The shortlisted candidates for the Procura+ Awards have been selected in all four categories: Sustainable Procurement of the Year, Innovation Procurement of the year with the subcategory Outstanding Innovation Procurement in ICT, and Procurement Initiative of the year. The Procura+ Awards are an initiative of ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability, in co-operation with the EU-funded Procure2Innovate project.

The ‘Sustainable Procurement of the Year’ category recognises outstanding environmental, social and economic impacts of the procurement. The shortlisted candidates are:

• Procura+ Participant City of Copenhagen (Denmark) together with City of Odense for their organic food procurement according to the Sustainable Development Goals
• Procura+ Participant Government of Flanders (Belgium) for creating a platform for circular furniture exchange across the Flemish Government and beyond
• The South Moravian Region (Czech Republic) and the City of Brno for challenging the market with the ambition of most an aesthetic, user-friendly, and energy-efficient sanitarium for children
• The Barcelona Sports Institute (Spain) for reducing packaging through procurement using an objective and transparent scoring methodology
• Dinan Agglomeration (France) for low environmental impact cleaning services
• Procura+ Participant City of Stavanger (Norway) for procuring ICT for schools and pushing for fair working conditions

In the category ‘Innovation Procurement of the Year’ that recognised outstanding innovation of the procurement and the public authority as a launch customer, the shortlisted candidates are

• The Santiago de Compostela City Council (Spain) using innovation procurement to meet Santiago’s unique needs as a World Heritage City
• The Municipality of Valladolid (Spain) for two innovative social and health solutions for active ageing and independent living
• The Supreme Audit Office, City of Prague for building net-zero energy innovation through procurement in construction in the centre of Prague
• Procura+ Participant HSY (Helsinki) for developing a silent electric refuse truck for late-night city centre waste collection

The candidates shortlisted for the ‘Outstanding Innovation Procurement in ICT’ are:

• Murcia Health Service (Spain) for co-creating an app using the inDemand model to improve communication between doctors and epilepsy patients
• The Barcelona Provincial Service for Procurement of Innovation to take better care of their population

The category recognising outstanding processes and actions towards strategic, sustainable and innovation procurement, ‘Procurement Initiative of the Year’, has four shortlisted candidates:

• Procura+ Participant Province of Zeeland (Netherlands) for using the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as compass for each procurement
• Procura+ Participant City of Helsinki (Finland) for working towards carbon neutral municipalities and regions using carbon footprint criteria to promote sustainable public procurement
• Procura+ Participant City of Copenhagen for developing a dynamic model for green vehicle requirements across a range of city services.
• The University of Cagliari (Italy) for supporting women in academia through the provision of an on-campus kindergarten

We thank all applicants for submitting their entry and encourage all shortlisted candidates and all applicants to keep up the good work. ICLEI will announce the finalists in summer. Winners will be announced during an Award Ceremony later this year.

Find out more information about the shortlisted candidates here.