This section first introduces the EU green public procurement (GPP) guidelines. It is followed by an outline of the key strategies for circular construction in public procurement in the Nordic municipalities comprised by this study. National strategies are also highlighted in the local-level strategy sections where the interviewees have referred to them.
3.1 EU Green Public Procurement guidelines
Green public procurement (GPP) is defined in the Communication (COM -2008- 400) "Public procurement for a better environment" as "a process whereby public authorities seek to procure goods, services and works with a reduced environmental impact throughout their life cycle when compared to goods, services and works with the same primary function that would otherwise be procured."
GPP is a voluntary instrument, and member states can determine the extent to which policies or criteria are applied. GPP is part of the framework for Strategic Public Procurement, together with Socially Responsible Public Procurement (SRPP) and Innovation Procurement. The basic concept of GPP relies on having clear, verifiable, justifiable, and ambitious environmental criteria for products and services based on a life-cycle approach and scientific evidence base.
The European Commission has been developing voluntary GPP criteria for several product groups. For construction, EU GPP criteria have been designed for Office building design, construction, and management. In the spring of 2024, these guidelines are under revision. Furthermore, following the adoption of the 2020 Circular Economy Action Plan, the Commission is proposing minimum mandatory GPP criteria and targets in sectoral legislation and phase in compulsory reporting to monitor its uptake.
The GPP guidelines are not directly applied to local strategy and policy for green/circular procurement practices in construction projects in the Nordic municipalities comprised by this study. The strategies adopted by the municipalities are elaborated in the following.
3.2 Local-level Strategies
This section outlines the municipalities' key strategies and approaches regarding public procurement of circular construction projects.
3.2.1 Bergen, Norway
The Municipality of Bergen has the overarching Green Strategy—Climate Strategy for Bergen 2022–2030. The target for 2030 is to cut CO2 emissions by 85% from 2009 to 2030.
The Municipality of Bergen's Division for Buildings has developed the Strategy for Climate and Environment in line with the Green Strategy. It includes 11 focus areas for construction projects. The relative weighting of the different focus areas varies between projects, but the strategy guides all municipal construction projects.
The local strategies were developed before a national regulation entered into force in January 2024, requiring all public procurement to incorporate a minimum of 30% focus on sustainability. This requirement is interpreted and implemented case-by-case. In Bergen, it aligns with the existing Strategy for Climate and Environment that guides public procurement for construction projects.
FutureBuilt as a framework for circular construction
One of the focus areas of the Strategy for Climate and Environment is using the FutureBuilt framework to implement circular construction projects. FutureBuilt is an innovation and demonstration programme targeting the most ambitious actors in the construction sector. It is funded by local and national authorities in Norway. The organisation's vision is to develop sustainable and attractive zero-emission cities. Pilot projects are used as a strategy for changing the way buildings and urban areas are developed. The goal is to complete 100 pilot projects that cut carbon emissions by at least 50% compared to current regulations and common practices. This is measured by a greenhouse gas accounting tool, and the reductions must be within transport, energy, and materials. The quality criteria which demonstration projects must meet are closely aligned with BREEAM NOR.
In Bergen, two construction projects are underway to become FutureBuilt demonstration projects. However, the municipality uses the Circularity Index developed by FutureBuilt for all construction projects in the procurement process to calculate each project's impact. The index contains a tool for calculating the impact of, e.g., materials use. The municipality will then lower the targets set by the Circularity Index according to the specific construction projects to be implemented.
National network on sustainable construction
The Local Development Division of the Municipality of Bergen takes part in an informal network established with representatives from the same divisions in the urban municipalities of Norway. They exchange experiences and good practices related to climate and environment in construction.
3.2.2 Copenhagen, Denmark
With the CPH 2025 Climate Plan, the Municipality of Copenhagen aims to become the world's first CO₂-neutral capital. The CPH 2025 Climate Plan is holistic and includes specific targets and initiatives in the four key areas – energy consumption, energy production, mobility, and city administration initiatives.
