Innovative Public Procurement Programme

Encouraging circular procurement in the public sector

"With every penny you spend, you cast a vote for the kind of world you want". It is a quote from Anna Lappé. It contains a lot of truth, and it makes it immediately clear what an enormous role buyers play in the development of the circular economy.

The Flemish government is also aware of this. Flanders spends over 30 to 40 billion euros on public procurement every year. The Innovative Public Procurement Programme (PIO) wants to use this enormous purchasing power of the Flemish government and public sector more strategically for innovation.

The goal is to convince every Flemish policymaker, government manager and public sector purchaser of the added value of innovative public procurement - including circular solutions.
The process of developing and purchasing those solutions has several phases:
1. Designing the solution and analysing its feasibility on paper;
2. Developing a prototype of the new product, system or process;
3. Testing the innovative solution in a test environment, including developing a limited volume for testing purposes;
4. Assessing how effectively the innovative solution works in the real-world environment
5. Purchasing an innovative solution available on the market.
Entry is possible at any stage, depending on the market offer and the contracting authority's demand.

The PIO also calls on companies to participate. There is a special section for this on their website. You will find information there about, among other things:
- open public contracts,
- calls for market consultations: for some projects the PIO counts on your expertise to provide input for the specifications. It then organises market consultations during which you, together with the contracting authority, define the need on the basis of functionalities, help to formulate solutions for that need and map out the risks and preconditions for those solutions,
- an overview of the contracts in preparation.
Click here to visit the page for companies. 

Also interesting for those who develop innovative circular solutions: the new initiative Sandbox Flanders. As an entrepreneur, do you have a product or technology (Minimum Viable Product) interesting for one or more government services? And would you like to test that product with the users of that government, in a short-term experiment? Then take a look at www.sandbox.vlaanderen.