City of Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the southern part of Finland, in the region of Uusimaa/Nyland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, by the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is 584,420, making it the most populous municipality in Finland by a wide margin.
Sustainable procurement activities
In early 2008, the City Council passed a decision on energy-efficiency. In terms of procurement, the decision has so far served to increase the awareness of civil servants about the benefits and opportunities of improved energy performance. With time, the implications will be further reaching.
Helsinki's Procurement Centre has recently completed an assessment of the current state of play and shorter-term and longer-term opportunities for improving the City administration's procurement actions regarding sustainability. Results of the assessment will be published in the coming months presenting the products and services most suitable for “greening”.
Helsinki bus transport began using sulphur-free city-diesel fuel in 1994. The first natural gas-driven buses went into service 4 years later. In procuring bus services the city pays attention to noise and emissions. In 2002 the European Court of Justice issued a ruling that is significant for the procurement of environmentally friendly products and services.
The City Council is in the process of passing an all encompassing strategy – a “rainbow strategy” - which covers all aspects of sustainable development and explicitly sustainable procurement. Regarding socially responsible procurement, the sustainable procurement programme that stems from the City's overall strategy includes requirements about including strict labour conditions. That is, all procurement actions must require suppliers meeting the Core Conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
The most interesting development and future activity is that the Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council (YTV) has embarked upon is the start of a new EU-Life+ funded project on climate mitigation and adaptation action. The city of Helsinki runs the public procurement part of this project. The project started at the beginning of 2009 (scheduled to conclude in 2011) includes ambitious targets for reductions of CO2 emissions. One of the avenues the project group will embark on is the development of CO2 calculators to be used for procurement purposes of ICT products (information and communication technology), and some four further products. The project will address the City's buildings, waste management and transport sectors.
