Background report to the guide for the use of the EU Ecolabel

Green public procurement (GPP) is a powerful tool to achieve environmental objectives by means of the incorporation of green requirements into public sector purchasing contracts. Public authorities, by promoting “green” purchases, incentivise environmentally beneficial outcomes and foster market innovation as well as the transformation towards a sustainable economy model. In order to “green” the market, it is essential for producers to be able to make certifiable and credible green claims about their products and for customers to know what to ask for. While the EU Ecolabel policy can provide environmental references or standards in relation to green claims on products, the EU GPP policy can help customers to know what to ask for. The EU GPP recommendations placed in this document are based on the EU Ecolabel criteria and intend to provide authorities with guidance on how to use ecolabels, and in particular the EU Ecolabel, in the procurement process. This report aims to bring these two policies together in order to find synergies between the supply-side EU Ecolabel policy and the demand-side EU GPP policy – specifically for the procurement of hard covering products made of natural stone, agglomerated stone, ceramics/fired clay or precast concrete. In addition to a brief introduction to the EU Ecolabel policy, to the EU GPP policy and to procurement procedures as a whole, research is presented to support JRC recommendations to public procurers about exactly what green criteria to set when trying to procure environmentally friendly hard covering products. The recommended environmental criteria are split into three themes that focus on: (i) energy consumption and CO2 emissions (different approaches for sub-products made with and without combustion processes); (ii) emissions to air (dust and, where relevant, SOx, NOx and HF), and (iii) process waste reuse at the production site (different benchmarks for different sub-products). Where relevant, further information about the why the EU Ecolabel criteria are relevant and what other ISO 14024 type I ecolabels may be considered as equivalent is provided. This builds up upon the work that concluded with the adoption of the EU Ecolabel criteria, project that was also led by the JRC and finalised in 2021.