(7876) Credit: AIT / Husar
Vienna (14.07.2023): On Monday, 10 July 2023, the agreement on sustainable procurement within the framework of the Austrian Action Plan for Sustainable Public Procurement (naBe) was signed between the Ministry of Climate Protection, represented by the Head of the Environment and Circular Economy Section, Christian Holzer, and AIT, represented by Managing Director Alexander Svejkovsky and AIT Authorised Signatory Beatrice Kornelis.
The AIT is committed to implementing the goals of the Austrian Action Plan for Sustainable Procurement (naBe Action Plan), has the relevant knowledge and expertise as Austria's largest research and technology organisation and is pursuing the goal of exchanging information with other public sector clients in the future as an official strategic partner of "naBe" and actively participating in the further development of these criteria.
By applying the naBe Action Plan, public contracting authorities can not only contribute to climate- neutral administration, but also to the implementation of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Common goals for sustainable, high-quality and regional public procurement
Sustainable, high-quality and regional procurement by public contracting authorities follows the principles of economy, efficiency, expediency and environmental compatibility as well as the best offer principle and ensures that social standards are met in the production and provision of services. The naBe action plan is the strategic instrument with which the public sector imposes sustainability requirements on its procurement. It defines verifiable and comprehensible ecological core criteria that form the basis for public procurement. The central goal of the naBe Action Plan is to make sustainable procurement the standard and to achieve a paradigm shift to the quality assurance principle by implementing all three pillars of sustainability in a balanced way. Aligning procurement with minimum environmental and social standards also increases cost transparency by taking into account life cycle costs (total cost of ownership). An important technical basis for sustainable procurement are reliable national and supranational quality labels such as the Austrian Ecolabel or the EU Ecolabel.
Excellent networking
In implementing the naBe action plan, the AIT experts also work together with the naBe service unit at Bundesbeschaffung GmbH, which is financed by the Ministry of Climate Protection and headed by Gerhard Weiner, the naBe coordinator responsible at the BMK, Karin Hiller, and Christian Öhler, who is responsible for sustainable construction agendas.