lMarta Andhov (00:00):

Welcome to Bestek, the public procurement podcast. Today, we will be talking about the Green Deal and public procurement.

About Bestek (00:14):

Welcome to Bestek, the public procurement podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Willem Janssen and Dr. Marta Andhov discuss public procurement law issues, the love of food, and academic life. In each episode, WiIlem, Marta, and their guests search for answers to intriguing public procurement questions. This is Bestek, let’s dish up public procurement law.

Marta Andhov (00:35):

Hi Willem!

WiIlem Janssen (00:41):

Good afternoon. How are you?

Marta Andhov (00:43):

Good. How about yourself?

Willem Janssen (00:45):

I’m all good. I’m excited to talk about the Green Deal, public procurement, all these types of stuff, but maybe you could guide our listeners through some of the thoughts that we had for today’s episode. Sure. So, our menu for today is as: the main meal. So, the substance, the main substantial part, we want to discuss, the issues associated with the Green Deal and how it impacts the public procurement and our thoughts on these matters. And then a sour dessert, Lauer, happy fun time. We’ll be talking a little bit about life as an academic after the COVID-19. So, touching upon some of the issues of Green Deal, actually in terms of our travel, if we’ll be still going for research stays and conferences, etc. So that’s what is the main idea for today. To set us on this as we tend to always go back to the idea that we did, at least in our minds, virtually, opened a restaurant.

Marta Andhov (01:51):

I think that today is particularly interesting to discuss issue of vegetarian restaurants and vegan meals. How that, or is it, is it highly political?

Willem Janssen (02:04):

No, I actually really enjoy vegetarian food. Yeah, I have to be honest. I was one of those type of guys that had to be convinced a little bit. I mean, there’s some amazing stuff going around. I mean, like you can always wake me up for like a vegetarian Indian curry or something like that.

Marta Andhov (02:22):

There is some really, really good vegetarian and vegan food. I think that this is also in context of our further conversation later on in context of and some of the conferences and conferences. There’s many universities actually take upon themselves to also enforce this environmentally friendly approach. When they organize different, um, seminars and so on and when you got catering that is vegetarian or vegan, and I have been over the last years, introduced to some amazing foods. So, thumbs up.

WiIlem Janssen (02:57):

It’s funny. You should say that cause I never really thought about it, but that’s also the standard at Utrecht university where you the status quo is vegetarian and vegan. If you want meat, I have to click the meat option on the order form for seminars and conferences, I think is great. It works well.

Marta Andhov (03:13):

I think so. Okay. But before we sort of go to our preferences, food wise and travel wise, let’s talk some procurement. So, the Green Deal, um, how about Willem you set us set us on the right course?

Willem Janssen (03:30):

Yeah. So, I think, um, obviously that’s been all the talks since last December, on the 11th of December in 2019, the European Commission kind of, um, set out their green targets or objectives for the coming years the European green deal and like similar to the American, uh, version of that, which perhaps, is a bit more ambitious, but, let’s not debate that in this episode. I think there’s also, um, uh, legal implications and more in particular public procurement law implications, which I thought would be fun to discuss today. Um, now the main objective is to make Europe, the first continent to be climate neutral by 2050. And, uh, perhaps not surprisingly public procurement has been put in the spotlight again to reach those objectives. Um, so, my first thoughts when I read the document and perhaps, we can just briefly skim through what it said in relation to procurement. Interestingly the commission emphasized again, uh, that buyers should make sustainable decision and reduce the risk of greenwashing, which I thought was interesting, kind of what the commission had already been saying. But then I think, and this is what sparked my attention. The commission said, and I quote: “Public authorities, including the EU institutions should lead by example and ensure that their procurement is green, the commission will propose further legislation and guidance on green public purchasing., Um, so I think there’s two things that happen here… is one, the trend-setting role of contracting authorities is emphasized yet again, and, uh, more legislation is coming and more guidance, and perhaps even to ensure that public procurement is green. I think that’s something to take into account, or at least to pay attention to when we see what the commission will actually propose in terms of legislation in the, in the months to come.

