§ Mr. SheermanTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in what ways environmentally sustainable procurement strategies within the Department have driven innovation in the design and supply of products. [159146]
§ Ms HewittI refer to the answer given by my hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment on 10 March 2004,Official Report, columns 1542–543W.
Within the framework of this overall approach, DTI is contributing towards encouraging environmental innovation through public procurement in a number of ways, including:
Participating in the development of the procurement aspects of the Framework for Sustainable Development on the Government Estate. It is expected that the forthcoming procurement section will set Government-wide commitments for embedding sustainable development considerations in Departmental procurement strategies.Taking forward the commitment in the Government's Innovation Report to ask its industry-led Innovation and Growth Teams (IGT) to identify where public procurement could better facilitate innovation and how this could be achieved, including setting up an Environmental Innovation Procurement Group (EIPG) to use procurement to drive innovation in the environmental industries.Led by the Joint DTI/Defra Environmental Markets Unit (JEMU), the EIPG comprises business and other stakeholders and is working to tackle actual and perceived barriers, such as cost, risk, skills. information and inertia to the procurement of innovative environmental technologies, products and services by the public sector.