Introduction

Nadia Sava (ESR 4) publishes her Working Paper in the SAPIENS Network WP Series. Nadia Sava focuses her research on the use of emerging technologies in the public procurement process so as to foster sustainability. In this Working Paper, she explores  the new mandatory green public procurement (GPP) legislation through the lens of digital in order to explore whether it could be qualified as an example of the ‘twin transitions’.

Working Paper Abstract

This working paper aims to explore the nexus between the current paradigm change in sustainable public procurement towards mandatory dispositions (mainly from new EU Green Deal legislations) and their inherent link to digitalisation. It argues that these new rules should be intrinsically articulated with the existing digital public procurement rules in order to reach the objectives set in the legislations. SPP law is undergoing a significant process of change. This evolution relies heavily on sectoral legislation that touches upon public procurement rules. The rules from the sectoral legislation that tackle public procurement create mandatory sustainability requirements or targets. Often, these new obligations are accompanied (and if not, they should be accompanied) by a monitoring obligation. The monitoring obligation implies the use of technologies, mainly of data. The legislation analysed in this working paper refers either to monitoring sustainability requirements and targets or to the creation of a database for excluded economic operators. It derives from this analysis that reaching the new sustainability goals in public procurement is closely connected to and relies on digitalisation – mainly data management.

Working Paper Research Questions

More specifically, this analysis aspires to shed light on the following research questions:
• Do the new provisions concerning mandatory green public procurement have an inherent link to digitalisation?
• If yes, how do the sustainable public procurement sectoral legislations interact with the relevant digital public procurement legal dispositions?

Working Paper Structure

In order to answer these questions, the article starts by presenting the current conceptual transition from voluntary towards mandatory sustainability in public procurement (Section 1). The second part of the article synthetises the main legal provisions from the selected sectoral legislation, namely: legal provisions concerning mandatory sustainable public procurement and legal provisions concerning a digital dimension related to mandatory sustainable public procurement (Section 2). Thirdly, this article analyses the digital provisions related to sustainable public procurement and debates whether they can be interpreted as examples for rolling out the twin transitions (Section 3).