Marta Andhov (05:51):

Yeah, definitely. Um, just to also highlight how Green Deal in a broader sense attaches a certain economical value, so to speak, to European union. It’s also this point when they…. Making the, …. actually through achieving this, climate change targets, we are to become as a region, more competitive on the market through being the sustainable market, right? So, on the one hand side increasing the quality of life of a citizen, but at the same time become more competitive. Before we dive into more detail on that I think that it’s good to put it in context, right? So it’s good to reflect a little bit on what we had until now and what changes and just to play a devil’s advocate, in this regards, um, I would want to hear Willem your opinion, how this is different, or it’s actually not to what we had in current state binding us one way or another and that was the strategy for Europe 2020, which was ….envisioned in envisioned and sorry, I cannot speak today from whatever reason,…. envisioning the sort of progression innovation, et cetera, et cetera. Because in certain way, the, you know, there could be a line of arguing that this is just something that replaces this and actually it has the same legal value, meaning that it’s a strategy, but actually there’s not really a legally binding obligation or mandate there.

Willem Janssen (07:40):

Yeah, it’s a good, uh, good question. I think, um, I think it’s partially the same, I think in terms of objectives, there’s a lot of the same, uh, I mean, it’s obviously very green and it takes one further step, and there’s been a lot of debate about if it’s green enough in terms of the role of public procurement. I think so far we don’t see any changes, right? We’re still shooting at a moving target. We haven’t seen any concrete changes in the law, obviously. Uh, I think that would also be quite ambitious to already expect that by now. We still see that strong policy push or the European commission, which I think is interesting, uh, to use public procurement. So, even though it might not be set in stone in the law, the Commission has always been at the forefront of stimulating contracting authorities on the national level to include secondary or horizontal objectives in their procurements.

Marta Andhov (08:37):

So would you say that with this green deal, we have more emphasis on green versus other aspects of sustainable development in comparison with Europe 2020, because Europe 2020 was strongly emphasizing the social, the environment, but also quite heavily, I would say innovation. My impression with the green deal is: Did we actually… we refer of course to innovation, competitiveness given through innovation and this notion of not leaving anyone behind, so this sort of social inclusion, social justice, but it seems that it’s quite strong push for focusing on environment.

Willem Janssen (09:18):

Yeah. I think if you read the whole green deal, I think what you’ll see that it is quite balanced, but what’s interesting when we then see, look at the sections on public procurement, it’s very much focused on green. It’s not this whole social, the balance that I think is important in terms of sustainable development. You know, you have to take all aspects into account, but perhaps this can actually be solved by contracting authorities on the national level when they set up their procurements, because they’re going to be the ones that have to implement it anyway, and they would then have to balance all of these objectives in their purchasing strategy. Um, and then we could still come up with a suitable balance between social, economic and ecological, right? So, I agree with you actually, that the focus is very much on green in light of climate change. Um, but, but there is a, perhaps a certain disbalance there, or at least it’s a point of attention, I think. Yeah.

Marta Andhov (10:18):

Well, I think that there is something also to be said that historically we in Europe tend to focus more on promoting environmental aspects rather than social. And this is actually quite interesting to discuss with you because I know we had these shots before the Netherlands, the social dimension is also quite strongly emphasized. The labor issues also in Denmark are quite strongly emphasized, but it seems that on EU level, this…, And I wonder if it, again, does not strike from this assumption of a fear that, you know, social consideration very quickly can come across as protectionism mechanism and favoring local suppliers. If there is something there…. but let’s just set us up. So, where we are today in context of regulatory system when we talking about environmental, when we talking about sustainable procurement, are we obliged to procure that way? What you think?

