Biodiversity criteria in procurement II – Further development and practice-based substantiation of biodiversity criteria in selected product groups of public procurement on the part of the German federal government

In the predecessor project it was explored how the protected good of “biodiversity” can be systematically defined and integrated in the course of the revision of existing standards and environmental labels and in requirements relating to public procurement. Oeko-Institut e.V., together with the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW), the Lake Constance Foundation (Bodensee-Stiftung) and the Global Nature Fund, developed a scientific basis and initial drafts for concrete practical concepts (in the form of action plans) for taking biodiversity into account in federal procurement as a first step on the way to implementation. These were then available for various product groups, including food/catering and paper products. They describe activities and processes that promote the integration of biodiversity-enhancing requirements in - specifications of public tenders, - conditions of execution and delivery of the public administration, and - product-related environmental labelling systems by 2020. For example, the present draft of the action plan on paper products contains the recommendation to prepare a General Administrative Regulation (AVV) regulating the award of contracts by the Federal Administration for paper products produced exclusively in a resource-conserving and sustainable manner. One of the objectives of this project was to draw up a detailed AVV. In principle, it was necessary to further develop the results of the predecessor project and to answer to any open questions identified in order to achieve the above objective (the procurement and construction sector in the Federal Republic of Germany orients itself towards biodiversity-conserving standards until 2020). In order to establish the procurement of biodiversity-friendly “paper products” and “food/cate¬ring” in federal procurement practice, a central objective of the research project was to develop a draft for a General Administrative Regulation (AVV) in the respective product group or service sector. Administrative regulations may be adopted in order to ensure uniform application of the law throughout public authorities (in this case the federal procurement bodies pursuant to Article 86 clause 1 GG). Such discretionary AVVs provide a uniform exercise of discretion by the respective procurement bodies. The AVVs thus address only the competent authorities directly and have only indirect application vis-à-vis the bidding companies (in terms of a claim to equal treatment). In summary, the procedure described in this offer and the project as a whole served to achieve the following objectives: - the development of practical concepts for the product groups “paper products” and “food / catering” that can be implemented under public procurement law in order to take account of biodiversity in federal procurement, taking into account the results of the predecessor project mentioned above, - the development of two product group-related drafts for General Administrative Regulations (AVV) for the product groups “paper” and “food / catering”, and - the implementation of four fictitious procurement procedures on the basis of the elaborated AVVs with regard to all requirements under public procurement law in order to check their practicability.