The first Italian national networking event took place on 1st October 2014 in Rome at the Acquario Romano-Casa dell’Architettura, hosted by the International Forum of Green Procurement CompraVerde-BuyGreen. Main scope of the event was the exchange of good practices for low carbon procurement policies and low carbon procurement tenders. The event included a mix of activities:

• A plenary session that opened the GPP2020 day and the Forum;
• Three parallel working groups targeting respectively regional and central purchasing bodies, municipalities, regional administrations;
• Four thematic technical workshops selected  among those included in the training initiative GPP from A to Z and dedicated to the following themes: GPP and Covenant of Mayors, Public Lighting, Sustainable Buildings, Quantifications of costs and benefits of green tenders.

The plenary session had as a central theme the discussion on indications coming from the new EU Procurement Directive (24/2014) and from the Environmental Annex to the national Financial Law, that foresees mandatory targets for the adoption of minimum environmental criteria in public tenders, with a particular focus on those related to the procurement of products and services that have high impacts on energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Representatives of the Italian Ministry of Environment, Consip, City of Rome and Regional administrations of Sardegna, Liguria and Lazio participated in the discussion.

The working groups dealt with the following issues:

• Environmental objectives, centralised procurement and good practices;
• Low carbon procurement as a tool for implementing Sustainable Energy Action Plans;
• Green and low carbon procurement within regional policies

 
40 people signed up for the plenary session; 23 people participated in the working groups and 39 in the technical workshops.  22 public administrations and bodies were represented.