In line with the Danish Strategy for Circular Economy, the Municipality of Copenhagen has the Circular Copenhagen Resource and Waste Management Plan 2024, which includes measures for circular construction, such as reusing construction materials from municipally owned properties and better recycling of construction and demolition waste.
From 2020 onwards, the circular economy has been a focus area for all construction projects in the Municipality of Copenhagen. This was decided before the Danish Climate Act, which sets binding national targets of a 70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in Denmark by 2030 compared to 1990 and climate neutrality by 2050 at the latest. The national climate targets support the focus on circular construction. Specifically for construction, the Danish Building Regulations (BR18) specify the Building Act's requirements for building construction, renovation, and fitting. It entered into force in January 2023. The new requirements in BR18 make it mandatory to calculate the building's climate impact over its life cycle and set limit values for how much CO2e/square meter new construction may emit per year.
Two main tools are used in the strategic work with circular construction and as part of public procurement: DGNB certification of large projects and development projects.
Certification of large construction projects
Construction projects with a 20 million DKK or more enterprise sum must be DGNB certified. This includes both new construction and renovation of existing buildings.
Development projects
Based on a municipal political decision, two to three construction projects receive additional funds each year to develop circular methods. Development projects allow additional costs related to testing new circular approaches for construction to be covered. In 2024, two ongoing development projects include directly reusing concrete elements from demolition in new construction and building a CO2-neutral kindergarten. Some funds are also allocated to cover additional costs related to circularity for other construction projects.
3.2.3 Gothenburg, Sweden
Gothenburg has an overall strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from procurement by 50% in 2025 and by 90% in 2030, compared to emission levels in 2021. Their goal is to be one out of 100 first climate-neutral cities in the EU by 2030, as outlined in the strategy Circular Gothenburg by 2030. The climate impact of the contractor's proposals is central to the public procurement processes, which can also include circular approaches.
As part of the strategy, the Municipality of Gothenburg has initiated several projects and pilot studies to learn along the way and develop the knowledge and processes necessary to become more circular. Some projects are funded by the EU or national funding programmes in collaboration with academia, business, and national authorities. The municipality has three procurement guidelines for circular solutions: Service solutions, rental solutions, and purchase of used materials and goods.
Procurement criteria for construction and demolition projects
One project that has been part of the strategy and the municipality´s work towards 2030 carried out during 2019–2020 was Procurement Requirements for Circular Flows in the Construction and Demolition Process. The project aimed to develop concrete proposals for how procurement of public construction projects can be used to steer the construction sector towards increased circularity through reduced waste and more reuse. The proposals include procurement requirements and investments to strengthen the conditions for a circular construction sector. The procurement requirements should be used in publicly procured new construction, re-modelling, and demolition projects. A gap analysis was conducted to develop relevant criteria for the procurement processes, comparing the situation in 2019 with a future scenario in 2030. The city has involved stakeholders from industry, consultants, public procurers, and authorities throughout the process. Their proactive work to become climate-neutral by 2030 forces renovation projects and new projects to prioritise reused and recycled materials to a larger extent than before.
The project has increased overall knowledge of how public procurement can act to drive development towards a circular construction and demolition process. Finalised in 2020, these criteria have been used and tested further in construction projects and will be continuously developed and updated until 2030. The work has been taken further in several concrete construction projects, collaborations, local platforms, and declarations of intent in Gothenburg.
National and international cooperation on circular construction
The municipality is engaged in projects and collaborations with other municipalities (both in Sweden and internationally) and with research institutes. Between 2020-2024, there is an ongoing project, Metropolitan agreement for circular construction, with Malmö City, Stockholm City and IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute to share knowledge and explore the potential for more collaborations among bigger cities in Sweden. Their aim with the project is to stimulate and scale up circular construction solutions from being a small-scale piloting niche to more mainstream regular work in practice.
Gothenburg aims to be as open and transparent as possible regarding its work and projects. They are part of national networks (Gathering power for circular construction) as well as international networks (Circular Cities and Regions initiative, Nordic Forum for Circular Construction and European Circular Cities Declaration) to exchange experience and be relevant market players to promote circularity.
