LIFE FUTURE is a European project that involves the development and validation of the GUF Tool, which is an online tool to support public bodies on the decision making related to the purchase of more environmentally friendly urban furniture. LIFE FUTURE aims to promote green public procurement, focusing on the urban furniture sector.
The project has created the online Green Urban Furniture (GUF) Tool, focussed on environmental criteria for Urban Furniture products. This tool makes environmental criteria selection for urban furniture easier but also provides a tool for calculating and comparing the impacts these products have. The selection of urban furniture products with lower environmental impacts is facilitated for public bodies and the inclusion of such benefits linked to their products is straightforward for manufacturers.
GUF Tool allows easily generating the environmental criteria details to be include in public procurement proposals: just create an account, select the material/product of interest, choose the desired environmental criteria and create a document ready to be attached to the proposal. The GUF Tool also creates a checklist for validating the environmental criteria of the offers that bidders provide for their products.
Besides, the GUF Tool provides the list of verifiers for the environmental criteria compliance for a public procurement proposal of a urban furniture that includes environmental criteria based on the GUF Tool document.
The GUF Tool will guide users throughout the whole tender process, from the generation of the environmental requirements that they must include in the call for public tenders to the comparative environmental assessment of the products offered by different suppliers.
The DEMO version has reached the next level and the GUF TOOL functionalities designed at the beginning are fully operative. In addition to an easy selection of environmental criteria for urban furniture products, different templates have been created for manufacturers and providers to demonstrate their compliance with those criteria.
After deciding to conduct a Green Public Procurement process on urban furniture, a public administration can choose various criteria to be fulfilled by the product(s) they are willing to procure and attach them to the tender. Manufacturers can then navigate the GUF TOOL, browse the active biddings, and post their offers of interest.
You can access the tool here.