Green Public Procurement
Criteria & tool
Towards Sustainable Public Procurement: A Tool for the Incorporation of Criteria and Their Evaluation (SPPTOOL)
Funding source: Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation – Knowledge Generation Program (PID2021-124977OB-I00)
Project duration: 2022-2025
Research Team: Mª Dolores Bovea Edo* (bovea@uji.es ), Valeria Ibáñez Forés, Marta Braulio Gonzalo; Antonio Gallardo Izquierdo, Pablo Juan Verdoy
Project overview:
The overall objective of the project is to design resources that promote the incorporation of sustainability criteria in public procurement tender specifications and facilitate their assessment during the awarding process.
This project is part of the Circular Economy Action Plan — the central axis of the European Green Pact and main promoter of the empowerment of consumers and public purchasers as a key part of the policy and demand for sustainable products. The project addresses the need to define Sustainable Public Procurement criteria and establish a clear and objective procedure for their assessment. The aim is to provide tools to facilitate the drafting of the criteria to be included in the bidding documents for contracting products, services or works, and the assessment of the criteria during the award process, in terms of the weighting of the level of importance of each criterion and the applicable assessment scale for the award.
Sustainable Building Renovation
Indicators & metrics
Measuring the Sustainability of Construction Solutions for Building Renovation: Indicators, Metrics and Assessment Scales
Funding source: Generalitat Valenciana (CIGE/2021/054)
Project duration: 2022-2023
Research Team: Marta Braulio Gonzalo* (braulio@uji.es ), Andrea Jorge Ortiz, Valeria Ibáñez Forés, Pablo Juan Verdoy
Project overview:
The general goal of the project is to develop a tool to evaluate diverse alternatives in terms of systems and constructive solutions for the rehabilitation of a building and select the optimal options, taking into account sustainability criteria. The tool will be designed to assist the various agents involved in the building process during the decision-making process, in an intuitive, objective and effective way.
The project is framed within the Circular Economy 2020 Action Plan and the various energy efficiency policies, which encourage the adoption of low-carbon building materials, among other actions, applying circularity principles through reuse and recycling. The project is oriented towards the development of a decision support tool to evaluate and select alternative building systems and solutions for the rehabilitation of the existing building stock. This selection must meet sustainability criteria and consider the entire life cycle of the building. The tool is intended to assist the various agents involved in the building process (architects, technical architects and engineers) during the decision-making process, both in the early design and intermediate stages of the building life cycle (e.g., rehabilitation and maintenance actions), as well as in the end-of-life stage of the building (e.g., rehabilitation and maintenance actions), and in the end-of-life stage of the building.
Suistainable Organisation
Diagnosis & Tool
¿Avanzan las organizaciones hacia una economía sostenible? Diagnosis y herramientas
Funding source: Generalitat Valenciana (EBCORG/2021/4)
Project duration: 2021
Research Team: Mª Dolores Bovea Edo* (bovea@uji.es ), Valeria Ibáñez Forés, Marta Braulio Gonzalo
Project overview:
The objective of this project is to define a set of indicators (and their metrics) that enables organisations to measure their progress towards a welfare economy, and to translate them into a tool that facilitates their calculation and an analysis of their evolution over time.
This project forms part of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda, with the aim of promoting the transition of organisations towards more sustainable economic models, based on models of proximity and the social and solidarity economy that, in addition to generating employment and wealth, promote social welfare and territorial balance. In this regard, the project aims to analyse the communication of the social performance of organisations through their sustainability reports, from two different perspectives: to ascertain which social indicators are being communicated and to identify which metrics companies are using for this purpose.
Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment
Waste management systems
Life Cycle Sustainability Analysis of Waste Management Systems in Developing Countries: Methodology and Application
Funding source: Universitat Jaume I (UJI-A2018-11)
Project duration: 2019-2021
Research Team: Valeria Ibáñez Forés* (vibanez@uji.es ), Marta Braulio Gonzalo, Victoria Pérez Belis
Project overview:
The overall objective of the project is twofold: on the one hand, to develop a methodology for the application of the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) methodology to service sector organisations in developing countries, specifically to the household solid waste management sector; and on the other hand, the implementation of an information communication tool that facilitates the calculation and dissemination of the environmental, economic and social performance of the organisations involved, in order to identify the key variables that make it possible to increase the sustainability of the organisation and serve as a guide for the establishment of improvements and/or optimisation policies of the system from environmental, economic and social perspectives.
The results of the project have enabled advancements in the development of the methodological framework of the LCSA, in addition to establishing the basis for the proposal of improvements and/or policies that enable the optimisation of such management systems.
Circular Economy
Indicators & tools for organisations
Measuring the Performance of Companies in Their Transition to a Circular Economy: Indicators, Tools and Communication
Funding source: Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. State Program of Research, Development and Innovation Oriented to the Challenges of Society (DPI2017-89451-R)
Project duration: 2018-2021
Research Team: Mª Dolores Bovea Edo* (bovea@uji.es ), Valeria Ibáñez Forés, Marta Braulio Gonzalo, Victoria Pérez Belis, Antonio Gallardo Izquierdo, Francisco J Colomer, Mar Carlos
Project overview:
The aim of this project is to propose indicators able to measure the performance of companies in their transition towards the principles set out in the framework of the circular economy, and to develop a tool capable of quantifying them according to the Best Available Techniques proposed by BREF documents incorporated by the company.
Furthermore, the communication of these indicators of circularity is a fundamental way to raise awareness in society about the effects of the measures that companies are incorporating in order to improve their circularity. Therefore, it is necessary to be able to communicate them clearly, truthfully and using easily interpretable media/units. In addition, from the point of view of public administrations, the inclusion of these circularity indicators in the conditions of the procurement can help to select the companies that best contribute to the circular economy within the framework of Green Public Procurement.
Repair vs Replacement
Electrical appliances
Proposal and Communication of Circularity Indicators to Guide Consumers on Repairing or Replacing Their Electrical Appliances. Development of a Tool
Funding source: Generalitat Valenciana (GV/2020/172)
Project duration: 2020-2021
Research Team: Victoria Pérez Belis* (vicprebe@upv.es ), Valeria Ibáñez Forés, Marta Braulio Gonzalo
Project overview:
The principles of the circular economy aim to ensure that the value of products, materials and resources are retained in the economy for as long as possible, and that waste generation is minimised. The objective is to implement actions based on the principle of “closing the life cycle” of products, services, waste, materials, water and energy. To this end, the European Commission has adopted several Circular Economy Action Plans, which affect the various stages of the product life cycle (design and production, consumption, waste management and use of secondary raw materials) and different priority areas including plastics and critical raw materials.
In this regard, the overall objective of the project is to develop a consumer support tool that provides information to consumers when deciding whether to extend the life of a product by repairing/reconditioning/upgrading/updating/etc. or to replace it with a new one.
Preparing for Reuse
Electrical and Electronic Equipment
Incorporation of Preparing for Reuse in the Design of Small Electrical and Electronic Equipment to Fulfil Resource Efficiency
Funding source: Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. State Program of Research, Development and Innovation Oriented to the Challenges of Society (DPI2013-40815-R)
Project duration: 2014-16
Research Team: Mª Dolores Bovea Edo* (bovea@uji.es ), Valeria Ibáñez Forés, Victoria Pérez Belis, Antonio Gallardo Izquierdo, Francisco J Colomer, Mar Carlos
Project overview:
The objective of this project was to analyse, from an environmental perspective, the life cycle of small electrical and electronic equipment (sEEE). To this end, a selective collection campaign was undertaken to obtain a representative sample of different categories of sEEE, which were disassembled and characterised in the laboratory. The results obtained were used to develop eco-design recommendations oriented towards incorporating preparing for reuse strategies in the design of products belonging to these product categories. In addition, awareness campaigns were designed and implemented with the aim of increasing awareness in society of the need to consider preparing for the reuse of EEE once it reaches the end of its useful life.