23/01/2002 - OECD governments are to lead efforts to buy more
environmentally-friendly goods and services, with a view to
encouraging businesses and households to follow similar
purchasing policies. A Recommendation by the OECD Council, which
groups representatives of the OECD's 30 member countries, cites
concrete steps that governments should take to "Improve the
Environmental Performance of Public Procurement". This
Recommendation follows the endorsement by OECD Environment
Ministers in Paris last May of a series of environmentally-
preferable practices in the context of public procurement
policies outlined in the OECD's Environmental Strategy for the
First Decade of the 21st Century. It emphasises the need for
OECD governments to ensure that "green" public procurement is
consistent with their competition policies and procurement laws
and their international obligations and commitments through
trade agreements and multilateral environmental agreements.
Public procurement, or the purchase of goods and service