Today at COP30 in Belém, the Government of Brazil announced an ambitious plan to drive action on climate change using the power of public procurement. The Belém Declaration on Sustainable Public Procurement establishes concrete measures to move high-impact markets and production chains into alignment with the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development, including targets up to 2030 and sustainability indicators.

Globally, public procurement represents between 13% and 20% of GDP and 15% of greenhouse emissions. When fully utilised, it will be a powerful lever to shape markets.

Together with representatives from UNEP, UNIDO and Oxford, the Brazilian Ministry of Management and Innovation – with the Governments of Norway, the Netherlands and Mexico – launched the declaration at a special high-level event today in Belém and invited other governments to join them. So far, Mexico, Colombia, the Netherlands and Norway have confirmed participation, and the UK, Costa Rica, Canada and Denmark are in active discussions.

The declaration commits countries to:

• Integrate sustainability criteria into public procurement policies and practices;
• Scale sustainable public procurement by increasingly including more categories of government spending and fostering local markets for emerging technologies with an emphasis on high-impact sectors;
• Foster inclusive engagement to ensure that diverse voices, perspectives and communities are actively involved in shaping equitable and effective sustainability solutions;
• Collaborate across borders and jurisdictions to share knowledge, tools, and experiences in order to build institutional capacity to advance the SPP agenda and track its impact.

Kaya Axelsson, Net Zero Engagement Fellow at Oxford Net Zero, the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment and the Environmental Change Institute, said: 

“Government spending is one of the world’s largest levers for system-wide change. Just imagine if all of that spend supported the green transition and the Sustainable Development Goals.

“The new plan encourages critical thinking about what governments buy, who they buy from and how they buy – and provides concrete actions to take.”

Kaya is an advisor to the declaration through the Oxford Initiative for Green Approaches to Public Procurement (OxGAP), a research and engagement initiative led by Oxford Net Zero and the Net Zero Regulation and Policy Hub. The declaration draws on preliminary findings from OxGAP’s research. Kaya co-leads the project with Dr Emma Lecavalier of the Oxford Climate Policy Hub. The project is a collaboration between the Smith School, the Oxford Martin School and the Blavatnik School of Government. Betty Cremmins, Oxford Net Zero Senior Associate, and Eduardo Spanó, Founder and co-CEO of Instituto Jataí, are policy partners to the project.

Kaya and Rosalind Chaston, Knowledge Exchange Officer at Oxford Net Zero, worked with the Brazilian Government and Instituto Jataí to organise today’s launch event. Professor Nathalie Seddon, Director of the Nature-based Solutions Initiative and Oxford Net Zero Co-Investigator, participated on behalf of Oxford.