Sustainable Public Procurement: Towards a low‐carbon economy

20 Sustainable Public Procurement: Towards a low carbon economy
It was planned that in the next six months the team would hold
consultations with the DGSD and BEE. The rationale for
deferring the DGSD involvement for the second half of the
project year was that it is an office formulating policies and
procedures pertaining to public procurement and there is merit
in engaging with them at a stage when the activities scheduled for
first six months have been completed and a possible role for the
DGSD has been identified and discussed with the procuring
agencies and the BEE. The interactions with BEE in the later six
months were expected to be with respect to understanding what
it takes to adopt energy efficiency as a measure within the
procurement system and the possible ways forward.
Capacity Builders
During our consultations the issue of capacity of procuring
officials emerged prominently. It was learnt that often, procuring
mangers, supply chain managers, or even project managers and
technical personnel were imparted training on procurement
related aspects, either in-house or by specialised institutes
outside. It was realised that there was need to consult with the
trainers who are preparing the management to face the
challenges of efficient procurement and see how prepared is the
industry to learn about sustainable public procurement.
Therefore, we consulted organizers of training programmes and
capacity building for supply chain management and green
procurement for officials from private companies, public sector
undertakings, government departments and ministries. These
were the Indian Institute of Materials and Management (IIMM),
Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) and SP Jain institute
of Management (SPJIM).
Financiers
Energy efficient business is particularly dependent on prevailing
local economic institutions because of strong requirements in
specialization, efficient packaging and financial intermediation. 5
Typically unless enterprises use their own funds, most
purchases/ investments involve some form of financial
intermediation. However, for energy efficiency to be incorporated
as a criterion for financing at the stage of procurement, there will
have to be extensive interaction of financing institutions as well
as technical experts with the procurers and suppliers / service
providers and this entails higher transaction costs which may
have to be borne by the financing agencies as part of their overall
5 Taylor et al (2008) 51pp
T E R I Report No. 2007GL01