Global Scale-Up Programme 2.0

The GSUP 2.0 Challenges

Here are the two challenges that we will be focussing on this year. We have continued the environmental theme. The first challenge explores the issue around helping redefine natural capital to give communities the tools for better decision-making on making use of natural resources. The second focusses more towards helping the public sector procure greener services - encouraging ‘green govtech’. These challenges are global issues and resonate in different ways in different parts of the world. Like last year, they are broad challenges thus allowing for a spectrum of solutions that tackle different elements of the challenges.  

Challenge 1: Adaptation and Green Growth

How can communities use data and technology to make ‘nature-smart’ choices and drive scalable green growth?

Overview

There are two elements to this challenge. The first is about enabling communities to make ‘nature-smart’ decisions regarding the use of their natural capital - be that land, coastal or marine ecosystems. That might include tools that re-conceptualise and redefine natural, economic and social value in creative ways. The natural extension of this is then giving the public sector the tools to support green growth entrepreneurship.

Why this is important

Nature-smart decisions

Communities are on the frontlines of climate change impacts, yet rarely do they and other local actors have a voice in the decisions that most affect them. We need to shift the status quo from current top-down approaches to a new model where local actors have greater power and resources to adapt and build resilience to climate changes. 

While governments see protected areas as key to addressing biodiversity loss, protected areas are often overlooked in economic development plans and economic recovery strategies. The global decline of biodiversity and ecosystem services is an economic development issue: economies, particularly in low-income countries, cannot afford the risk of collapse in the services provided by nature. 

Meeting local, regional, national and global growth ambitions requires us to manage a range of assets or ‘capitals’ at the same time, short and long-term. To be effective, decisions rely on both climate and non-climate data to contextualise decisions, feedback mechanisms to evaluate their effectiveness and aid in their future development. It also requires appropriate stakeholder capacities to translate these services into effective actions. 

In delivering the environmental, economic and societal returns,  a balancing act is required. What tools or products are there to help communities and governments manage this balance, by ensuring that the necessary information is available and taken into account by decision makers? How can communities make more informed ‘nature-smart’ decision-making as they seek to influence policymakers who face the complex balancing-act involving the management of Natural Capital within their local ecosystems? 

Green growth entrepreneurship

The OECD defines green growth as “fostering economic growth and development, while ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies”. In essence, green growth is economic growth that has positive social and environmental impacts.

There are emerging examples of projects and funding being allocated to communities to promote climate resilience in such a way that leads to positive social and economic outcomes. These include resilient agriculture, community-based adaptation, payments and services across land, coastal and maritime ecosystems. 

Building on the ‘nature-smart’ data, what tools and systems are available to governments, municipalities and communities to accelerate, promote and support green growth entrepreneurship? 

What collaboration is required across borders between sectors including urban development, environment and parks, private companies, governments and public entities, urban and rural planning organisations, and the communities affected by these challenges? How do we take these motivations, create the right conditions and business models for entrepreneurs to drive sustainable and inclusive growth, and create and foster economic opportunities, environmental protection and social value?

Target customer/end user

• Communities (parties who have a say in their local ecosystem)

• Governments, public sector organisations, economic development agencies, social enterprises

References 

Banking on Protected Areas : Promoting Sustainable Protected Area Tourism to Benefit Local Economies, World Bank. 2021

The Economic Case for Nature : A Global Earth-Economy Model to Assess Development Policy Pathways, World Bank, 2021

UNSDG 11, Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

The Blue Economy,: a sustainable ocean economic paradigm. UNDP, 2018

Natural capital for governments: what, why and how. Capitals Coalition,  2019 

World Bank Waves Programme

Green Growth and Sustainable Development, OECD

What is green entrepreneurship and why is it important? | European Development Institute (eudi.eu)

Challenge 2: Green Public Procurement (GPP)

How can data and technology help the public sector procure greener services and reduce the environmental impact of the supply chain?

Overview

This challenge is about the role public procurement has in delivering sustainable services. Again, there are two elements to this. The first is about giving service delivery teams and operational leadership teams the visibility to understand the environmental impact of their supply chains. The second element is about enabling public sector to strategically inform and plan the procurement and delivery of services by evaluating the sustainability outcomes of the services they want to procure and deliver.

Why this is important

Visibility of supply chains

The environmental impact in the supply chain is broader than simply focussing on low-carbon: air quality and pollution, water use and availability and pollution, waste, land use including deforestation and toxic waste, as well as energy generation and use, are all crucial factors.

There is an absence of monitoring systems giving service delivery teams and operational leadership teams the visibility to understand the environmental impact of their supply chains and the external impacts of their supply chains beyond their own operations. 

Public procurement wields enormous purchasing power: it represents an average of 12% of GDP in OECD countries and 14.5% in low-income countries, and offers a valuable opportunity to gear public expenditures towards green growth and contribute to the achievement of sustainability goals. No occasion should be missed to guide public procurement expenditures towards efficient sustainable choices in products, services and public works. The integrity and economic efficiency of procurement remain critical. 

So how can we give service delivery teams and the supporting procurement teams greater visibility of their supply chain’s environmental footprint and support green public procurement?

Informing strategic planning of procurements

Currently, public procurement – which is generally guided by the principles of fairness, transparency, openness, and non-discrimination – is evolving into a strategic instrument aimed at fostering sustainable development and contributing to market transformation. It can therefore play a critical role in promoting the inclusive and sustainable economic growth upheld by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and contribute to SDG Target 12.7: Sustainable Public Procurement. 

The problem is that there are obstacles to implementing Green Public Procurement. These include the perception in government that green products and services may be more expensive than conventional ones. Often public officials lack the technical knowledge of integrating environmental standards in the procurement process - and might also be restricted by local procurement regulations. And then there is the absence of monitoring systems to evaluate if approaches meet goals outlined. To note, this is not about changing regulations but supporting strategic commissioning.

Target customer/end user

• Public sector is a large share of a market e.g. construction, health, public transport, it can be a major driver for wider innovations and positive environmental impacts;

• But also at a national and macro level, understanding GPP is important for regulation, tax and national policy decisions;

• Tools, products and services that can be used by both the procurement teams, and the procuring service delivery teams.

  

References 

A Global Procurement Partnership for Sustainable Development : An International Stocktaking of Developments in Public Procurement, World Bank (2022)

Going Green - Best Practices for Public Sector Procurement. OECD (2015)

Sustainable Development Goal 12.7 Sustainable Public Procurement. UNDP (2022)

The Role of Public Procurement in Low-carbon Innovation. OECD (2016)

Global Review of Sustainable Public Procurement (OnePlanet, UNDP, 2017) 

Starting at the source: Sustainability in supply chains, McKinsey