3.2.4 Helsinki, Finland
The Municipality of Helsinki has set a goal to become climate-neutral by 2030 as part of the Helsinki City Strategy 2021-2025. The municipality has put emphasis on transitioning to a circular and sharing economy as part of the solutions to reach its target. Helsinki´s climate-neutral strategy consists of 147 measures, of which around 20 are related to circularity, and a few relate to construction.
During the summer of 2023, Helsinki replaced the previous Roadmap for the Circular and Sharing Economy with an Action Plan for the Circular and Sharing Economy. The Action plan is in line with the Circular Roadmap for Finland. The action plan consists of four focus areas: construction, procurements, environmental awareness, and sustainable consumption. For building construction and demolition there are two specific measures for each that are scheduled to be in place by 2023 and 2025. Some circularity aspects regard material information management, resource-wise use of building materials, transformability, modularity, use of recycled and repurposed materials, maintainability and repairability, ease of demolition and reusability. Projects should by 2025 be able to calculate their impacts through life-cycle costs and carbon footprint over the life cycle. This data should be used as a basis for decision-making in future building projects. The specific measures for demolition are still under development based on experience from ongoing pilot projects.
Each year, the municipality reports on progress on measures in the action plan of the Circular Cities Declaration report. The initiative is led by the Municipality of Turku in Finland and is funded by Horizon 2020. In total, 54 cities and 18 European countries have joined the collaboration, and 2024 was the first reporting year. Circular Cities Declaration is a cooperation between municipalities across Europe, Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, ICLEI, and other strategic circular organisations across Europe. The cooperation has enabled the development of a roadmap in collaboration with over 200 stakeholders on five priority topics, one of which is construction.
Circular Economy Cluster Programme
Helsinki has initiated a cluster programme called Helsinki´s Circular Economy Cluster Programme. The programme aims to bring together businesses, academia, research institutes and other organisations to try new innovations and processes in practice, experiment and exchange experiences and learn from each other. The programme focuses on circularity within the construction sector, where there is a mix of activities across all stages of the construction phase, including the design stage, extending the life cycle of the building and reuse of materials and building components. Experience and knowledge gained from the cluster programme will feed into and update the procurement criteria as part of the Roadmap for a Circular and Sharing Economy for 2030. The cluster programme has specific training for construction experts, concrete experiments, and pilots in demolition and new construction projects. Further, the city arranges open innovation calls for circular construction projects, where new solutions can be tested in collaboration with companies, research, and other organisations.
Quality points tool to balance costs of circularity
Helsinki uses specific tools to request more circular solutions for public procurement in a few selected construction projects. “Quality points” are used to request a specific service or good meeting specific circularity criteria. It means that it is not mandatory to fulfil the criteria. Still, if the contractor can include it in the proposal, it gives extra points, adding to the price to compensate for any extra work or costs required to fulfil the specific criteria. Therefore, the maximum final price in the proposal will differ depending on how many criteria can be fulfilled by the contractor within the given price adjustment. Ultimately, a balance between price and quality decides the winning bid.
Market dialogue with big contractors
Another strategic tool used by Helsinki involves market dialogues with big contractors. By inviting a market dialogue before the actual procurement process begins, the municipality can better understand the market solutions and ensure they have the most updated knowledge from the companies. This eases the process for the municipality to formulate the requests and requirements. Market dialogue is a methodology national authorities recommend promoting circularity and innovation in public procurement processes.
3.2.5 Reykjavík, Iceland
The Green Deal is the Municipality of Reykjavík's overall strategy, outlining the municipality's vision for 2030. It connects the municipality's key policies and plans to that vision. With an emphasis on environment, economy and society, the Green Deal includes fifteen key priorities that serve as a shared guide across all Reykjavík’s municipal departments. It sets the overall objective that Reykjavík will be carbon-neutral by 2040. The Green Deal is the key strategy for construction and public procurement, and certification of large construction projects is a key tool to promote sustainable construction.
Certification of large construction projects
Since 2019, the municipality has required BREEAM or the Nordic Swan Ecolabel certification of construction projects for buildings larger than 2000 m2.