The Asia Pacific Roundtable for Sustainable Consumption and Production (APRSCP) is an international, non-governmental, non-profit network institution that has been fostering dialogue and partnerships among stakeholders and facilitating sharing of local initiatives, policies, best practices, and lessons learned on SCP related projects in the Asia Pacific region. It is estimated that governments in the region spends around 15%-30% of their GDP on procurement of goods, services and works for providing public services to their citizen. Such large spending by governments calls for spending it more strategically. In fact, Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) as a strategic policy option has become so important, it is a specific UN Sustainable Development Goals, SDG 12.7. However, progress on SPP implementation in the region has not been even. Most countries in the region have focused on Green Public Procurement (GPP) i.e. only on economic and environment dimensions of sustainability in procurement and social dimension has taken a back seat. They have a high GPP maturity level in terms of policy framework, national action plan, monitoring and measurement etc. But many others are still grappling with the concept, unable to operationalize and reap benefits from the unique opportunity that GPP offers in delinking environmental degradation and resource use from economic growth.
The APRSCP is fully aware of the importance of SPP as a strategic tool for green and inclusive growth in the region. It advocates SPP to be a part of government strategies to ensure that the stimulus package announced by governments to boost economy, in view of the current COVID crisis, is utilized on procurement that delivers value for people, planet and economy rather than just cost efficiencies.
Against this background, the APRSCP along with UNEP’s One Planet Network SPP Programme is organizing a webinar on ‘Sustainable Public Procurement 2.0 for Accelerating Sustainable Growth in the Asia Pacific’ on 27th August 2020.
The webinar aims to engage with a wide spectrum of participants from the region on the need to move from
The webinar will contribute to issues encountered during SPP operationalization in different areas such as construction, energy, mobility, health etc. and how to address them. Overall, this webinar will act as a growth catalyst of SCP policy in the region for meeting the UN goals 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production, specifically SDG 12.7.1.
