On 28 May 2026, Carbon Management Europe joined 51 other organisations in signing a joint statement calling on the European Commission to deliver a future-proof Public Procurement Act that secures strategic, resilient and value-based procurement.
Signed by 52 organisations across industry, civil society and public buyers, the joint statement outlines key recommendations to ensure public spending delivers strategic value for citizens and businesses. In this context, the signatories call for the Public Procurement Act to incorporate the following recommendations.
Recommendations on the Public Procurement Act
- Require public buyers to systematically assess offers based on best value, including quality and innovation, lifecycle costs, environmental (e.g. energy efficiency, circularity and relevant externalities) and social performance. Where this is not practicable, procurers should justify their focus on the cheapest bid.
- Deliver a straightforward, mandatory toolbox to drive efficient implementation, including robust labels and whole lifecycle costing methodologies, alongside enabling sectoral legislation to set minimum mandatory criteria in key sectors,
- Empower local and regional authorities to act as launch customers: with 45% of the EU procurement procedures managed by sub-national authorities, the Public Procurement Act should strengthen the professionalisation, guidance and capacity of public procurers at all levels of governance.
The signatories also underline that the proposed Industrial Accelerator Act represents a first, albeit modest, step towards speeding up the creation of lead markets in the EU. However, they stress that it cannot compensate for shortcomings in the existing procurement framework. Without procurement rules that systematically reward quality and long-term value, its impact will remain limited.
The joint statement therefore asks policymakers to deliver a Public Procurement Act that restricts price-only awarding and rewards best performers, while equipping public buyers with the tools and capacity needed to implement these rules effectively.