Willem Janssen (11:16):

That’s a tough question because everyone can’t see you smile right now, but you’re like: I’ll put the ball in front of the goal and I’ll let him shoot, and then actually I’ll catch the ball right when he’s finished talking. So, everyone prepare Marta is about to go off. Um, I let’s maybe cover the groundwork. I think we probably both agree if we don’t, please correct me. The general system in EU public procurement law when we talk about sustainability has always focused on possibilities. And what I mean by that it’s focused on allowing contracting authorities to include sustainability objectives in their procurements to not only fulfill their initial needs, but to also achieve sustainability goals, right? Tables with FSC labels, or perhaps if we think social long-term unemployed, that helped construct roads, right? Those are probably the most classic examples. Now, the last time we saw that was mostly in 2014, when we had the revamp of the directives.

Willem Janssen (12:20):

I think that’s when we saw a legislative milestone in terms of the possibilities, right? You guys wrote a great book on lifecycle costing. That’s something that is, uh, I think, uh, something we’ll see more of in the future, but the focus was on possibilities and not in general, I just stress in general on obligations to where they were contracting authorities had to do it. They would always have the discretion on the national level to decide based on their purchasing strategy, administrative means, et cetera, to do it. Now, there’s been some scholarship of which you’ve contributed, and I’ve contributed to myself as well, in which we explored…. Where we looked at the directives and also primary law to see, well, actually, it’s a focus on possibilities, but aren’t there also a couple of obligations there. Um, and that’s where discussions on Article 11 of the Treaty come in of the, of the Working Treaty Article 69(3), Article 18(2) uh, come up and also provisions on the national level.

Willem Janssen (13:26):

So Article 1.4 (2) of the Dutch public procurement act (Aanbestedingswet), obliges contracting authorities to procure as much, societal value, whatever that may be, for their public expenditure. Before I let go of the ball and you start shooting. My general impression of those provisions are… I think, because it hasn’t been a systemic focus that they’re inherently flawed. So, they’re either unclear, they’re not focused towards the right actors. So, say contracting authorities. So, they might be obligations for the Member states or that, like I said, they’re unclear, or they, they still leave a bit of discretion. And that varies between these provisions. So, it’s not a one size fits all, but I think because of that, and perhaps because enforcement is difficult, along the supply chain. So, there’s all sorts of things that you can come up with. Um, they’re flawed, which means that even though we have some obligations, I don’t think that they actually work.

Marta Andhov (14:37):

Yes, no, no, no. I think, I think that we absolutely agree on that. There’s no doubt about that but let me just throw in some of the thoughts that I think that I feel quite strongly about emphasizing. Some of them is… just… Because I could go on around for half an hour about it and we don’t have time for it, but I just want to point out here that the question hall about availability, the possibility, or even obligation of these issues within European public procurements and by European public procurements, and we mean the ones that are above the threshold. Often the criticism comes across saying: Well, this is not objective of procurement. This is something…. Deal with it… The other areas of law or in a very limited manner, they are actually, or they should be allowed. We can see that over the last two decades, probably there have been certain shift in approach of European Court of Justice in the, um, within Lisbon treaty, also opening and having, and this understanding of European union being something more than just solely the economic market.

Marta Andhov (15:50):

And I think that this is for me and always been in my work, a very important element, because I think also when we are understanding value for money within procurement contracts, I always say that we just need to understand that broader and the big starting point in all this conversation is that government buying is not the same as private company buying. And that just to set the conversation, I think to point it out where I’m standing at, when we are looking at those things, and I very much agree with you that even if there are certain provisions, Article 11 of the treaty is one of them that uses a language that could suggest that there is an obligation, most presumably, would use the language that shall consider environmental policies in whatever the European union is doing and issuing.

