During the months of May, June and July 2021, GREENER partners have been carrying out interviews with public administrations and companies (mainly SMEs) with the aim to identify the skills gap and the barriers which hamper the diffusion of circular and green public procurement. In total, 28 interviews were expected to be carried out in the four countries covered by the project: Bulgaria, Italy, Spain and Belgium.
The results of the interviews will help in tailoring the future material for capacity building, especially the Initial and Continuous Vocational Education and Training (I/C-VET), and identifying a common skills framework addressed to middle management and administrative profiles in companies. The framework will detail the new skills of professional profiles involved in tendering Circular and Green Public Procurement (CPP/GPP) processes.
Two types of interview protocols were developed: for public administrations and for companies. In the case of interviews addressed to companies, some of the topics discussed were the drivers and the benefits of CPP/GPP, the skills needed or the inter-organisational relationships and green practices. The interviews with public authorities touched upon the functioning of the organization in relation to CPP/GPP, the training and skills, the policy context, or the private market.
Some of the challenges that have already been identified from the interviews are the lack of time to include circular clauses in the tender, the lack of knowledge about circular economy, poor cooperation between services and departments or knowledge about how far the procurer can go in dialoguing with the market.
