice of these specific categories for the PNAE, and establish a baseline of best practice, ensuring consistency with broader European sustainability objectives and benefiting from extensive research already conducted. 

The PNAE is firmly aligned with Romania's broader national strategies, such as the National Strategy for Sustainable Development 2030 and the National Public Procurement Strategy (SNAP) 2023-2027. 

While national impact assessments on market readiness were not the primary drivers for selecting the categories, the process acknowledges the practicalities of implementation across all mandated areas. This involves considering the existing and anticipated capacity of the market to supply the required green products, services, and works, and the readiness of contracting authorities to implement these criteria. This comprehensive approach is a strategic choice that recognises the varied maturity of green markets. Some markets, like those for computers, paper, food, etc., are relatively well-developed in terms of greener solutions, while for others, even where greener solutions exist, their widespread adoption is not yet standard practice. The PNAE aims to both leverage existing market capabilities and stimulate the development of a more robust green market. 

The first year of implementation for these mandatory targets will be 2026. As the PNAE represents the first program with dedicated monitoring elements, the approach is inherently adaptive. After the first year, a comprehensive report will assess whether targets were accomplished and, crucially, identify the reasons for any shortfalls, to inform necessary adjustments and refinements to ensure its continued effectiveness.

What implementation mechanisms, whether incentives, capacity building or enforcement tools, does the PNAE envisage to ensure that local authorities meet the green public procurement targets for 2030?

To ensure that contracting authorities/entities meet the ambitious green public procurement targets for 2030, PNAE envisages a multi-faceted approach, combining robust capacity building, a comprehensive monitoring framework that serves as an enforcement mechanism, and implicit incentives.

Recognising that a lack of knowledge, skills, and training has been a significant barrier to GPP uptake, the PNAE prioritises enhancing the capabilities of public procurement professionals, in close synergy with the SNAP, which sets out specific initiatives for building public procurement workforce capacity. This involves continuous investment in training programs and knowledge sharing to ensure procurement officials have the necessary expertise to integrate complex environmental criteria into their procurement. 

ANAP Competences Centre plays a central role in providing training, practical guidance, methodologies, direct support and digital tools to assist contracting authorities. 

While direct punitive enforcement mechanisms are not typically highlighted in program overviews, the PNAE establishes a strong framework for monitoring, which implicitly acts as an enforcement tool by ensuring transparency and accountability. This monitoring mechanism is a key implementation tool, allowing for an adaptive approach. This implies that persistent non-compliance or systemic issues identified through monitoring will trigger policy or support interventions.

While explicit financial incentives are not specified, the PNAE offers implicit incentives and leverages strategic advantages. Adhering to PNAE targets ensures authorities contribute to national sustainable development goals and align with broader European Green Deal objectives. This offers reputational benefits and demonstrates good governance. Promoting green solutions often leads to life-cycle cost savings, providing a financial incentive in the long run for budgets. By consistently demanding “green”, contracting authorities contribute to stimulating the development of a more robust green market, which can ultimately lead to better availability and competitive pricing of sustainable solutions. This supports local businesses and SMEs, creating a positive feedback loop.

Apart from counting ‘green tenders’, how will the PNAE monitoring system capture actual economic and environmental impacts (e.g. carbon footprint reduction, resource savings or adoption of innovations)?

The PNAE monitoring system's primary focus is to track the uptake of green public procurement criteria. The targets set are expressed as a percentage of GPP contracts within the total number of contracts awarded by category. This means the PNAE will directly monitor the extent to which contracting authorities are applying the green criteria in their procurements.

While this core monitoring tracks the implementation of GPP, capturing the actual economic and environmental impacts involves a complementary and broader approach, directly integrated within the SNAP. PNAE, which constitutes an action of the SNAP, serves as a crucial plan within the broader strategy. 

The measurement of actual economic and environmental impacts is addressed through a specific, complementary plan within the overarching SNAP. This highlights a coordinated national approach where distinct instruments have clear roles. The SNAP provides for an action focused on establishing indicators and targets regarding the environmental impact of the most frequently purchased products, services, and works, including aspects like carbon footprint reduction, resource savings, and potentially the adoption of innovations at a more aggregate level. The action is to be carried out by the Ministry of Environment, Waters and Forests, the Department for Sustainable Development, and ANAP.

In conclusion, the PNAE primarily functions as a plan to monitor the rate of GPP criteria adoption and stimulate the green market. The actual quantification of environmental and economic impacts will be progressively captured through dedicated indicators and targets developed under a specific, complementary SNAP action and its subsequent strategic document, both serving as plans to implement the overarching SNAP strategy for a greener public procurement landscape.

Further information is available in the press release and in the annex to the PNAE.