Sustainability criteria for workplace ICT hardware
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, responsible for providing IT equipment for the entire Dutch government, has set a precedent for future tenders on how to challenge the market on various sustainability aspects. The Dutch government’s mission is to make the country’s economy fully circular by 2050. By 2030, the consumption of primary raw materials should be halved. As part of this goal, all government purchases should be circular by 2023. The aim is also to ensure that the transition to a circular economy also trickles down to the Dutch governments’ own purchases, thereby using circular procurement as a way to stimulate the market.
The ministry included ambitious sustainability and circularity goals in five separate tenders prepared over a period of 1.5 years for IT equipment such as monitors, laptops and ICT workstations, iOS and MacOS devices, Android devices, and accessories and services. The contracts, collectively referred to as ICT Werkomgeving Rijk (IWR) 2021, illustrate the ability of public procurement to raise the bar on market standards for the supply of workplace hardware.
