Monitoring progress against sustainability goals in Lithuania
Monitoring progress against sustainability goals in Lithuania

Monitoring progress against sustainability goals in Lithuania

Geographical Area
EuropeLithuania
Scope
National
icon
In Lithuania, the Ministry of Environment is in charge of the implementation of the green procurement policy. In July, Green Public Procurement (GPP) targets were launched, mandating that all public procurement should be green by 2023. In order to monitor progress against this target the Ministry has taken four steps:
  • Defining GPP (through legislation)

In Lithuania, procurement is green if: (i) it uses criteria established by the Ministry; (ii) includes supplier certificates such as eco-labels or environmental management systems; (iii) the purchasing authority can define its own green criteria based on principles established by the Ministry; or (iv) it comes from pre-selected product groups that have been defined as green.

  • Setting targets

Lithuania set milestone goals of 10% GPP in 2021, 50% GPP in 2022, and 100% Green procurement by 2023.

  • Assistance to buyers

Understanding the challenges authorities face in pivoting to GPP is an important step. In July, 2021, the government supported a Sustainable Procurement Competence Centre with training, information, guidelines, and a web page for GPP. There is also a phased roll-out of GPP criteria and guidance across different product groups. The first phase focused on GPP in two product groups: transportation and food. The second phase will focus on construction and renovation, and will introduce new criteria for electricity and fuel.

  • Public reporting: GPP scoreboard

In May, 2021, the Public Procurement Office (PPO) launched a procurement scoreboard for public authorities, capturing all 30 product groups and including procurement information. The PPO collects data on technical specifications, award criteria, and clauses. Using digital forms to capture structured machine-readable data before and after the procurement process, they ask buyers (on a central e-procurement system) if GPP criteria were applied. If yes, procurers submit declaration reports on green criteria used, and this data is added to the scoreboard.