How to combat the climate change with EU Public Procurement law - Mandatory obligations or award criteria?

Abstract: There are great challenges we have to face in the environmental and climate field, especially when greenhouse gas emissions are changing the conditions for human life and impacting biodiversity. The main reason resulting in climate change is greenhouse gas emissions during production and consumption of goods and services. The Green Public Procurement (hereafter GPP) acts as a powerful tool to reach sustainable development goal—to combat climate change, since it stimulates public authorities to procure goods, services and works with a reduced environmental impact throughout the life cycle. EU legislations have set mandatory obligations to alleviate the climate crisis in the process of public procurement in certain areas, such as infrastructure, food and catering services, vehicles and energy-using products. Meanwhile, there are flexible award criteria for stakeholders who take environmental externalities into consideration. In this thesis the author will (1) explore the underlying factors affecting climate change and GPP policy in EU level; (2) identify mandatory obligations in different sectors for environmental externalities; (3) elaborate the application of environmental award criteria in case law and comparison among different stages; (4) set out the balance of economic and environmental goals from practices. How to combat climate change with GPP tools while maintaining the economic benefits with mandatory obligations or award criteria is the research question the author will investigate.