The 2014/24/EU Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council, adopted on 26 February 2014, repeals Directive 2004/18/EC with the aim of modernising public procurement within the European Union. Its main objectives are to simplify procurement rules, promote fair competition, and encourage the strategic use of procurement to achieve social, environmental, and economic goals.

This research explores, firstly, whether and how contracting authorities have quantified the social, economic, and environmental impacts of public procurement, and secondly, whether they have established favourable policy environments to support strategic public procurement, a tool used to achieve innovation, social and green objectives.

This document is the result of desk research focused on identifying relevant case studies and conducting a literature review, with particular emphasis on cases related to Fair Trade. The research involved reviewing articles, reports from the European Commission, and case studies from EU projects, including the Horizon 2020 “School Food for Change” project and examples from the Fair Trade Towns campaign.

For more information about the FTAO's work on Public Procurement, please reach out to Paola Plaku, Senior Policy and Project Officer at plaku@fairtrade-advocacy.org.