Innovative procurement – sustainable PV systems as demonstrators
active 9 months, 1 week agoThe Baltic Sea Region with one of the largest ecological footprints is on it´s way to renewable energies towards a low carbon society. Also the solar production is rapidly increasing in the Baltics, because photo voltaic systems are a cheap and easy way to switch to sun power. However, emissions are generated during the manufacture, dismantling and installation of the systems and there are no solutions for recycling. Furthermore, a large proportion of solar cells are produced in China, which is one of the countries with the worst labour conditions and human rights violations in the world. According to EU regulations, public procurement in turn is obliged to follow sustainability standards for their purchases. This is not possible for PV systems at the moment. There are no quality labels regarding sustainable criteras for PV systems.
Public service needs to run an innovative procurement call in order to find sustainable PV systems. Public authorities lack knowledge and competences regarding the integration of sustainability criteria taking into account ecological as well as social criteria, of PV systems. Together with NGO´s and research institutions an innovative procurement call consisting of common criteria and a common legal framework will be elaborated in order to find sustainable PV systems (taking into account small and medium sized enterprises from the Baltic region/EU). The pilot call will be implemented and tested in every partner country as part of investment measures. The results will be made applicable within the EU.
The project contributes a to a transition towards a greener and socially more responsable public procurement and adresses (resolves?) conflicting goals of the SDGs by taking both social and ecological factors into account.
