This book evaluates the 2014 EU public procurement law reform from a sustainability perspective.

Sustainable development is necessary to counteract and mitigate the impact of socially harmful forces in a globalized world. However, sustainable development and its organizations must ensure the effective management of their funds and beneficial financial frameworks in order to best realize their sustainable goals. There is a need for studies that seek to understand how to connect sustainable development and the financial world in order to maximize the economic and environmental wellbeing of the world. Social, Economic, and Environmental Impacts Between Sustainable Financial Systems and Financial Markets is a pivotal reference source that examines the funding and monetary utilization of environmental and socially-responsible entities. Featuring research on topics such as green taxes, intergenerational equity, and shadow economy, this book is ideally designed for government officials, policymakers, economists, financial managers, sustainability developers, and academicians seeking current research on the relationship between new sustainable financial phenomena and negative global externalities.

Procurement is playing an increasingly strategic role as a lever for sustainable development and social and environmental responsibility. Greater regulation on sustainable procurement in the public sector, including significant changes to the EU Directive in April 2014, are driving this change.This comprehensive guide to sustainable procurement by practising legal experts Colleen Theron and Malcolm Dowden distils key developments in EU and UK public sustainable procurement legislation, government guidance and policy; provides an introduction to sustainable procurement more broadly; provides case studies and practical examples on contractual aspects of procurement; shows you how to set up a sustainable procurement strategy; and contributes to the development of sustainable procurement policy. There is also increased emphasis on "clean" supply chains in the private sector, as best practice seeks to mesh with public sector requirements and reduce the risk that bids for public contracts might be undermined by adverse environmental impacts or social misconduct along the supply chain.Private sector companies should act now to establish best practice sustainable procurement principles to minimize the risk of litigation; several international standards are embedding the principles of sustainable procurement into their requirements.The book also offers practical examples of what sustainable procurement entails, whether the organization is bidding for public sector contracts, in need of meeting tender requirements, looking to obtain certification for a standard, or is simply seeking to improve its supply chain management and implement best practice.

This book examines the effectiveness of the modernisation of EU public procurement law in light of the overarching treaty goals on sustainability. Contributors expertly cover core issues of public procurement, including life cycle costing (LCC), eco- and fairtrade labels, the link to the subject matter (LtSM) requirement, the mandatory horizontal rule on environmental and social legal compliance, and framework agreements. Also explored are the balancing of economic and non-economic objectives implied in sustainable public procurement. The volume moves on to identify major unresolved issues in the use of sustainability considerations, and highlights challenges and possibilities for the national implementation due to take place in 2016. The book contributes to the dismantling of the compartmentalisation that underpins unsustainable policy decisions by discussing the interface of company law and public procurement law and the implication of the new rules on sustainable public procurement for sustainable companies, and specifically for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This book investigates the strategic use of public procurement as a way to establish “buying green” as a common practice – not only in the EU, but all over the world. However, imposing environmental requirements may affect the conditions of competition between suppliers, especially between local and foreign ones. This is particularly relevant for signatory states to the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), a plurilateral WTO agreement that aims at liberalizing public procurement markets. So how can these countries strike a balance between trade concerns and using the environmental potential of public procurement? What scope does the GPA 2012 leave for environmental criteria and how are signatory states making use of it? The need for answers to these questions is becoming even more pressing with the increasing use of green public procurement (GPP). This book discusses approaches to finding legal solutions to this question, using a multilayered approach to do so: In a first step, an analysis of the pertinent GPA provisions serves to delineate the scope for GPP under WTO law. In a second step, an evaluation of the implementation of the respective provision at the regional and national level by the EU and Switzerland helps reveal the impact of the GPA on its signatory states. While the book chiefly focuses on the legal framework for GPP, it also takes into account the latest developments in jurisprudence and policy initiatives. It concludes by proposing practical solutions regarding the specific design of GPP policies and measures in compliance with the GPA. The comparative approach applied in the book, focusing on the implementation of the WTO/GPA by two selected signatories, makes it an informative and insightful resource for practitioners, policymakers and legal scholars from all GPA signatory countries, extending its relevance beyond the selected examples (the EU and Switzerland).

