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30 November 2018 How does fair public procurement work? FEMNET advises control groups of Fairtrade Towns

Our workshop in the Fairtrade-Town Saarbrücken. Photo: © FEMNETFrom North Frisian drizzle to the sunny Saar, from vineyards on the Main to the Mecklenburg Baltic Sea: In 2018, we held strategy workshops on fair public procurement of workwear in five Fairtrade Towns across Germany. As diverse as the locations are, they all share the goal of using workwear and textiles produced in the city administration under decent working conditions and without harming the environment.

Fairtrade towns offer great potential to promote fair public procurement of clothing and textiles. Because fair coffee and another fair product are served in the city administration, the topic of fair trade is present in the city administration. Because a steering group is established, civil society, retail, city politics and city administration are already networked locally around fair trade. Based on these existing structures, FEMNET offered strategy workshops on the topic of fair public procurement for fair trade town control groups for the first time in 2018.

Fairtrade towns in Germany, such as city administrations, are diverse, but the challenges of transitioning to fair public procurement are similar everywhere. In Güntersleben in Lower Franconia with its 5,000 inhabitants, the focus was on the construction yard and sports balls in the schools – in Hanover in Lower Saxony with its 500,000 inhabitants, the main focus was on central procurement for the approximately 11,000 employees of the city administration and the fire brigades. The goals of all workshops were the same: To take a closer look at the current state of the procurement of professional clothing and textiles, to inform about possibilities and leeway and, against this background, to target steps towards a more sustainable procurement.

The workshops take place in cooperation with Transfair e.V. and the Service Agency for Municipalities in the One World (SKEW). Transfair is the sponsor of the Fairtrade Towns campaign, is aware of the challenges in municipalities and steering groups and can advise on the transition to fair public procurement of textiles. SKEW offers numerous support and funding opportunities for municipalities that are on their way.

"Germany fair"

Fair trade towns

SKEW and TransFair distinguish municipalities that are particularly well-deserved for fair trade. This increasingly includes fair public procurement of clothing.

Successful workshops in five federal states

Our workshop at the Fairtrade-Town Aurich. Photo: © FEMNETIn 2018, we were able to hold workshops in the Fairtrade Towns of Aurich (Lower Saxony), Güntersleben (Bavaria), Hanover (Lower Saxony), Rostock (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) and Saarbrücken (Saarland). The decision was made on the basis of applications from the Fairtrade Town steering groups: We want to strengthen the topic in as many regions as possible – so it was about a geographically broad dispersion and the broadcasting possibilities of the selected municipalities in neighbouring municipalities. We also wanted to support communities as diverse as possible so that good examples could be easily replicated. Especially small communities, in which the global human rights movement is often supported much more voluntarily than in larger municipalities, should benefit from the support. Although large cities with their high purchasing volumes have a major impact on the workwear market, the majority of municipalities in Germany are small and medium-sized municipalities and the topic must be anchored in the area!

In smaller municipalities, practical questions are often at the heart of the implementation: Where do we currently stand with our clothing products in terms of the environment and human rights? What evidence of the measures taken by manufacturers is credible and what exactly do they demonstrate? How can we collect this evidence together with our local dealers?

In larger municipalities, full-time employees – for example, coordinators of local development policy or Fairtrade coordinators or employees of local agenda offices – have often already carried out such inventories. For large tenders, however, many procurement law questions arise: Can we weight the price with less than 50% for the selection of products? Can we necessarily demand sustainability criteria for our products or at least reward them when selecting them? Regardless of the size of the municipality and the administration, quality and financing questions arise: Are the products of more sustainable manufacturers just as good in quality? Will fair and ecological products be much more expensive? How can we manage the changeover with the administrative staff – because it takes time to train staff and change processes. How can we ensure an efficient transition through improved exchanges within our own large administration or with neighbouring municipalities? The answers to these questions can be found in our brochure ‘Fair shopping in Fairtrade Towns’.

Motivation for 2019

Our workshop at the Fairtrade-Town Rostock. Photo: © FEMNETThe five Fairtrade Towns of the workshop year 2018 have set themselves specific goals: Representatives of the steering group from Aurich participate in meetings of the fair public procurement network and opportunities for fairer procurement are being investigated for the swimming pool and the building yard. In Rostock, the tram company and housing company want to jointly tender work gloves according to fair criteria in a pilot project. In Güntersleben and the neighbouring communities, the experiences from Würzburg are used especially for the Bauhof. In the future, advice from central procurement will also be used even more intensively for other positions in Hanover. In Saarbrücken, among other things, Klinikum wants to put its procurement to the test and neighboring towns we Saarlouis carry the experience into the surrounding area. The participants took information, motivation and impulses for action from the workshops with them – now it's time to stick to it and implement it!