News & Press Releases - Fair procurement for the public sector 08 October 2024 Appeal: We call for a legal anchoring for sustainable procurement FEMNET has been working in the field of ‘fair public procurement’ for many years. The public sector in Germany invests about 500 billion euros annually in the purchase of goods and services (OECD 2019). As part of our membership of the CorA Corporate Responsibility Network Let's support an appeal, which calls on the Federal Government to adopt clear legal requirements for the consideration of human rights and environmental standards in the procurement of the federal, state and local governments. Together with more than 70 civil society organisations, 15 mayors and a large number of companies, associations, certification bodies and experts, we support this call. Fairtrade Towns initiatives and other stakeholders are working to encourage communities to procure responsibly and sustainably. Cities such as Bremen, Dortmund, Cologne, Munich, Hamburg and Berlin pretend that it is possible to procure products such as workwear, food, computers and toys sustainably. Nevertheless, the potential remains untapped, as there are no uniform regulations at federal, state and local level. At present, there is an opportunity to require the Federal Government to enshrine this practice in the law. In the coalition agreement, the government announced that public procurement and public procurement will be more focused on economic, social, environmental and innovative criteria in the future and that their binding nature will be increased. As part of a consultation process of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK), many stakeholders have pleaded for a significant strengthening of sustainable procurement. The BMWK is already working on a ‘Procurement transformation package’ and has recently had a Draft speaker submitted. A legal obligation for sustainable procurement would enable municipalities to make a significant contribution to the socio-ecological transformation of the economy through their purchasing behaviour. For companies, this scheme would create planning certainty, as they could adapt to consistent public sector requirements in the long term and their efforts in areas such as social standards, human rights and environmental protection would be recognised. Download APPLICATION TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: For mandatory sustainable purchasing by the federal, state and local governments (PDF)
