00:18:45	Yokasta Guzmán Santos:	Hi, I'm an AI assistant helping Yokasta Guzmán S. take notes for this meeting. Follow along the transcript here:  https://otter.ai/u/nx8FfbTr96khMYRq_ikUl0hSsHQ?utm_source=va_chat_link_1

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00:25:23	Jellie Molino:	hi Syed, it's good to see you here....
00:26:26	Chris Yukins / GW Law:	Please feel free to post questions for the panel here. The "public" chat will be part of the program record.
00:30:13	Guilliano Doest:	Goodday. My name is Guilliano Doest. What has the influence been of the ISO 20400 (Sustainable Procurement) if any?
00:31:18	Cary Watters (she/her), City of Portland, Oregon:	Apologies if I missed this, Abby, but when you refer to direct awards, are you referencing generally to procurements without competitive solicitations, or are you referring to direct awards to minority/women owned businesses as a contract equity tool?
00:32:27	Nurgali Rakhmanov:	Why are green public procurement practices not mentioned in environmental protection laws?
00:33:07	Chukwuma Chinaka:	Abby, you made reference to a report published late last year, please can you share the title of the report and its link.
00:34:08	Chukwuma Chinaka:	Always a delight meeting Dr. Jellie Molino.
00:34:56	Chris Yukins / GW Law:	@Cary -- "direct awards" in the EU are what we would call "sole source" awards. They trigger deep concerns because the EU directives are directed mainly at using competition to integrate the Member States.
00:35:40	Chris Yukins / GW Law:	@Nurgali -- certainly in the U.S., the environmental protection laws predate by decades the move to green procurement.
00:35:56	Nurgali Rakhmanov:	Dear Abby, what is your vision for structuring the types of environmental criteria in procurement procedures?
00:36:21	Chris Yukins / GW Law:	@Chukwuma: I will post the European auditors' report on the program site later -- thanks for the question.
00:36:45	Chukwuma Chinaka:	Thanks a lot Chris
00:37:11	Christine Mohammed:	What tools currently exist for the monitoring and impact of sustainable procurement?
00:37:53	Nurgali Rakhmanov:	What approaches work for calculating carbon footprint reductions through public procurement? LСC only?
00:38:09	Marlon Martin:	Simplification of the procurement process requires that the practitioners are mature enough to execute.
00:38:34	Chris Yukins / GW Law:	@Christine: Jellie will discuss the int'l organizations' approach to monitor the impact of green procurement, and our state/local panel next week will discuss this in depth (including Cary Watters).
00:39:01	Christine Mohammed:	Thanks, Chris
00:39:36	Chris Yukins / GW Law:	@Nurgali: We will speak shortly about methods beyond Life-cycle costs (LCC). Excellent question.
00:40:11	Cary Watters (she/her), City of Portland, Oregon:	@Chris, thank you for clarifying! At the City of Portland, we've tightened our criteria for sole source awards due to similar concerns, but we also have direct contracting as an affirmative action mechanism to allow for awards under $150,000 without competitive solicitation for firms historically excluded from our contracting opportunities, like minority and women business enterprises.
00:41:27	Nurgali Rakhmanov:	As you well know, S/GPP is a multidisciplinary approach that requires collaboration with all stakeholders — internal and external — to achieve sustainable and economically efficient procurement. What successful practices exist for building an effective multidisciplinary approach?
00:47:48	Carlos Ferrer López:	Is green and sustainable procurement being addressed in the international trade agreements so that solicitations in these scenarios can happen on equal grounds? I believe that that some European companies claim that they are competing with non-European products with lower standards.
00:47:54	Chris Yukins / GW Law:	@Nurgali: That's absolutely correct. The state/local session next week will discuss the multi-stakeholder problem, with references to experiences here in the U.S. Later during today's session, I will discuss how compliance and enforcement of green procurement raise unique issues -- with new laws and unexpected stakeholders.
00:47:58	Nurgali Rakhmanov:	What GPP practices exist regarding plastic waste management?
00:49:31	Chris Yukins / GW Law:	@Carlos: Thursday's session (July 25) will take a hard look at the trade barriers raised by green procurement, and on the possible solutions under trade agreements.
00:51:24	Chris Yukins / GW Law:	Thanks, Abby. @Everyone: the ECA report is the auditors' report that Abby referenced earlier.
00:54:00	Paulo Magina:	I am extremely pleased to announce that the OECD has just published last month the new Green Public Procurement report with an updated and expanded benchmarking study: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/harnessing-public-procurement-for-the-green-transition_e551f448-en.html
01:01:58	Abby Semple:	Link to ECa report: https://www.eca.europa.eu/en/publications?ref=SR-2023-28#:~
01:03:44	Abby Semple:	@Paulo thanks for the link to the report, I look forward to reading it!
01:09:05	Abby Semple:	Hi Nurgali, as mentioned there are different approaches to applying environmental criteria depending on the level of market maturity, and also the contracting authority's market knowledge. Pass/fail criteria send a strong message, but it usually isn't possible to set the level of ambition as high. A common approach is to combine technical specifications and award criteria, e.g.: specification requires at least 25% recycled materials, and the award criteria reward higher levels.
01:15:08	Abby Semple:	@Christine, Jellie addressed your question from the international perspective. For individual public bodies, there is typically an evalution
01:18:24	Jellie Molino:	@Nugari... that was the case many years ago... but the trend now is GPP being integrated in environmental protection law, for example in climate change law, there are examples that procurement is mentioned as a strategy to support the initiatives in reducing GHG emissions.
01:21:55	Abby Semple:	evolution from merely monitoring whether green criteria are applied, to monitoring performance in contracts (e.g. using KPIs) and, in some cases, to monitoring environmental outcomes such as GHG reductions, energy savings, material recovery etc. But many lack the time/resources to do this consistently.
01:23:39	Carlos Ferrer López:	Is progress really driven by regulatory framework, or is it, at least in some societies, that the companies sign up code of conducts and investments well ahead of what the administration may request?
01:25:34	Abby Semple:	@Carlos, I would say it is both. There is a strong need to send a consistent signal across different policies/regulatory domains: taxation, subsidies, procurement, product standards, etc.