Every year, Dutch public authorities (national government, provincial authorities, municipal authorities and water boards) spend more than €50 billion on goods, projects and services (Netherlands Enterprise Agency, 2014). The national government of the Netherlands, together with regional and local authorities are aiming to stimulate the market for sustainable products through purchasing sustainable goods and services. All public authorities involved have committed themselves to 100% sustainable procurement in 2015, through the use of core sustainability criteria in all its tendering and procurement processes.
The Dutch government has produced guidance for paper procurement. This includes recommendations for reducing the quantity of paper used, choosing 70gsm paper as standard and setting maximum emissions to water and air from production in line with European Ecolabel requirements (Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, 2013).
The Bulgarian Environment Ministry’s 2009 paper procurement tender required that all paper should be 100% recycled from post-consumer waste, elemental chlorine free (ECF) or total chlorine free (TCF) and accredited with either the Nordic Swan or Blue Angel ecolabel (European Commission, 2014, b).
Public bodies in Lombardy (Italy) have a framework agreement for paper purchase. This specifies that all paper must be at least 85% recycled from post-consumer waste, with maximum 15% virgin fibres that must originate from a certified sustainable source. Again paper must be ECF or TCF. Additionally they ask for packaging to be 100% recycled and paper weight should be 75gsm rather than the usual 80gsm (European Commission, 2014, b).
The Danish Central government has set a requirement for 100% sustainably sourced paper (PEFC, 2014).