Marta Andhov (16:41):

I think that the big issue of all these provisions is, as you mentioned, how generally it is written. So, how we can actually enforce them? And also, what we can see is the way how all these elements are actually being used in procurements, they are used to sort of tick the boxes. But if you start talking to contracting authorities, it’s not ever, at least, I never heard about case in which someone would terminate the contract because the sustainability clauses within procurement have not been, uh, obey to. You always renegotiate, you always so to speak, slap the suppliers on hands and I think that that’s where the core issue lies. The only one that is truly, I think, undeniably obligatory provision within the classic directive that we’re looking at is, um, Article 69.3, which is on abnormally low tenders, which points out that if you’re in a breach of the sustainable laws that we generally can refer to, which are included in the procurement principles in Article 18.2, the contracting authority is obliged to exclude you from procurement process if, your offer is abnormally low due to those breaches, and you cannot anyhow argument, um, convincingly on it, right?

Willem Janssen (18:08):

The difficulty still is with that. So, I agree that’s probably the clearest one, but what I still… At least what I see in Dutch practice as well is its really difficult provision to work with. Because one, you have to prove that it’s an abnormally low bid, which is already difficult without any of the sustainability stuff and then two, you have to prove that it’s actually an abnormally low bid because of the violation specific. So, say to give an example, say child labor was used in the production process of workloads for a municipal waste collection agency. It would be very hard to do both things to one say if it’s an abnormally low bid and it’s caused by simply the fact that child labor was used, right? So, I think even though that’s one of these great black letters of law, but I don’t actually, I mean, I would not know how to, I mean, I can think of ways to do it, but the question is, would contracting authorities have the time and resources to do it.

Marta Andhov (19:12):

Yeah. And I think that you are hitting the nail here and lot of the conversations. So, I think that you generally deal with two types of contracting authorities, right? The ones that ask you:” Do I really have to? “And those are the ones that, in principle, kind of don’t want to dive into any of those issues and the ones that probably have enough political push and strategical sort of push from the management of the organization to say: “Yeah, we really wanted, but how we actually do that?” In the first and in the second scenario, actually, all of it is about resources, right? Resources and capacities. How you as a contracting authority are going to, to follow up, um, and actually assess those, uh, those elements? So, yeah, we generally have, this provisions Article 18.2 is particularly interesting because it’s…. I wrote extensively at this point on this…., Which is a part on, on procurement principles.

Marta Andhov (20:12):

So, it questions really the legal value of the provision, and we even… actually… had a very recent case, from 2018 onTim SpA (C-395/18), for the first time touching, not indirectly because they are actually discussing specifically this provision. It’s, it’s about exclusions…. But sort of brings in….and I really look forward to seeing more this article being brought into the case law to see what the court will say on this. Then how green deal changes anything in this regard? What can we get out of it? Do you think that we’re dealing with those certain paradigm shifts?

Willem Janssen (21:00):

Well, I was old enough to put it in an article, but this might come back to bite me. It’s tricky.

Willem Janssen (21:08):

Yeah. I mean, I think the… And also, perhaps it’s, because I think the EU can do more in terms of legislative action, but we can come back to that. I think what’s, what’s interesting. I spoke about that ensure that they mentioned so they ensure that public authorities procure green and then the more recently the European Green Deal investment plan came out. That really got me excited bit nerdy excited, obviously, because I haven’t convinced my wife that this is something to get excited about It basically says and quote, again:” The commission will propose minimum mandatory green criteria or targets for public procurements in sectoral initiatives, EU funding or product-specific legislation, such minimum criteria will de facto set a common definition of what a green purchase is. “Then the commission refers to all of the supporting efforts. But it’s, it’s quite a big thing for the commission to say:” We will propose minimum mandatory green criteria and targets.” Particularly because it tried to do that already in the…

Willem Janssen (22:17):

… the clean vehicles where it actually implemented it, but also it proposed it in the, in the green paper prior to the new directives or I shouldn’t say new, but the 2014 directives, when it tried to, at least, inquire from the Member States;” Should we regulate what to buy?” and not just go about how to buy things at the national level. At the time that was a struck down. I mean there was a cut, there were a couple of positive responses from civil society. Probably not surprisingly, but to say this in this document, at least it’s, I wouldn’t say that obviously we don’t have a paradigm shift yet. There’s still a lot of stuff to be done, but, um, the, the commission at least is, it seems willing to, to push further than the current system that we have in probably procurement.

