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About MVI criteria

Sustainable public procurement

Sustainable public procurement (SPP) means utilising your procurement to achieve greater sustainability and avoid a negative environmental and social impact. Using this tool, you will quickly collect the latest SPP criteria for your procurement document. You can choose selection criteria, award criteria and also contract provisions. Additionally, you can make selections from three ambition levels and will also see the relevant sustainability themes to which the criterion relates. At that point, you can download your selection. You can incorporate the downloaded texts into your tender documents.

The tool makes the job easier

The tool is an aid and makes the job easier. However, you will have to determine some things yourself, such as whether criteria need to be further specified, the verification required and the weighting to be applied for award criteria. The printout you can download ends with a table containing the unique number for each criterion. You can use these numbers for your own reference and/or enter them in the input fields of your tendering system.

Ambition levels

You may select criteria at three different ambition levels:

  1. basic
  2. significant
  3. ambitious

The procurement organisation itself decides at which level it wishes to purchase. It is also perfectly possible to combine different levels. One (basic), two (significant) or three (ambitious) green leaves are used to indicate the level of ambition for each criterion.

Explanatory notes on levels of ambition

At level 1, ""basic"", you can undergo a socially responsible procurement process quickly and easily by setting requirements. Those requirements exclude non-sustainable products, services and works and contribute towards a broad and sustainable basis in the market.

At level 2, ""significant"", more stringent requirements are formulated and you can use award criteria that reward performance to challenge the market to raise sustainability performance levels. The process is more comprehensive because the various tendering parties need to be assessed on the basis of the award criteria. You will have to determine yourself how the award criteria are assessed and describe the process. Award criteria can be identified by the abbreviation ""GC"" (gunningscriteria).

Level 3, ""ambitious"", is even more ambitious than level 2. A greater degree of involvement is required of buyers and contracting authorities during the tendering process and the contract implementation period than at level 2. The criteria proposed are less ""ready-made"" and require an assessment or attribution based on the specific situation, etc. More 'experimental"" criteria are used, such as functional criteria and criteria whose purpose is to add value (instead of simply reducing negative impact). Suggestions as well as proposals for wording are provided at level 3.Those suggestions give procuring organisations guidelines that enable them to develop the ambitions further by themselves. Suggestions can be identified by the abbreviation ""SUG"".

Themes

The themes on which a criterion has a positive impact are indicated for each criterion. The themes are as follows: * Energy and Climate (Energy);

  • Supplies and Raw Materials (Materials);
  • Soil and Water (Soil);
  • Ecology and Biodiversity (Ecology);
  • Health, Welfare and the Living Environment (Welfare);
  • Social Chain Aspects (Social);
  • Animal Welfare (Animal Welfare);
  • The Circular Economy (Circular);
  • Biobased Economy (Biobased).

Direct links

You can use the ""Direct Link"" button if you wish to share a particular criterion with others. This will generate a separate URL on a new web page that you can share.

Would you like to learn more?

Would you like to learn more about how to apply SPP properly? In that case, go to the SPP page on the Dutch Public Procurement Expertise Centre website.