On 10 September 2021 NC Roberto Caranta spoke about Sustainability in EU Public Procurement Law at the Portuguese Academy of Sciences. The event was part of the closing day of the 2nd edition of the Advanced Master on Public Procurement organized by the APMEP – Associação Portuguesa de Mercados Públicos under the leadership of Prof. Luis Tavares.

Roberto Caranta illustrated first the legal environment after the 2014 reform, highlighting the changes brought about by the new directives and illustrating the relevance of the recent TIM judgment (Case C-395/18) in establishing a general principle of sustainability in public procurement. He next discussed two of the most relevant aspects of SPP, namely LCC and labels. Concerning the former, the issues – not least moral ones – raised by monetizing human, social, and labor rights were analyzed alongside the practical difficulties in devising workable LCC methodologies. Concerning labels, the need to simplify the present panorama made of hundreds of different labels was stressed. EU SPP Guidance tools were also illustrated. The presentation next focused on the actions foreseen under the European Green Deal promoted by the Commission. Mandatory SPP criteria are expected to be introduced in the coming years to fight climate change, and this notably, but not solely, concerning construction, energy, and food and catering procurement. The role that the SAPIENS Network is to play in strengthening the science behind the further uptake of SPP was finally touched upon. SAPIENS’ ESRs will investigate the most relevant aspects of SPP, including measuring its benefits, developing workable LCC methodologies, and managing the supply chain in a way that is conductive to the respect of human, social, and labor rights. Moreover, some of the ESRs will focus exactly on the lines of actions chosen by the Commission (e.g. climate change, construction, and sustainable and organic food.)