Marta Andhov (23:01):

Well, I think that there’s also something to be said. Whenever I speak with contracting authorities, particularly those that are very skeptical and don’t want to touch any of those things. And they say,” Oh, it’s policy. We don’t have to do it.” I always try to convince them that it’s really good to start and start small to get acquainted with these good practices and how you can actually do it in compliance with procurement law, because we systematically move from really questioning if that’s possible at all to right now, you know, being in this stage, I think with the new, with the 2014 directives, really strongly promoted. We’d never saw as many mentions of environmental and social aspects in the directive before the newest documentation coming from the commission really sort of it seems… If I were to predict is that we are moving towards reaching at some point, really the element in which we will have some of those, provisions mandatory through the mandatory regulating.

Marta Andhov (24:08):

Of course, here the balance is between, on the one hand side, I’m guessing a lot of Member States are saying subsidiarity, let us do it our way, how we want to do it. But I do think that there’s something to be said that I’m doing it on the European level creates a certain European standard and that European standard would feed to this idea of us being a sustainable market and by being sustainable market, that will be sort of our branding for EU and our competitive advantage. At the same time, I think that also feeds to this notion that, um, the equal treatment and non-discrimination is much clearer. It so to speak gets rid of this, uh, risk of trying to argue:” Oh, you using these environmental criteria or standards to discriminate against foreign suppliers. ” I think that there is something to be said there.

Willem Janssen (25:04):

Yeah, for sure. I totally agree if only the argument of impact, right? So perhaps you could say, Yeah, maybe it’s not… We didn’t do it this way and use… you could use legal basis. You could use the competence of the internal market. You could get very lawyerly about it, but ultimately you could also say: Well, the challenge of climate change is so massive and public procurement is in the right spot. If we can actually say that it’s the most effective tool to tackle it, then an European wide approach would actually be far more effective than the national approaches or could be far more effective than that. I mean, I do see issues with this EU approach. Mostly is on what would be the role of the different actors then, right? The Netherlands is not shy of climate litigation, probably one of the most successful cases or again, and the question is: How does this work then? Um, so just when I play this tape in my head, I think, okay, well, it would be very effective to have obligations, but obligations are only worth our while perhaps other than sociological effects, if we would introduce them, where they’re actually enforceable in court. So, competitors would be able to claim that actually your procurement wasn’t sustainable enough.

Willem Janssen (26:36):

That actually takes chips away a lot of discretion that contracting authorities have. That’s one, perhaps that’s not an issue, and two: What is sustainable enough? And of course, then be able to judge it, right?

Marta Andhov (26:51):

Well, that’s the one thing, but I think that another element specifically, also when we are talking about environmental aspects and external measures or external elements within assessing, you know, let’s say life cycle, life cycle costing, right? It becomes extremely technical, methodological and some of our colleagues also who would criticize sort of the sustainability and procurement, the first place they will say: Well, it costs a lot and also how effective it is?” Do we actually have measures to ensure that actually we achieved while we intended to? And I think that that’s what we still lacking. The methodology is not there yet. Though at the same time, when I speak with some of the private companies within private procurements, when some of those things work very well. They’re saying: “It is, but contracting authorities are risk averse and they are not willing to take certain steps to use the, what is available in the market in one way or another.”

Marta Andhov (27:54):

So, I think that we are, for sure, in the stage where possibilities are there, and the many contracting authorities do fantastic job of really trying to incorporate them. Where I lack is really a follow-up. So, we moving right now to contractual stage, contract management, this sort of auditing of these elements, because that becomes very problematic, you know, to sort of, um, tease you a bit talking about sustainable coffee, right? Let’s say we procured sustainable coffee and that was very important for us…ethical trade coffee. Now I envision…I’m not… I like coffee, but I don’t think that I could probably taste in a cup of coffee if it’s coming from the sustainable sources or not. So, in what point…. And…. Let’s say that you got, you know, creative supplier that mid-through contract implementation phase decides:” Oh, I can actually save because I can just supply them with just, you know, regular coffee.” If you not check like you need to, if you say A you need to say B, you need to somehow introduce also checks and balances later on to really ensure that you’re getting what you procured and at the same time to ensure that this, uh, competitive element has been uphold, right? But at that, I mean, the standard that you procured under competitive environment is still delivered later on.

