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October 19, 2026
The Road to COP31: Progress in Sustainable Public Procurement
Between COP29 and COP31, UNEP's Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) work has advanced from global commitment to directly supporting governments to use public spending to drive more sustainable, circular and resilient markets across high-impact sectors.
Global Framework for Action on Sustainable and Circular Public Procurement for the Built Environment
The One Planet Network’s Global Framework for Action: Harnessing Sustainable and Circular Public Procurement to drive demand for a Near-Zero emission and resilient Built Environment, launched at COP29, has now been formally endorsed by 13 countries across four continents and adopted by the GlobalABCIntergovernmental Council for Buildings and Climate (ICBC) as an implementation product of the Chaillot Declaration.
This adoption has been underpinned by sustained technical engagement:
Early in the year, a workshop on the implementation of the Global Framework for Action: Harnessing sustainable and circular public procurement to drive demand for a near-zero and resilient built environment took place at the Sustainable Buildings and Construction Summit, convened by the GlobalABC with a broad coalition of partners spanning government, industry, standards bodies, and research institutions. Country-level workshops have further supported governments in aligning the Framework with national priorities, with early-adopter countries sharing practical experience through South-South exchange. At UNFCCC Climate Week in Baku, an Implementation Lab, "Building the Market: How Governments Are Using Their Public Spending to Decarbonize Construction Materials and Heavy Industries," matched implementation barriers with deployed solutions from governments, standards bodies, and industry, and built alignment on tracking GPP impact metrics. At New York Climate Week (NYCW), these conversations continued, deepening connections between public procurement, industrial transformation, and market action as governments prepare for COP31.
On capacity building, a 10-hour online course on sustainable and circular public procurement for the built environment was launched and is now available in English, French, and Spanish. Eight countries have nominated national focal points to coordinate uptake.
Complementing the online course, five regional workshops were delivered under the LAC Regional Council of Government Experts on Sustainable Consumption and Production, bringing together participants from eight countries to strengthen capacities on policy frameworks, life-cycle costing, ecolabelling, needs and risk assessment, and monitoring of SDG indicator 12.7.1.
Institutional capacity building projects are also advancing in Senegal and Ghana, supporting the development of national action plans to coordinate the implementation of activities under the Framework and advance this agenda.
An AI-supported tool to help procurers apply sustainability criteria in practice is under development, with a broad coalition of governments and technical partners engaged in its design and piloting.
Advancing Sustainable Public Food Procurement
The Global Framework for Action on Sustainable Public Food Procurement, developed under the One Planet Network’s Interest Group on Sustainable Public Food Procurement through a collaboration between the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), was launched following a two-year, multi-stakeholder consultation. The Framework provides a shared basis of priority actions for advancing sustainable public food procurement and is now open for endorsement by national and subnational governments and supporting organizations.
Looking ahead to COP31
Taken together, these milestones represent a sustained shift from framework development to implementation. As COP31 approaches, public procurement remains a concrete, scalable mechanism for governments to drive market demand for climate-aligned solutions across the built environment, food systems, and beyond.
More details at One Planet Network Knowledge Center.
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