Public purchasing power key lever in green transition

The landscape of public procurement across the European Union and Ireland is undergoing a fundamental structural transition, ALG lawyers have noted.

What was historically managed as a discretionary mechanism by contracting authorities has evolved into a mandatory, legally enforceable compliance framework, the ALG lawyers point out.

This shift is governed by direct European Union legislation and supported by domestic legal duties and administrative circulars.

The European Commission is due to publish its proposed Public Procurement Act in early September, which will be the most substantial overhaul of the EU procurement framework in over a decade.

The reform will consolidate and revise the three core 2014 directives into one single regulation.

Normalise sustainability

It is expected to normalise sustainability, resilience and ‘Made in Europe’ criteria in public procurement across strategic sectors, the ALG lawyers state.

ALG lawyers suggest that contracting authorities and public bodies should be aware of what legislation is already in force and what is on the horizon.

They should identify which goods, products, and supplies being procured fall within the scope of the legislation and update procurement documentation accordingly.

They should also establish robust documentation practices to demonstrate genuine, substantive engagement with climate objectives. 

Always think beyond lowest price and prepare for sustainability to become a core element of procurement evaluation., they advise.

Mandates

The driver for procurement change remains the objective set under the European Green Deal to establish Europe as the first climate-neutral continent by 2050.

Under the current EU Commission agenda, decarbonisation operates alongside economic growth and industrial competitiveness.

This positions public purchasing power as an essential lever to accelerate industrial transition, supply-chain resilience, and market transformation.

Multiple EU sectoral legislative acts now integrate binding environmental sustainability parameters into public contracts:

• Net Zero Industry Act: Mandates minimum environmental sustainability criteria for solar energy, onshore and offshore wind, energy-storage systems, grid technologies, and biomethane/biogas infrastructure,
• Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR): Mandatory public-procurement criteria for product durability, energy efficiency, repairability, and recyclability across almost all physical items placed on the EU market,
• Construction Products Regulation: Expands regulatory scope to cover remanufactured, 3D-printed, and conventional construction materials incorporated into permanent works, introducing harmonised marketing and procurement rules,
• Batteries Regulation: Directs procurement conditions across portable, electric vehicle, light transport, and industrial battery categories, whether sold individually or integrated within equipment,
• Energy Efficiency Directive: Imposes the ‘energy efficiency first’ principle, establishing high energy-performance criteria for public tenders above specific financial thresholds, and
• Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation: Applies targeted sustainability conditions to contracts involving packaging materials, packaged deliverables, or services using packaging.

Irish judicial framework

In Ireland, section 15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 (as amended) creates a legally binding obligation on relevant public bodies to perform their functions consistently with statutory climate objectives.

The scope of this statutory duty was clarified by the Supreme Court in Coolglass Windfarm Limited v An Bord Pleanála [2026] IESC 5.

The Supreme Court ruled that section 15 generated an enforceable legal duty requiring public bodies to demonstrate real, substantive, and documented engagement with climate objectives when exercising their statutory functions.

The court clarified that while section 15 permitted a range of permissible outcomes rather than mandating a single result, the statutory qualification "in so far as practicable" could not serve as a blanket exemption.

At the policy level, Circular 17/2025 gives binding effect to the Buying Greener: Green Public Procurement Strategy and Action Plan 2024–2027.

The circular replaces previous voluntary guidance, mandating:

• Integration of Green Public Procurement (GPP) criteria into tender processes,
• Mandatory life-cycle costing (LCC) assessments to evaluate long-term environmental and financial costs,
• Formal justification requirements whenever standard GPP criteria are omitted from significant procurements, and
• Enhanced corporate procurement planning and compliance tracking.

Procurement lifecycle

Contracting authorities are required to put into effect sustainability requirements across all operational phases:

• Pre-procurement planning: Conducting structured climate-impact assessments to evaluate carbon emissions, energy usage, and circularity before market engagement,
• Tender Design: Incorporating low-carbon requirements into technical specifications, deploying environmental management criteria during selection, assigning appropriate award weightings to sustainability criteria, and applying life-cycle costing,
• Contract administration: Embedding enforceable sustainability Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), monitoring environmental commitments during performance, and conducting compliance audits,
• Documentary record: Maintaining a comprehensive audit trail detailing how climate impacts were evaluated to comply with the judicial standard set in Coolglass.

Legislative roadmap

• EU Public Procurement Act: Expected to consolidate existing directives into a unified regulation,
• Industrial Accelerator Act: Set to introduce EU-origin and low-carbon threshold rules for high-impact raw materials, such as steel, concrete, and aluminium,
• Circular Economy Act: Anticipated to set mandatory circular procurement criteria for goods, services, and works across member states,
• National procurement strategy: Directs alignment between public purchasing and national economic, environmental, and strategic development priorities.