Willem Janssen (29:28):

Yeah. Great point, actually it’s something that also surprised me when I did, um, a research visit during my PhD at George Washington University where they have these two Bibles: formation of pub of government contract and they’ve also got administration of government contracts, just to stick. I find that, or at least I do it myself, is… I mostly focus on the formation part. Whereas perhaps the most benefits that we can actually achieve or in the, in the administration, right? The contract phase or…

Marta Andhov (29:59):

Well, I think that those two are super connected, right? Because if we are not doing anything in a contract management phase, then all these elements that we are discussing and are so passionate about becomes just checking box exercise and this version of greenwashing. It’s like, yeah, yeah, we are doing all of that, but are you really, becomes a certain fake plaque that you point towards, which doesn’t have that much value.

Willem Janssen (30:30):

We’re actually, we haven’t been too bad actually. I think when we have a glass of wine in our hands, it’s actually worse than… How polite we are at the moment. I think what’s, um, uh, …This is one thing that one final thing that I wanted to say about this, even though there’s more to discuss, but I think this gives like a good overview, at least the discussions that was supposed to have in the next couple of years is also like the, the Dutch government has responded to these plans and they’re going for the targets basically, they’re saying: Well, these are my own words but….in response to the circular economy action plan, they also respond to these minimum criteria and targets that could be set at the EU level. Basically, they say: Well, we’re in favor of EU wide targets, but not in favor of criteria or further legislation because…, And I think the argument was; If you regulate too much, it, it hinders innovation. I think same with these targets. I mean, there’s a lot to be said about what option is better, right? I don’t think we can touch upon that today, but I think also with targets, this whole auditing and monitoring aspect is of vital importance, because targets can become political instruments very quickly if there’s no strict monitoring and no clear definitions about what you’re actually monitoring….

Marta Andhov (31:54):

…And what fulfils that target, right? How is that valuable? Yeah. Just to add to finished up part of a general, element. I think also a lot has been…so this is interesting what you’re saying about innovation, because I heard that comment before, and I think that, okay, I’m trying to structure my thought not to take another 15 minutes.

WiIlem Janssen (32:16):

Are you getting passionate?

Marta Andhov (32:18):

I’m getting very passionate. One thing to say is that I think it also is understandable that the Commission starts to go this way because they invested quite a lot in this collaborative approach about establishing green award criteria in different sectors, right? They invested in and they got stakeholders from different Member States, and we have award criteria developed for computers, for light bulbs, light systems, all these different things that you guys can find, whoever is actually a similar to us and on the Commission’s website. Your wife, mine and my mum, maybe.

Willem Janssen (33:01):

My dad generally listens, but I don’t know if the English is going to put him off, but the Dutch episodes he’s always listened to, but if you’re listening, hi dad.

Marta Andhov (33:09):

Yeah, there you go. So, I think that’s a natural progression, that they say, okay, we need to take it somewhere. Then the second point that I would want to make is to say, I’m not entirely buying this thing about limiting innovation, because I think we already right now can see so many contracting authorities really pushing the agenda, really trying to do something great. Where I see potential for making more mandatory requirements is to actually get on board those members states where the contracting authorities really don’t want to touch it. It’s not about the super complicated one, but really consider recyclable, let’s say materials or things like that. The third point, and I promise that’s the last one is just because you mentioned Netherlands in context of Denmark, we have guidance on social, clauses and procurement actually. It is also establishing this obligation on public contractors to consider this social causes on education and internship agreements in procurement, in accordance with this principle that we refer to as follower explain. This is also an interesting thing. I don’t know if that’s similar the Netherlands, but up here it’s obligation, but it’s one of those obligations that does not really have a legal consequence. I spoke with many practitioners, and they say, it’s not really something that again, you terminate contract or you, it’s not really emphasized to that point.

