News & Press Releases - Fair procurement for the public sector 18 July 2018 Cologne procures fair: Tender for work shoes successfully completed After the work shoes, workwear will also be procured according to eco-fair in the future. Photo: © FEMNET/Tobias WesselingProtection from dirt, but chic enough for funerals: Work shoes of cemetery employees must meet very special requirements. The city of Cologne, capital of fair trade in 2017, follows the Bonn example and has successfully completed its pilot project on eco-fair procurement. In collaboration with FEMNET, she procured 250 pairs of work shoes that were produced with social and environmental criteria in mind. Purchasing work shoes is a challenge for eco-fair procurement: In contrast to the other market for workwear and protective clothing, social and ecological criteria still play a relatively small role in global shoe production. There are currently no completely ‘fair’ shoes. But here, too, there are manufacturers who pay more or less attention to the rights of their workers and to environmental impacts. By requiring and controlling compliance with certain criteria, buyers such as the City of Cologne can contribute to the development of the market. In this case, the offer prices were so similar that the eco-social criteria made the difference: The contract was awarded to the company, which has already made its way the farthest. At the conclusion of the two-year framework contract, the Experience from the Bonn tenders They are drawn to those who are in the Step by step brochure can be read. In order to determine the most economical offer, social and environmental sustainability was included in the evaluation with a strong 30 percent, in addition to the price (40 percent), the quality (20 percent) and the delivery time (10 percent). The more measures tenderers were able to demonstrate for credible monitoring of ILO core labour standards, the more points they were able to score. Their compliance was mandatory as a special performance condition of the contract, which is usually not the case in conventional tenders. Additional points could be achieved by manufacturers, e.g. They provided information on their production sites, how they monitor compliance with the ILO core labour standards and whether there is a code of conduct for suppliers. Following the successful completion of the pilot project, the Cologne Green Space Office has now directly published the next, significantly larger tender for a wide range of workwear and protective clothing. FEMNET also accompanies this project. A strategy workshop with administrative staff will then examine how eco-fair procurement procedures can be anchored even more broadly in the future. The work shoes of the cemetery employees are already a positive sign that the effort is worthwhile, especially in new product areas. I want to imitate!
