Content
Sustainable public procurement and eco-labels have gained significant importance in the Southeast Asian region during recent years. With the support of IKI, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines have already successfully started to introduce Green Public Procurement (GPP) systems and eco-labelling schemes. However, the progress of implementation varies from country to country due to a set of different factors.
There is great potential to reduce GHG emissions through GPP and eco-labeling in the region, since the public sector has an immense purchasing power. Since countries in the Southeast Asian region have similar product ranges, experiences with GPP can be transferred or replicated directly from one country in the region to another. Thailand is taking up the role as a pioneer and supports other countries in the region. Vietnam has also published strategies to promote and established eco-labels for several years. Cambodia, Lao PDR, Bhutan and Myanmar are still at the beginning of this process. None of latter countries has established an eco-label, passed a GPP related law or developed a strategy to integrate sustainability criteria into public procurement.
Objective
The project will support the development and implementation of eco-labels and sustainable consumption and production (SCP) patterns, particularly in the field of public procurement, in five Asian developing countries with the support of Thailand. SCP contributes to the reduction of GHG emissions and improved resource efficiency along the value chain. The project activities will be adapted to the specific country contexts and requirements within the framework of SCP.
Approach
The activities focus on strengthening institutions, including the provision of technical training courses to government officials, knowledge transfer and drafting integrated policy solutions on a regional level. This includes regional workshops for knowledge transfer between different implementation partners as well as stakeholder meetings to define cross-border core criteria for eco-labels and GPP in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). It is planned to support partner institutions in the different countries with the integration of climate friendly and low-carbon criteria into eco-labels through capacity development and awareness raising. This will be done with training courses, train-the-trainer packages and analyzing international GPP best practices to give guidance on how to adapt GPP strategies to the specific country context.
Cambodia, Laos PDR, Myanmar and Bhutan are at an initial stage of GPP implementation, there are neither policies nor mechanism in place. Thus, the project will focus on policy and strategies development to support the GPP implementation, such as GPP action plan and guideline. This also includes the development of type I environmental labels for selected sectors and capacity development for standard and certification system as well as knowledge exchange with advance countries e.g. Thailand, Germany, Japan.
Vietnam already has a Type I environmental label. Therefore, the project will focus on improving the legislative framework, communication systems and appropriate incentive mechanisms to address the particularly climate-relevant products and services within the framework of GPP and the environmental label. Moreover, the project will expand the number of eco-certified products and services and improve the certification system.