Green Public Procurement (GPP) has been identified as one of the main tools public administrations can use to drive the necessary changes to the current consumption and production patterns. The EU framework for the promotion of GPP is well defined and expressed in several official communications and recommendations. The New Public Procurement Directives clearly states the need to include environmental and social concerns in procurement procedures. In addition, the new rules promote a life-cycle costing approach that takes account of all costs over the life cycle of works, goods and services in order to assess their total value. At the national level the Collegato Ambientale and the public procurement code have made the adoption of GPP and of Minimum Environmental Criteria mandatory in Italy. Since February 2016, there is a legal obligation to include Minimum Environmental Criteria in the public procurement of works, goods and services. GPP is now mandatory in all procurements and tenders for the purchase of goods, services and works that require intensive energy use and in 50% of contracts and tenders for all other categories of economic activity.

The LIFE Green FEST project aims to disseminate good practices for the adoption of Minimum Environmental Criteria in the field of cultural activities funded, promoted or managed by public authorities.

The main objectives are to:

• Improve policies for public procurement in cultural events funded, promoted or organised by public authorities by orienting them towards sustainability;
• Define new Minimum Environmental Criteria in public tenders and regulations;
• Improve the cultural sectors knowledge of environmental legislation;
• Inform and train cultural sector providers and stakeholders on the impact of their activities;
• Improve the information of policy-makers on the interactions between social and environmental impacts linked to the procurement of goods and services;
• Define actions for the improvement of sustainable management of small- and large-scale cultural events promoted by public authorities and the diffusion of information on improvement; and
• Orientate public procurement policies of public authorities towards sustainability by favouring the introduction of environmental criteria into procurement procedures and by developing normative and regulatory proposals for taking into account of considerations of social costs in public procurement of goods and services.

The project is in line with implementation of the directives on public procurement and the Circular Economy Action Plan, which foresees GPP as a way of furthering circularity principles and targets.

Expected results:

• A list of cultural sub-sectors where environmental criteria should be introduced;
• Implementation of a LCC for each category of activity identified (i.e. music festivals, film festivals and food festivals);
• Creation of green tender and regulation templates;
• Guidelines for the implementation of GPP in the cultural sector;
• Training activities engaging at least 40 administrators and municipal officials in the cultural sector, 12 members of ANCI and at least 12 members of Federculture; and
• Publication of 16 green tenders and regulations by the two main regions targeted by the project (Lombardy and Marche) before the end of the project.