Events

As the event has concluded, the presentations of the speakers can be found HERE.

Photos of the event can be found HERE.

As the European Green Capital 2023, the City of Tallinn has made Green Governance a top priority. The upcoming conference aims to unite cities from the Baltic Sea Region and beyond, fostering the exchange of best practices and discussions on the challenges of transitioning to green governance.

With Green Public Procurement as a central theme, the conference recognizes its vital role in implementing green governance and promoting sustainable consumption and production. Local governments possess significant potential to achieve sustainability goals through their procurement processes, particularly by ensuring they are not just climate-neutral but also circular and free from harmful toxins. During the event, the first-ever NonHazCity Award for tox-free, circular and climate-neutral buildings and building processes at municipalities will be launched.

The event aims to bring together local authorities, business actors and all the other individuals who are interested in green governance topics. It will provide a valuable networking opportunity for Green Cities, facilitating collaboration and mutual learning.

This event is organised by the City of Tallinn, Stockholm Environment Institute Tallinn Centre and Baltic Environmental Forum Estonia and it´s part of the Tallinn Greentech Week programme.

Location: Tallinna Kultuurikatel – Creative Hub of Tallinn

The conference is co-funded by the Interreg Baltic Sea Region Programme.

PROGRAMME

Live broadcasting 9-13.15 HERE

Moderator of the event: Heidrun Fammler, Baltic Environmental Forum

9:00 Opening of the event by Mayor of Tallinn, Mihhail Kõlvart

9:10 Keynote: Green Public Procurement – a great policy instrument for achieving Green Governance. How “green” can procurement be? What are the key barriers and biggest potentials? Evelin Piirsalu, Stockholm Environment Institute Tallinn Centre

9:30–13:00 Presentations by representatives of municipalities from the Baltic Sea region:

Stockholm: The ChemClimCircle approach for an integrated procurement – more than CO₂ emission reduction. Åsa Lindhagen, Vice Mayor for Environment and Climate (video speech) and Arne Jamtrot, Head of the Chemicals Centre

Helsinki: An ambitious lighthouse project: procuring (and building) a Nordic-Swan-labelled kindergarten from A to Z. Katri Kuusinen, Head of Unit, Urban Environment

Lithuania: Making Green Public Procurement mandatory all over Lithuania – an ambitious governance goal and first experiences from implementation. Kęstutis Kazulis, Public Procurement Office

Smiltene: Towards implementation of advanced Green Public Procurement in Smiltene Municipality. Mārtiņš Ulāns, Deputy Executive Director of Smiltene Municipality, Latvia

Panel discussion among the speakers: How can GPP become a routine, not only a best practice example – how to make it a new norm?

11:10–11:30 Coffee break

Tallinn: Experiences from greening the public events – have the ambitions of procuring single-use plastic-free events come true? Joosep Vimm, Deputy Mayor

Hamburg: The “early bird” – comprehensive guidelines on environmental criteria for procurers since 2016: a long way to go until sustainability criteria. Jens Kerstan, Senator for the Environment, Climate, Energy and Agro-Economy

Västerås: The Plastic Reduction Action Plan: high-level political commitment for soft measures to reduce single-use plastic and plastic packaging in the municipality. Vicki Skure-Eriksson, Deputy Mayor

Riga: The Chemicals Action Plan as high-level commitment – first experiences with raising awareness of Riga City Council on hazardous substances in urban daily life. Viesturs Zeps, Chairman of the Housing and Environment Committee, Riga City Council

Panel discussion among the speakers: How to make “voluntary” Green Governance instruments mandatory in a city?

13:00–13:15 Launch of the NonHazCity Award for tox-free, circular and climate-neutral buildings and building processes at municipalities. Joosep Vimm, Deputy Mayor of Tallinn and Alexandra Wandel, Chair of World Future Council

13.15–14.15 Lunch

14:15–17:30 The NonHazCity & ChemClimCircle projects’ public seminar on specific aspects of Green Public Procurement (GPP)

Session 1: Evaluation of GPP implementation impacts

• How and what exactly to monitor for “green” purchases at the procurement unit and/or municipality, regional entity level? Mara Inzaina, ICLEI
• Experiences with CO₂ emission reduction calculation of GPP implementation. With: Jens Johansson, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute

15.45-16.05 Coffee break

Session 2: Certification and labelling as instruments for procurement decisions

• What exactly do different existing building certificates certify? Can they be an instrument to judge the integrated chemicals, climate and circularity aspects of a building? Ingrīda Brēmere, Baltic Environmental Forum Latvia
• Eco-labels as the preferred instrument for procurers: What do they really label with regard to construction materials and buildings? Do they sufficiently cover circularity and hazardous substance issues or mostly climate-relevant issues? Andrzej Tonderski, POMInno LtD, Poland
• Eco-labels for cleaning agents and detergents: long time known, many products on the market at reasonable price – no problem for the procurers? All purchased goods are the “Green choice”? Andreas Ahrens, Ökopol Institut, Germany

Summary and conclusions

17:30 Social networking

More info: info@bef.ee