With proCURE, we aimed to support small and medium-sized municipalities in better understanding sustainable procurement and implementing it in practice. The objective was to raise awareness among administrative staff and political decision-makers of the importance of sustainable procurement and to provide them with concrete, easy-to-use materials. The project aimed to close existing knowledge gaps, particularly regarding legal, organisational and practical questions. At the same time, sustainable procurement was to be more firmly integrated into vocational education and further training for administrative staff. For this purpose, a handbook, a toolbox, a curriculum, teaching materials and a train-the-trainer course were developed. A further objective was to promote joint sustainable procurement among several municipalities, enabling them to pool resources and implement sustainability criteria more easily. Overall, proCURE aimed to build competences, make knowledge available in the long term and support municipalities in contributing to climate protection, resource conservation and sustainable development.
We applied for proCURE because small and medium-sized municipalities play an important role in sustainable development, while sustainable procurement is often still difficult to implement in practice. Public authorities have significant purchasing power and, through their procurement decisions, can promote climate protection, resource conservation, fair working conditions and sustainable economic structures. At the same time, many municipalities face concrete needs: a lack of specialist knowledge, uncertainty regarding legal possibilities, limited human resources and a lack of practical training and working materials. Sustainable procurement has also so far been only insufficiently integrated into vocational education and further training for administrative staff. proCURE was developed to close these gaps. The project supports municipalities, administrative staff, political decision-makers and educational institutions with practical materials, training activities, a curriculum, a train-the-trainer course and procedures for joint sustainable procurement.