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Greening supply and demand: Advancing Eco Labels and Sustainable Public Procurement for climate and biodiversity protection (Eco-Advance)

The project is implemented by a consortium comprised of three implementing partners. The consortium lead is GIZ, which is responsible for programme management, and activities related to sustainable public procurement, strengthening of policy framework and engagement with companies. UNEP will have a leading role in activities supporting ecolabelling schemes and global exchange, Öko Institut will provide strategic, technical and methodological advice to GIZ, UNEP and national partners. During the preparation phase relevant technical and political stakeholders in the five target countries were invited to participate in both a technical workshop and in bilateral interviews with the project preparation team. The preparation phase has been used to elaborate project activities, determine roles and responsibilities, allocate budgets to specific activities and to agree on country priorities with the political partners of the target countries. UNEP’s medium-term strategy (MTS) identifies unsustainable patterns of production and consumption as the main underlying cause for the three planetary crises of climate change, nature loss and pollution. To address these interconnected issues requires an integrated approach that focuses on climate, biodiversity, and pollution requiring substantial financial and economic transformations towards a more resource-efficient, circular economy. This project aims to contribute to this objective by advancing more sustainable patterns of consumption and production through employing the policy tools of ecolabelling (led by UNEP) and sustainable public procurement (led by GIZ). In order to further align this project with the MTS, the products category will be selected among the priority sectors (food system, building and construction, mobility, electronics, textiles, infrastructure and mining). By selecting products in high impact sectors, the governments will count on UNEP expertise in those sectors and UNEP will be able to have a stronger impact by aligning its approach. The LAC region is a pioneer on SCP. Despite good progress at the policy level, the project’s five target countries (Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico) are lagging at different stages of implementation. In many cases, decision-makers within relevant ministries and institutions, as well as practitioners within public procurement bodies and stakeholders working within the quality infrastructure for national standards-setting, accreditation, and certification, lack experience in developing and using technical resources and tools to implement existing national policies and action plans. Ecolabelling and SPP can contribute to climate change mitigation, biodiversity protection and resource conservation by overcoming barriers to sustainable consumption and production. Current patterns of consumption and production in Latin America are often resource- and energy-intensive, produce GHG emissions and contribute to biodiversity loss. Through the use of policies and instruments that support sustainable consumption and production, target countries can steer themselves towards low-carbon, environmentally friendly pathways and contribute to national and global efforts to address environmental degradation. SPP policy and ecolabels are not necessarily aligned or developed in coherence i.e. SPP rules continue to give preference to cheapest offer. For governments, using SPP and ecolabels as tangible instruments and in a more coherent way among SCP and policies instrument will contribute to drive markets towards offering more sustainable options. The project supports more ambitious ecolabels (Output 1, led by UNEP), strengthens policy and legal frameworks (Output 2, led by GIZ), increases demand and supply for ecolabelled products and services through SPP (Output 3, led by GIZ) and promotes global and regional exchange (Output 4, led by UNEP). UNEP contribution By supporting Type-1 ecolabels (OP1), the project helps to create incentives for cleaner production focusing on high impact sectors (food system, building and construction, mobility, electronics, textiles, infrastructure and mining) by addressing a major barrier to changing consumption and production patterns: the complexity of conveying the environmental impacts of products and services to consumers and public authorities. With the proliferation of self-declared and often weak labels on products and within national markets, it is difficult for consumers and public procurement authorities to know if their choices are indeed sustainable. Type-1 ecolabels help to reduce that complexity and provide peace of mind during purchases. UNEP will work mainly at the regional level to support the Environmental Alliance of the Americas (the Alliance), which is a regional initiative of Latin American countries that aims to harmonize national type I standards and develop common criteria for products, processes and services between countries and generate regional recognition and awarene