Sustainability, equality, and social inclusion objectives will now be essential elements in the tender documents for infrastructure awarding processes in Catalonia. Public tenders will have a new orientation when assessing the suitability of candidates and determining public bidding.
The goal is to increase the economic volume of tenders that include these clauses from the current 40.6% to 50% by 2025, as approved by the board of directors of Infraestructures.cat, the public company responsible for the execution of Government works and the maintenance of facilities. The measure is part of the Catalonia Green Public Procurement Action Plan 2022-2025, approved by the Government last March.
Therefore, it will become common for potential awarding companies or entities to have to comply with environmental and social aspects. Such as, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 equivalent) in the transport of materials to the work site; valuing the supply of materials with an environmental product declaration (EPD) or valuing specific certificates on sustainable exploitation in the origin of wood and the absence of volatile products in paints.
The Government wants to increase the economic volume of bids that include these clauses from the current 40.6% to 50%On the other hand, from a more social perspective, it has been approved to value the activities outsourced to special employment centers or socio-labor insertion companies.
The measure foresees that all presented processes can be validated and for this reason it is established that they can be auditable in the execution phase of the works and that they help to raise awareness in the sector about the need to face climate change.
The price increase
Likewise, the board of directors of Infraestructures.cat has agreed to update the price bank it uses to prepare the budgets for its bids. The reason is to adapt them in accordance with the generalized increase in cost suffered by raw materials worldwide, since 2021.
The company, formerly GISA, believes it is necessary to preserve public interest and guarantee the execution and viability of the projects awarded by Infraestructures.cat, avoiding dysfunctions in the execution of contracts that could diminish their quality or even stop their provision.
This is the second price review that Infraestructures.cat has made in recent months. In fact, last October it already agreed to increase the reference prices for buildings and civil and hydraulic works by 4.51% and 4.50%, respectively, effective December 1, 2021. At that time, the increase affected materials such as steel, bitumen or wood and now others such as iron and steel products, aluminum or copper are also added.