Participation at the Big Buyers for Climate and Environment initiative

18 October 2021 | Brussels

On the 18 October, the ERF was invited to the Big Buyers for Climate and Environment initiative to present specific initiatives on sustainability.

Concretely, José Diez explained the achievements of the ALTERPAVE project at the working group on Circular Construction that covers roads, infrastructure and public space. ALTERPAVE represents a practical example of circular economy by promoting the reuse and recycling of end-of-life materials, waste and alternative binders for pavement construction and rehabilitation. The project, that included the construction of a road section near Milan, considered the whole life cycle of the infrastructure to enhance the resource and cost-efficient use of alternative materials.

Big Buyers represents a European Commission Initiative for promoting collaboration between public buyers in the implementation of strategic public procurement for sustainable solutions. In this regard, public procurement is key for the road infrastructure sector as it stands the only channel to commercialize products and services to public authorities. Tendering processes are the main facilitator for the market uptake of better products and services towards a modern and decarbonised transport field.

A fully implementation of the Directive 2014/25/EU will ensure that goal offering authorities better value for money whilst at the same time, provide industry players with more incentives for the development of more innovative and sustainable products. The deployment of better solutions will be a reality only through common efforts and understanding both from private sector and public buyers as the ERF stresses in the paper “Promoting Sustainable Roads Through Public Procurement”.