Willem Janssen (34:34):

We actually… it’s…I think it’s relatively similar. We call it complier explains. I think it’s relatively the same, but it’s mostly related to this provision that I mentioned briefly. I wrote an article about this with Gerrieke Bouwman, a colleague of mine in public procurement law review and basically our conclusion is: is even though…the provision is there also, we the same thing with, with clustering of contracts. So, we also have to comply or explain in the Netherlands. I won’t go too deep into that, but all I could say is that very often these things become a great way to start the conversation in a contracting authority, but if they’re actually helpful as a competitor to use before the courts, not really. That’s a good, perhaps we’ve already found three or four episodes that we should do after this, but I’ve been writing them down.

Marta Andhov (35:30):

Good, good. Um, okay. Let’s, let’s wrap it up when it comes to our main topic, our main course, for today. As you mentioned, there’s so much more to talk about, but we need to somehow have in mind, some sort of structure and timeline. Let’s bring us to our happy, fun times, our dessert and that’s, we sort of, I guess, tying our previous episodes with what we’re doing today, a little bit of everything. That is to, to reflect on academic life after COVID-19, in terms of travel in terms of how our job will change. I guess that’s also indirectly touching upon what we have been discussing today, which is a little bit of climate change and environmental elements, right?

Willem Janssen (36:21):

Yeah, for sure. I think it also, like, it might put a stick in the whole idea of this podcast, because we said we’re going to make a podcast that has to go about that. Or like the setup is the conversations that you have after the conferences. We only do online conferences. You want to have those chats afterwards anymore, unless you like pour yourself a glass of wine, but even though I’ve done these drinks at Friday nights with friends and with colleagues, they’re not the same. So, it’s a tricky. I think some things will change, or at least what I’m noticing personally, it’s, I did a webinar on podcasting and science. There are some advantages to it, right? There’s a lot of internationals that can join there’s, no travel costs, it’s great for a quality of researchers, right? Some might have a lot of means to travel others don’t and if you can just log in from your home, that’s totally equal.

Marta Andhov (37:10):

It absolutely democratizes sort of the access to those conferences. If we have in mind… let’s just for the sake of the conversation, assume that actually you do need to pay to participate in the conference, your cost is of travel. In that sense, if you can just log on to webinars, different setups, then that really doubles or triples, maybe even your participation amount straight.

Willem Janssen (37:37):

Yeah, for sure. So, you might reach people that you would have never reached before as an academic. So, the debate might also be richer.

Marta Andhov (37:44):

Absolutely. At the same time, that can also take some of those points that in academia, our bosses are very happy about, which is that you get a larger dissemination of your research, right? Bigger societal impact, hopefully, if you suddenly have access to much wider audience.

Willem Janssen (38:03):

Yeah. So those are, I think some of the benefits that I see it’s also in terms of cost to organize them, it’s relatively inexpensive. Less tasty and less fun perhaps. I mean, you basically, whether you do it through zoom with teams or whatever application you use, the hurdles, I think, are a lot lower. The question, I think I do have, is two things. If the debate is still as vivid as when you see each other? For some conferences, I feel like, I leave, and I thought it was useless because I felt like people were presenting their paper and nothing more and I read the paper already, and then, you know, I could ask a couple of questions, but you know, it doesn’t add much. That says more about the structure of the conference rather than anything, anything else. I promised you two things and I’ve forgotten the second one. Maybe you can bump into the…

Marta Andhov (39:05):

… second and that is relationship, building the relationship.

Willem Janssen (39:10):

You were looking me in the face, and I forgot about that. Sorry about that.

