The handover ceremony of the International Green Purchasing Network Secretariat was hosted on 26 November 2018 in Beijing, during the “Workshop of Capacity Building Project on Typical Green Products in APEC Economics – Environmental Labeling and Green Consumption”. As a founding Member and the Vice-Chair of IGPN, ICLEI was also invited to the event as a speaker.

Established in 2005, the International Green Purchasing Network (IGPN) is a global network designated to mainstream green purchasing activities, increase the adoption of products and services with lower environmental impacts, and harmonize international efforts in this regard on a global scale through sharing best practices, organize regional workshops and international conferences, and develop harmonized guidelines on green purchasing of products and services.

The handover ceremony between Hideki Nakahara, Chairman of IGPN, and Xiaodan Zhang, General Manager of the China Environmental United Certification Center (CEC) was conducted at the premises of China’s Ministry of Environment and Ecology, the IGPN Council, Advisory Board, and Members. With CEC as the new host, the new IGPN Secretariat will unleash the potential of the Network in further advancing green production and consumption with the support from APEC, Lancang-Mekong, and ASEAN, to promote green development along “One Belt One Road” regions and contribute to achieving 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

 

Hideki Nakahara, Chairman of IGPN handed the certification to Xiaodan Zhang, General Manager of CEC

 

In the afternoon, green public procurement and ecolabel stakeholders from APEC economies gathered to share best practices and latest developments of GPP and Eco-label at the national or regional level respectively. Haiping Yu, Program Officer of ICLEI East Asia, presented ICLEI’s global and regional GPP programs and introduced two East Asian cities’ procurement tenders: Recycled Asphalt Concrete (RAC) procurement in Suwon, Korea, and the procurement of green furniture in Binhai New District of Tianjin City, China, implemented under the framework of UN Environment 10YFP Initiative, with the support of ICLEI East Asia and ICLEI Korea.

The Korean city of Suwon procured 33,627 tons of RAC – accounting for over 20% of the general amount of asphalt concrete procured by the city in 2017, generating economic and environmental benefits equivalent to more than 800 million Korean Won; the Binhai New District of Tianjin applied the pioneering green procurement evaluation scheme developed by ICLEI and domestic partners in China and procured 6,160 sets of desks and chairs for new public schools in the District. The project was awarded the “Innovation of the Year” of the China Government Procurement Award in 2018.

ICLEI is looking forward to strengthening cooperation with the new IGPN Secretariat to promote GPP at the local level in this region. Currently, a bilateral strategic cooperation MOU between ICLEI and CEC is under discussion.