Formulate ambitions & call for proposal
To ensure successful circular procurement project it is important that the cooperating parties have matching ambitions. The starting point is a clear definition of your own ambition for the procurement project. This also includes an assessment of your specific needs: what are you really hoping to achieve? Thinking in terms of the deeper needs of an organisation reveals more opportunities for circular solutions. For example, do you need new office chairs or good office chairs (that need not necessarily be new), or perhaps: good workplaces? Do you need a number of square metres per employee, or a healthy working environment?
Tips
- Formulate a circular ambition that fits both the product group and the policies of your organisation.
- At the start of the procurement project, determine the deeper needs of your organisation instead of the derived product request.
- Functional specifications help you focus on your needs. This ensures that your approach starts from an objective, not from a means. It also allows you to take advantage of the knowledge and innovative potential available in the market.
- Functional specifications are not sacrosanct! When dealing with an immature market or a complex product, technical specifications with due regard for circularity may provide the necessary guidance for market players.
Inspiring Examples
Province of Noord-Brabant: measuring equipment
Using functional specifications (‘measuring data’) rather than technical specifications (‘measuring equipment’) allowed the market to incorporate new technologies in their own design.
Circular inspiration centre Zutphen
The Dutch Rijn en IJssel Water Authority has built an installation for the production of Kaumera in Zutphen. Kaumera is a new biological raw material produced from sludge granules. The new building must support the circular aspect of the process: transforming waste into raw material.
Municipality of Venlo: municipal offices
The new municipal offices of the Municipality of Venlo have been built based on cradle-to-cradle principes. The produces more than 60% of its own energy consumption and has improved the air quality around the building.
Material-neutral calling is now within reach (ICT)
How do you make the procurement of mobile phones circular, sustainable and social? Ten Dutch provinces and four regional environmental protection agencies joined forces to make this happen. One of the requirements in their telephony tender was the use of material-neutral phones.
Background Information
Publication - Circular Procurement in 8 Steps (Dutch)
Step 3 from the eBook Circular procurement in 8 Steps (pp.66-75) details how to determine the level of functionality of your request.
Publication - The Application of functional specifications (Dutch)
This study summarizes experiences with functional specifications and offers practical advice on when this is useful and when it is not.
Tool - Circular objectives and strategies
The online tool developed by CircularIQ helps you to define your circular objectives and strategies for a procurement project.
Publication - Using functional specifications (Dutch)
This publication helps you formulate functional specifications.