Marta Andhov (39:13):

Yeah, no, I do think because there is something, uh, you know, there is undoubtedly many, many advantages of doing it this way. Also, for climate. Also, for, I guess family lives, you know, people have children and families, if you suddenly go somewhere, it can actually impact also the cost structure of your family life, et cetera, et cetera. So, there is many, many positives, but I do think that there are also some disadvantages and I wonder how we solve that because the question that I would ask you is, which I think you answered one way or another is, you know; Why you really go for the conferences? And I think at this point in my career, why I go to this conference stuff, after being on, you know, many of them, is actually to be able to see my colleagues, the ones that I know already and meet new people and actually for the conference conversations that happens in between the presentation. So, if that’s lunch or coffee breaks or those famous conference dinners, that we sort of raised to such a height.

Marta Andhov (40:26):

But yeah, because I think that there is something scary. Um, I think also about being very vulnerable, very open, through let’s say zoom or any type of webinar that is recorded and it’s going to be somewhere on the internet at the end of your day, you might be automatically more, um, worry about what questions you want to post or what common you want to make, because I think maybe it comes to your mind, like if, if particularly if it’s area that you sort a know, but you’re not a hundred percent, if I’m going to make that comment, if I’m going to make a fool out of myself or not. I think that, you know, that’s something that has a disadvantage, I think, in this online.

Willem Janssen (41:18):

Yeah, for sure. So, I think I would want, I would miss them. The question is, is if that personal need is bigger than saving the world from like destruction in terms of climate change, probably not.

Marta Andhov (41:30):

Well, I would want to argue that we just should take trains, rather than fly, you know, that that’s what we need to do, to sort of decrease or fly less, go to less events. Um, but, but for sure, building those relationships is also hugely beneficial.

Willem Janssen (41:46):

For sure. And I think, um, yeah, I mean maybe it says something about how we set up normal conferences, cause there’s not a single person that I’ve met so far that absolutely loves that traditional style of conferencing. Um, and maybe we can work more often with just panels, right? You write a paper, but then you actually invest in the panel discussion. So just a panel discussion and nothing else. And then people, you can actually get the debate going. I mean, it takes a lot of time, that’s the issue, right?

Marta Andhov (42:16):

Oh, for sure. I think that this is we’ll start as maybe hopefully thinking of really redefining, redesigning conferencing and how we do it and how we actually really think hardly about, where is the added value beyond, you know, presentation, because if there’s a presentation, I would totally see that you can record it on zoom as we do right now, your presentation, everyone can watch it if you don’t want to write a paper or the paper is not ready yet. But then I think maybe the debate type of thing of what we’re doing actually during this podcast, I think that you get a little bit more format or at least we hope at least we hope. Good. I think, um, I think we will wrap it up here. What’d you think?

WiIlem Janssen (43:02):

For sure. Yep. Yeah.

Marta Andhov (43:03):

Would you like to finish the episode if I started the episode?

Willem Janssen (43:08):

Not a problem. We’ll see you next time. Thank you for listening. And this was Bestek, the public procurement podcast.

About Bestek (43:17):

This was Bestek, the public procurement podcast. Do you want to contribute to today’s discussion? Then share your thoughts on LinkedIn or Twitter. Do you have an idea for a future episode? Write to us at www.bestekpodcast.com

You might also be interested in some of our spoken or published work:

• Haven’t had enough? Have a look at the presentation at a recent webinar on this topic by Willem (at 26:00 min);
• If you are interested in reform proposals to improve sustainable public procurement, read our report, co-led by Marta.
• If you would like to learn more about Life-Cycle Costing for Sustainable Public Procurement read our multidisciplinary book, edited by Marta;
• Interested in the Dutch approach to sustainability in procurement, read this article by Willem (1/2020);
• If you are interested in understanding legal significance of Article 18 (2) of the Directive 2014/24/EU and other sustainable provisions read Marta’s book chapter on strategic goals of public procurement;
• If you would like to read more about the different approaches in EU public economic law (comp., state aid and procurement law, read this co-authored article by Willem.
• If you are interested in comparative analysis of sustainability requirements in public and private procurement, see Marta’s article.

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