Align and build internal capacity

Collaborating, aligning, and building capacity across departments

Internal alignment and capacity building is key to developing a city-wide approach to circular public procurement. It is also important to get early buy-in of the city staff who will be responsible for the procurement process and managing the city-owned assets over their use-cycle. Engagements with relevant staff across departments will help to create a common understanding of how to embed circular principles in upcoming procurements, starting with understanding the problems the department wishes to solve through purchasing goods and services.

Questions to consider:

• What kind of capacity building activities and training do your colleagues need in order to deliver circular public procurement projects?

• Can you provide or outsource the relevant training and capacity building activities?

• How can city departments or colleagues across departments share best practices and learn from each other?

Examples

1) The Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management has provided a Circular Public Procurement Masterclass for Champions.

2) As part of the GPP Bhutan project, multiple sessions of Training of Procurers were organised. The training covered topics such as: introduction to Green Public Procurement, principles and laws, introduction to lifecycle thinking, starting a GPP programme, approaches to implementation and integrating environmental, social and economic characteristics. Field trips to local manufacturers and interactive discussion and group work were included in the training.

Resources

• How to run a community of practice on circular procurement, is a guide by Circular Flanders on how to encourage peer learning on the topic across public buyers and companies.

• The European Commission has developed the Green Public Procurement Training Toolkit to provide practical guidance to public purchasers and trainers to adopt a more resource-efficient approach to public procurement. The toolkit consists of six modules, one of which provides guidance for using GPP to support the transition towards a circular economy.

• The “capacity building” section of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Urban Policy Levers paper, provides an overview of how city governments work in partnership with local actors to develop practical training and business capacity building programmes to help mainstream circular economy understanding and practices within society.

• The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Learning Hub can help you expand your understanding of the circular economy and learn how the concept can be applied to different parts of the economy.