GREEN PROCUREMENT CRITERIA

Procurement is how an organisation selects and buys goods, services or construction work. Public authorities and private buyers normally assess offers against requirements such as price, quality, technical performance and delivery time. Green procurement adds environmental requirements to that decision. To support CDR, a buyer could require or award extra points for verified atmospheric carbon stored in the materials it purchases, such as timber building elements or concrete containing mineralised biogenic CO₂. A school-building tender could then favour a design that stores more carbon while meeting the same safety and functional requirements. Suppliers gain orders by providing the qualifying product or building. This lever changes the environmental specification or scoring of the goods, services or works being bought. A separately specified duty to deliver removals, including through external purchases, is covered under CDR Requirements in Public Tenders.

The buyer must decide which goods, services or construction work are assessed and how delivering the contract can cause net atmospheric carbon storage. The requirement may be compulsory or earn points alongside price, quality and technical performance. Evidence should cover the full life cycle, including processing, transport, storage duration and the fate of stored carbon after use. Suppliers need proportionate ways to demonstrate compliance, and the requirement should relate to what the buyer is purchasing. Lower production emissions alone do not demonstrate removal.

Repeated public or private purchases can give suppliers a reason to offer products and services that store atmospheric carbon. Relevant contracts could cover biochar soil amendments, restoration work or carbon-storing building materials. Clear specifications and a visible purchasing pipeline help suppliers assess demand and organise production. Buyers can pursue their environmental objectives through expenditure already needed for useful goods and services, while competition tests the price and performance of qualifying offers.

Poorly defined criteria may reward a lower-emission product, fossil CO₂ capture or an unrelated offset without causing atmospheric carbon removal. Requirements that exceed available supply can raise contract prices or leave too few bidders. Expensive evidence requirements may exclude smaller suppliers, while weak checks can allow substitution after a contract is awarded. A narrow focus on stored carbon may also overlook unsafe sourcing, short product life, reuse and recycling.

Effective evaluation compares qualifying bids, verified deliveries, net carbon stored, price differences and supplier participation with conventional purchasing. Contract audits can reveal substitution, unsupported claims and double counting. Persistent shortages, excessive premiums, weak competition or integrity failures should prompt changes to the metric, threshold, covered category, evidence requirements or enforcement.

Engagement should establish whether the proposed requirement is credible, deliverable and open to smaller firms. That requires market evidence from manufacturers, CDR suppliers and importers on availability, cost and reporting burdens, alongside scrutiny of the carbon method, contract design, safeguards and legal basis from standards specialists, lifecycle experts, auditors, regulators and civil society.

Public institutions at international, supranational, national, regional, state and municipal levels can set criteria for their own purchasing within their legal powers. Development banks can also require them in the contracts they finance. Companies and philanthropic organisations can apply equivalent criteria to their own purchases and commissioned works.