Public Procurement as a Driver of Canada's Low-Carbon Economy and Cleantech Industry

Governments around the world are rethinking public procurement laws, policies and processes to deliver value for money across the life cycle of the goods, services and assets they are buying.

Sustainable, green, smart or strategic public procurement is about ensuring products and services purchased by governments are as sustainable as possible. This means reducing environmental impact and generating positive social and economic impacts in a cost-efficient manner, as well as driving and creating new markets for innovative climate-friendly technologies, goods, services and infrastructure that generate co-benefits for society.

We are partnering with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) to host an invite-only workshop on March 22 in Ottawa, Canada, to explore these issues further.

The workshop will demonstrate why and how to ensure public procurement focuses on the best available technologies to meet public needs, rather than purchasing yesterday’s solutions. 

The workshop will also launch a paper on the intersection between sustainable public procurement and Canada’s international trade agreements. This research focuses on how and to what extent Canada’s international trade commitments (with a focus on the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Government Procurement and the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) enable the transition toward strategic public procurement.