27 April 2021

ESG: Sustainable procurement in Switzerland - green procurement law

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  • Governance / ESG

Anyone who wants to offer their services and products to the public sector (federal government, canton, municipalities) in the future would do well to address the issue of sustainability. What does sustainable public procurement mean in concrete terms?

The Swiss Government offers assistance via its new knowledge platform for sustainable public procurement (WöB). This online knowledge platform is backed by the Federal Procurement Conference (FPC/BKB) and the Coordination Conference of Construction and Real Estate Bodies of Public Builders (KBOB) in cooperation with the Conference of Directors of Construction, Planning and Environment (BPUK), the Swiss Association of Municipalities (SGV) and the Swiss Association of Cities (SSV). They are supported by the Federal Office for Buildings and Logistics (FOBL) and the Ecological Public Procurement Unit of the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN).

The WöB is aimed at everyone involved in public procurement in Switzerland. It is intended to become the central knowledge portal for information and instruments on sustainable public procurement. Technical, scientific and legal content is made available in bundled form at www.woeb.swiss. Interested parties will be able to download documents, access knowledge blocks directly on the website or find links to relevant information on other websites. As far as possible, the content is offered in German, French and Italian.

The reason for launching the WöB is the recent revision of the Federal Law on Public Procurement (BöB) and the Intercantonal Agreement on Public Procurement (IVöB). The federal and cantonal decrees were harmonised as far as possible and reasonable. With the revised decrees, sustainability aspects are to be increasingly and with greater significance included in public sector tenders.