Sustainable Public Procurement under EU Law

This book evaluates the 2014 EU public procurement law reform from a sustainability perspective.

This book examines the new EU provisions on sustainable public procurement including life cycle costing, eco- and fairtrade labels, the link to the subject matter requirement, and the mandatory environmental and social legal compliance rule. Challenges and possibilities for national implementation are analysed and implications for business, including SMEs, are also discussed.This book examines the effectiveness of the modernisation of EU public procurement law in light of the overarching treaty goals on sustainability. Contributors expertly cover core issues of public procurement, including life cycle costing (LCC), eco- and fairtrade labels, the link to the subject matter (LtSM) requirement, the mandatory horizontal rule on environmental and social legal compliance, and framework agreements. Also explored are the balancing of economic and non-economic objectives implied in sustainable public procurement. The volume moves on to identify major unresolved issues in the use of sustainability considerations, and highlights challenges and possibilities for the national implementation due to take place in 2016. The book contributes to the dismantling of the compartmentalisation that underpins unsustainable policy decisions by discussing the interface of company law and public procurement law and the implication of the new rules on sustainable public procurement for sustainable companies, and specifically for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).