This article is from page 11 of the 2006-11-14 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 11 JPG
CLARE County Council needs to exercise its “green” buying power and count the environmental cost of where it spends its money, an elected member has said.
Cllr Brian Meaney’s comments came as an international conference in Ireland heard how local authorities had the spending power to make a serious environmental difference.
Junior Environment Minister, Batt O’ Keefe, opened last week’s “Buying Green” one-day workshop on Green Public Procurement in Ireland.
The seminar took place at the Enterprise Ireland Conference Centre in Glasnevin, Dublin, and was convened by ICLEI, the international association of local governments and regional and national government organisations that have made a commitment to sustainable development.
In his opening address, the minister noted that public authorities were one of the largest consumer blocks in Europe, spending some 16 per cent of the EU’s gross domestic product.
In Ireland, the total Government purchasing budget is between €8 billion and €10 billion per annum. This gives “significant leverage” to procurers in the public sector to “move the market” towards the competitive provision of greener products and services, he said.
The Minister added, “The extent to which we integrate the environmental, economic and social dimensions of our policies will determine our future prosperity and quality of life”.
Clare County Council had no representative at the conference and just three other Irish local authorities were represented.
Green Councillor Brian Meaney said that it was “very important that we as a council consider our public procurement policy. First, we need to ensure that we are only buying materials from suppliers who are operating within the planning laws.
“It has happened in the past that this has not been the case. And we must give serious consideration to the carbon dioxide impact of what we are buying.”
A spokeswoman for the County Council’s Environmental section said that Clare County Council’s Waste Minimisation Policy is “coordinated regionally by the Regional Waste Management Office”.
She added that the region was the first to appoint a Regional Industrial Waste Minimisation Advisor.
“The Replacement Waste Management Plan for the Limerick/Clare/ Kerry Region has incorporated clear policies and targets. Objectives include to implement green procurement of office stationery in each local authority, to increase waste prevention and recycling in each local authority, to investigate tendering for the purchase of consumables on a regional basis and to reduce and reuse construction and demolition waste.”