Sustainable printing system services in Veneto (Italy)

Published on 18 March 2020

Italy

Veneto

About this good practice

The Veneto Region adopted the Regional Green Public Procurement Action Plan (in December 2015) to accelerate the integration of environmental sustainability criteria within public tenders for the procurement of goods and services. This includes the assessment of the environmental impacts (e.g. greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution) underlying the entire products’ lifecycle from raw materials’ extraction to consumption and disposal. The primary objective is to promote environmental protection and sustainable development, foster the sustainable use of natural resources and encourage environmental sustainability across the regional territory, whilst guaranteeing the best quality/price ratio for the procured products and services.
The procurement procedure was conducted within the context of the “EU GPP 2020” project. The call for tenders, led by the Veneto Regional Council, was published in 2015 to procure management services regarding the operation/administration of a distributed and monitored system of printing products and related services. The main procurement objectives were to a) reduce the number printers for personal use, b) diminish toner, paper and energy consumption through improved management, c) increase public administrations’ staff capacity on how to use rationally printing services, through the delivery of training sessions and educational material (e.g. manuals).

Resources needed

€3,600,000

Evidence of success

This call for tenders has been particularly successful in procuring sustainable printing services towards environmental protection and resource efficiency. It produced a significant reduction in CO2 emissions (129.2 tonnes in total) and energy consumption (17.3 tonnes in total) throughout the contract duration. Furthermore, the Veneto Regional Council has been awarded with the “COMPRAVERDE 2015” prize for the best green tender procedure carried out in Italy.

Potential for learning or transfer

The procedure did not encounter any significant problem that hindered its implementation. The key enablers behind the successful implementation of the green contract was a) regional council’s legal expertise in applying environmental criteria into tender procedures, b) the availability of competent public procurement officers to carry out the process, and c) the clear definition of green criteria. Critical to this was the experience gained by the regional authorities’ participation in the “EU GPP 2020” project. These practices shows high transferability potential given that the needs addressed are common among sectors, organisations across EU countries, the demonstrated achieved benefits outweigh investment costs by far, while the implementation does not pose any risks to the public authorities’ financial sustainability and is consistent with its procurement rules and laws.