Circular Procurement Suite: innovation to integrate circularity in public procurement

Today, the circular economy has established itself as one of the most effective strategies to address global environmental and economic challenges. This model, fully aligned with European and national environmental priorities, promotes waste reduction, reuse of resources, increased durability and reparability, and minimization of environmental impact, offering a sustainable alternative to the linear "use and throw away" model. The adoption of circularity practices in the public sector is not only crucial to meet sustainability goals, but also to lead the shift towards a more responsible and efficient future.

On the other hand, public procurement accounts each year for about 14% of European GDP (about 2 trillion euros) and involves some 250,000 public authorities tendering for contracts in related to a variety of sectors and subjects.^[1]. Thus, public procurement constitutes an area of public-private action that not only aims at the acquisition of specific goods and services, but can also serve as a vehicle for the promotion of public policy objectives.

In this context of constant search for solutions that promote circularity and maximize the utility of public procurement, Novadays has developed the Circular Procurement Suite, a pioneering digital interface designed to facilitate the calculation of life cycle and carbon footprint of products in the field of circular public procurement. This innovation not only simplifies the integration of circularity criteria in public tenders, but also ensures that administrations can effectively assess the life cycle cost and CO2 emissions in all their purchases.

The CPS interface

The development of the Circular Procurement Suite focuses on addressing the main challenges faced by public sector entities when trying to incorporate circular economy principles into their procurement processes. Through a comprehensive analysis, Novadays identified several key barriers:

• Lack of standardized criteria: One of the biggest challenges is the absence of clear and standardized criteria for assessing the sustainability and circularity of products. This makes it difficult to make informed decisions during the bidding process.
• Complexity in assessing the life-cycle cost (LCC) of products and services: Assessing the full life-cycle cost of a product, from production to disposal, is a complex task. Contracting entities often have limited access to crucial information on the durability, repairability and recyclability of products, which, even if it can be provided by bidders, must be economically quantified in a standardized way. CPS integrates in an intuitive and simple way a standardized valuation mechanism for the life cycle cost of products and services, which can be adapted to the peculiarities of each file and of the products offered.
• Complexity in assessing the carbon footprint of the objects of procurement: the same problems arise in cases where public purchasers wish to incorporate criteria related to the emissions of their future purchases. The existence of generic calculators on the subject is not enough to be able to fully incorporate this criterion in tenders, which requires the creation of specialized tools.
• Insufficient tools: While there are some digital tools designed to support circular public procurement, many of them are insufficient or too complex for effective use. Circular Procurement Suite distinguishes itself by offering an intuitive and practical solution that responds directly to these limitations, incorporating two tools (CCV and CO2) that can be applied individually or synergistically.
• Regulatory adequacy: To ensure that Circular Procurement Suite meets all the needs of public administrations, Novadays conducted an in-depth analysis of the regulatory framework and public policies related to circular public procurement. This analysis included:
• Identification of sustainability and circularity criteria: Criteria currently applicable to tenders were identified and future trends and regulatory changes were anticipated, ensuring that the tools are prepared to adapt to future requirements.

Key features of Circular Procurement Suite

The Circular Procurement Suite has been designed with a number of essential features and functionalities that enable procuring entities to maximize their efficiency and effectiveness in product lifecycle assessment. These features include:

• User management: The interface allows the creation of differentiated profiles for each contracting entity, contracting body and public employee, with different levels of access to files and functionalities.
• Dossier creation: Facilitates the creation of dossiers that allow the comparison of projects and products, simplifying decision making in bidding processes.
• Integration of LCC and carbon footprint tools: CPS has been designed so that users can select the scope of the assessment they wish to perform (LCC and CO2), allowing the simultaneous application of both criteria in the same file, which generates synergies and uniformity in the evaluation of tenders.
• Valuation: CPS makes available to users a series of formulas for automatic valuation of standardized CCV and CO2 criteria, which can be adapted by the contracting entities to coincide fully with those provided for in the bidding documents.
• Reports and final reports: Circular Procurement Suite includes standard formulas for the evaluation of circularity criteria, selectable by the user, and a robust reporting system that verifies the data and calculations performed.

Therefore, Circular Procurement Suite is not just a digital interface; it is a driver of change that promotes the adoption of the circular economy in the public sector. By offering an intuitive and comprehensive solution, Novadays has taken a significant step towards facilitating the transition towards more sustainable and responsible purchasing practices.

With Circular Procurement Suite, public administrations will not only be able to comply with current and future regulatory requirements, but also lead the way towards a more circular and sustainable economic model. To learn more about how this interface can transform your procurement processes, we invite you to contact us at Novadays.

Circular Procurement Suite and this article have been elaborated in the framework of the project "Digital transformation of public procurement processes to boost Circular Public Procurement" (EXP/EC/2023/00313), which is a beneficiary of the call for grants to boost the Circular Economy in business for the year 2022 in the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR) funded by the European Union - NextGenerationEU.