Public procurement and competition law are both important fields of EU law and policy, intimately intertwined in the creation of the internal market. Hitherto their close connection has been noted, but not closely examined. This work is the most comprehensive attempt to date to explain the many ways in which these fields, often considered independent of one another, interact and overlap in the creation of the internal market. This process of convergence between competition and public procurement law is particularly apparent in the 2014 Directives on public procurement, which consolidate the principle of competition in terms very close to those advanced by the author in the first edition. This second edition builds upon this approach and continues to ask how competition law principles inform and condition public procurement rules, and whether the latter (in their revised form) are adequate to ensure that competition is not distorted. The second edition also deepens the analysis of the market behaviour of the public buyer from a competition perspective. Proceeding through a careful assessment of the general rules of competition and public procurement, the book constantly tests the efficacy of these rules against a standard of the proper functioning of undistorted competition in the market for public procurement. It also traces the increasing relevance of competition considerations in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and sets out criteria and recommendations to continue influencing the development of EU Economic Law.

Public procurement law is a necessary component of the single market because it attempts to regulate the public markets of Member States and represents a key priority for the European Union. This Research Handbook makes a major contribution to the understanding of the current EU public procurement regime, its interface with the law of the internal market and the pivotal role that this will play in the delivery of the European 2020 Growth Strategy.

Contemporary changes in law and policy at the global level to efficiently answer to environmental and social issues correspond to the traditional approach of limiting the regulatory and policy changes to a singular field or discipline: tackling the inherent unsustainability of corporate laws or incentivising the offering of sustainable finance to stimulate the transition towards sustainable practices. This book provides a new viewpoint and approach of simultaneously regulating seemingly non-connected fields in order to provide a fertile ground for a truly organic change towards sustainable outcomes. It addresses diverse questions of sustainable transition of the three specific fields to support sustainable practices in public procurement, private market transaction, and in educating future business leaders and legal experts by incorporating sustainable concerns as the underlying guiding principles of their conduct. It translates scientific findings into a practical format that can be used by diverse stakeholders searching for information and solutions in their respective professional fields. The underlying assumption is that a simultaneous action in the three respective fields of public procurement, corporate law, and higher education brings about more coherent and interconnected results that incentivise further action and changes towards sustainable practices. The book furthers the idea of policy coherence by building upon the findings in the field of public procurement, corporate law, and practice and higher education curricula. By identifying the barriers in the three respective fields for sustainable action and proposing solutions for either eliminating or minimising those barriers at the EU level, the book calls for further changes in the respective fields as well as for considering the spillover effects of these policies on other fields.

Public institutions, companies and governments in the EU and around the world are increasingly engaging in sustainable public procurement – a broad concept that must consider the three pillars of economic equality, social welfare and public health and environmental responsibility when designing public tenders and finalizing government contracts. This book contributes to the development of life-cycle criteria tools and methodologies for public procurement in the EU. It collects both sector-crossing contributions analysing the most relevant theoretical and legal aspects, including both EU law and contract theory, and sector-specific contributions relating to some of the most important sustainable goods and services markets. The book starts with a chapter that discusses the different approaches to including sustainability considerations in buying decisions by both private and public purchasers, and then goes on to examine the EU law on LCC and how it is implemented in different Member States. These chapters address the challenges in balancing economic and sustainability objectives under EU internal market law. One chapter develops the analysis with specific reference to public-private partnership. Another chapter elaborates how multi-stakeholders’ cooperation is necessary to develop LCC, based on a case study of a lighting services procurement. Three sector-specific studies relating to social housing, textile and clothing and IT close the book. With contributors from a range of backgrounds including law, business, management, engineering and policy development, this interdisciplinary book provides the first comprehensive study on LCC within the framework of EU public procurement law.