A Green Buyers Club

Executive Summary

The goods and services purchased by governments make up a significant share of our economies. When governments wield this spending power strategically, it has the potential to drive policy change and to shift markets. Green public procurement (GPP) policies incentivize economy-wide decarbonization by helping low-carbon products become the default option in the marketplace.

This report analyzes the status of GPP for construction materials (also known as “Buy Clean”) in Germany, Canada, and the United States.

For Green Public Procurement to have the greatest possible impact, we recommend that the governments of the United States, Canada, and Germany:

• Set and agree to ambitious standards and definitions for low-and zero-carbon materials, following International Energy Agency guidelines;
• Agree to accelerated timelines for the implementation of low-carbon standards, including interim milestones and targets for 2030 and 2050;
• Set a tiered approach to procuring low- and zero-carbon materials;
• Harmonize green public procurement policies at the subnational level;
• Incorporate low- and zero-carbon materials definitions and standards into trade policies;
• Facilitate capacity building and cross-border learning for jurisdictions at the subnational level;
• Center inter-governmental harmonization of standards and requirements in the Industrial Deep Decarbonization Initiative.