Active international cooperation on sustainability

Nordic sustainability cooperation is back on track after a brief dip due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the public procurement social responsibility network met twice in 2023: in Copenhagen in March and in Helsinki in September.

The Copenhagen meeting reviewed contractual clauses related to social responsibility and exchanged audit experiences. The one-day meeting was found to be too short, which is why a decision was made to hold a meeting of a day and a half in Helsinki, with plenty of time for audit matters. A comparison of the legal challenges and costs of audits in different countries was interesting.

Dr Natalia Ollus, the head of the European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, affiliated with the United Nations, was invited to be the keynote speaker of the Helsinki meeting. Her presentation focused on labour exploitation and risk management in supply chains, and the topic generated plenty of discussion. The network’s next meeting will take place in June 2024 in Oslo. In addition to the Nordic meetings, we worked directly with Adda, the Swedish central contracting entity.

Criteria for food procurement outlined by Best ReMap

Hansel was part of the European Best ReMap project in 2022 and 2023. It was a Joint Action Food Procurement in Public Institutions work package. The project identified differences and similarities between national and EU legislation and compared practices and experiences. The aim was to develop tools for public food procurement, and various tools to support procurement were tested during the project period.

Best ReMap set EU-level targets and started work on a roadmap. Future legislation on public food procurement will evolve through the establishment of mandatory criteria for public food procurement.

After the project period, the European network of public food contracting entities will meet remotely on a monthly basis. Food contracting entities in the different Member States are concerned about issues such as pricing solutions, nutritional requirements and sustainability. The network will continue to share experiences and learning from each other as during the project period, with a representative of the Commission to provide information from the EU.

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