2025-2026
Environmental assessment tool for Green Private Procurement
We developed a simplified environmental assessment tool to facilitate the integration of environmental criteria into EDP Spain’s private procurement processes.
The project incorporates new types of equipment, product-specific criteria and future energy scenarios, enabling consistent comparisons between alternatives based on the most relevant environmental information.
Identified need
Incorporating environmental criteria into procurement processes requires information that is both sufficiently representative of the environmental performance of products and feasible to request and analyse during the purchasing process.
The challenge was to translate the knowledge obtained through environmental assessments and sensitivity analyses into environmental procurement criteria, identifying which variables are truly relevant for each type of equipment and avoiding requests for information with limited ability to differentiate between alternatives.
In addition, for electrical and electronic equipment, it was necessary to consider the expected evolution of the electricity system, incorporating a time perspective consistent with the equipment’s useful life.
Client profile
EDP is an international energy group operating in electricity generation, distribution and supply, with a significant presence in renewable energy. Its strategy incorporates decarbonisation and sustainability criteria into the development of its projects and operations, including the planning and operation of renewable assets and the monitoring of the environmental performance associated with its activities.
Methodological approach and work process
We worked on systematising the tool to incorporate new product categories, including photovoltaic modules, wind turbine blades and battery energy storage systems (BESS), alongside other electrical and electronic equipment.
For each equipment family, we identified the most relevant environmental aspects and the information required to compare alternatives in a simplified manner, including mass, material composition, recycled content, critical raw materials, regulated substances and energy consumption during use. For equipment with a significant use phase, we incorporated different energy scenarios, including the current electricity mix, 2030 and 2050 scenarios, and different renewable energy technologies.
Based on these analyses, we defined the relevant environmental information to be requested from suppliers. Depending on the type of equipment, this included mass and material composition, recycled or reused content, the presence of critical raw materials and regulated substances, electronic components, dielectric fluids or gases, efficiency, energy losses and degradation during use.
The tool uses this information to perform simplified environmental comparisons between alternatives and analyse the effect of parameters such as mass, material selection and energy consumption.
Finally, we validated the tool through practical application cases and developed a simplified environmental criteria questionnaire tailored to each product family.
Results and value generated
The project makes it possible to integrate environmental criteria applicable to different equipment categories into a single tool and use them in a structured manner within procurement processes.
As a result, the system facilitates environmental comparisons between alternatives based on a limited set of relevant variables, reducing the complexity associated with full life cycle assessments when an EPD or equivalent environmental documentation is not available.
The inclusion of future energy scenarios also makes it possible to better assess products whose use phase has a significant environmental impact and improve the robustness of procurement decisions from a life cycle perspective.
