{"id":462570,"date":"2026-08-18T12:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T10:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/08\/18\/direttiva-appalti-pubblici-ue-26-imprese-italiane-ed-europee-chiedono-maggiori-riduzioni-di-carbonio\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T14:47:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T12:47:17","slug":"eu-public-procurement-directive-26-italian-and-european-firms-call-for-deeper-carbon-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/08\/18\/eu-public-procurement-directive-26-italian-and-european-firms-call-for-deeper-carbon-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"EU Public Procurement Directive: 26 Italian and European firms call for deeper carbon cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels \u2013 Simplifying public procurement rules? Yes, but prioritising the reduction of carbon emissions. Twenty-six Italian and European companies, trade associations, and civil society organisations \u2013 representing over 11,500 businesses \u2013 have called on the European Commission to ensure that the forthcoming revision of the EU regulatory framework on public procurement<\/a> incorporates and prioritises carbon emission reduction criteria in procurement decisions<\/strong>. The request was sent in a letter addressed to the European Commissioner for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy, St\u00e9phane S\u00e9journ\u00e9<\/strong>, the European Commissioner for the Clean Transition, Teresa Ribera<\/strong>, the European Commissioner for the Environment, Wopke Hoekstra<\/strong>, the European Commissioner for the Economy, Valdis Dombrovskis<\/strong>, the Director-General of the Directorate-General for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW), Kerstin Jorna<\/strong>, and the Italian Ambassador to the European Union, Vincenzo Celeste<\/strong>. Among the promoters of the initiative are the Italian climate think tank, ECCO<\/strong>, the organisation specialising in strategies, programmes and actions for sustainable development, Fondazione Ecosistemi<\/strong>, and the platform for collaboration and knowledge-sharing in Italy amongst businesses committed to climate neutrality, Co2alizione<\/strong>. Among the signatories is the cooperative movement\u2019s association, Legacoop<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

According to the signatories, public procurement plays a strategic role in the industrial transition, serving as a \u201cconcrete lever for shaping demand\u201d and accounting for around 16 per cent of European GDP \u2013 almost 2,500 billion<\/a> euros a year. Although public procurement has \u201cthe potential to send clear signals to the market, encouraging the adoption of more sustainable technologies and production processes,\u201d the authors of the petition believe that its potential is being exploited \u201conly partially.\u201d The reason is that procurement continues to be based on criteria centred on price rather than sustainability<\/strong>, which is instead still applied on a \u201cvoluntary\u201d and \u201cinconsistent\u201d basis, varying from one Member State to another. On the one hand, this fragmentation creates uncertainty for public purchasers and businesses; on the other, it limits procurement’s ability to act as an effective driver of industrial transformation.<\/p>\n

 In welcoming the Commission\u2019s ongoing review of the EU public procurement framework, as well as complementary initiatives such as the Industrial Accelerator Act<\/a>, the signatories reiterate that, to “fully unlock the role of procurement as a structural pillar of industrial and climate policy,” the Commission must pursue three key outcomes. The first is the \u201cphasing out of the award criterion based exclusively on the lowest price, progressive implementation, and balancing of fundamental mandatory criteria with incentive criteria.\u201d<\/strong> This means that the new framework must move away from award mechanisms based solely on the lowest price, and introduce mandatory criteria at the EU level \u201cfor low-carbon procurement\u201d. In short, the procurement framework \u201cshould provide a set of horizontal and consistent rules applicable to all sectors and all Member States, helping to create a leading integrated European market for low-carbon products and materials.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second objective is to establish \u201ca coherent methodological framework, aligned with existing monitoring and reporting systems.<\/strong>\u201d To be effective and scalable, \u201clow-carbon procurement criteria should be based on shared and consistent EU methodologies, building on existing regulatory frameworks rather than creating new parallel systems.” In particular, low-carbon procurement criteria should explicitly be based on methodologies consistent with the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS<\/a>), as well as \u201censuring alignment with other key EU instruments, including the carbon border adjustment mechanism, the EU taxonomy<\/a> and the Corporate Sustainability<\/a> Reporting Directive.\u201d According to the companies behind the initiative, this will promote consistency in emissions accounting across different policies, avoid duplication of reporting obligations and reduce the administrative burden on businesses. <\/p>\n

The last outcome the Commission will need to address is \u201csocial due diligence\u201d. <\/strong>The term refers to the process by which a company identifies, prevents, rectifies and discloses social and human rights risks arising throughout its value chain. The aim is to protect workers, partners and local communities, and the new framework must \u201csystematically incorporate robust social due diligence requirements\u201d, particularly for high-risk sectors \u2013 textiles, construction, electronics, agriculture and others. This means that public procurement should not encourage a race to the bottom on labour standards<\/strong>. Member States should instead \u201cactively support contracting authorities by establishing national compliance frameworks, providing guidance on supply chain risks and creating dedicated platforms for sharing information and good practices on suppliers\u2019 social performance.\u201d This support aims to \u201ceffectively mitigate corporate abuses, verify compliance along global supply chains and transform public procurement into a real lever for eliminating social dumping in the Single Market.\u201d <\/p>\n

Given that \u201cEurope\u2019s industrial transition requires strong and credible signals of demand,\u201d public procurement \u201ccan play a central role in creating these signals, but only if supported by a coherent and ambitious regulatory framework,\u201d the signatories concluded in the letter. The European Commission is currently reviewing the public procurement directives<\/a> and has announced that it will publish a proposal to reform and update them in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a letter sent to the executive, the signatories reiterated that, in the forthcoming revision of the directive, greater emphasis should be placed on reducing carbon emissions rather than on price criteria<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7908,"featured_media":462492,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25705,25706],"tags":[25871,35362,29452,34130,26752,33259,35217,30170,26539,29036,25979,31089,27238],"class_list":["post-462570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-green-economy-en","tag-aiuti-alle-imprese","tag-societa-civile-en","tag-emissioni-carbonio","tag-imprese-en","tag-industrial-accelerator-act","tag-palazzo-berlaymont","tag-public-procurement-at","tag-stephane-sejourne-en","tag-teresa-ribera-en","tag-valdis-dombrovskis-en","tag-vincenzo-celeste-en","tag-wopke-hoekstra-and"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7908"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":462571,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462570\/revisions\/462571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}