Within the framework of the XPRESS Project INSME was responsible for the organization of two co-creation workshops aiming at exploring the challenges and opportunities SMEs meet when they approach Green Public Procurement in Italy and in the United Kingdom.
During the co-creation workshops representatives from both the public and private sector shared experiences and initiatives in green public procurement by highlighting that there are many challenges to be faced in order to boost the participation of SMEs in public tenders. Attendees agreed on the fact that administrative procedures represent an obstacle to be tackled and also that there is a scarce awareness on the potential and importance of green and renewable energy. Furthermore, the values of contracts are too big and this is another obstacle to SMEs participation.
There is a lack of information about green technologies and SMEs often are not aware of the opportunities they can benefit from and public authorities struggle to find SMEs that could offer the services/products they need. The XPRESS project aims at contributing to fill this gap by developing a matchmaking tool that will facilitate to cross the demand and supply side.
The tool will be made available soon on the XPRESS website.
The consortium has recently released the first edition of its newsletter, have a look at it at this page.
Source: The International Network for SMEs - INSME
