Complete list of activities for the dissemination of the LIFE FUTURE PROJECT

[24/10/2018] - THE GUF TOOL IS READY!
LIFE FUTURE project consortium is proud to announce that the GUF TOOL is now operative and ready to be used. Both prescribers and manufacturers of urban furniture dealing with Green Public Procurements are invited to use the GUF TOOL. The GUF TOOL makes environmental criteria selection for urban furniture easier but also provides a tool for calculating and comparing the impacts these products have. The selection of urban furniture products with lower environmental impacts is facilitated for publ...

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[24/10/2018] - How to submit your product on the GUF tool
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[24/10/2018] - Las Naves installs 71 benches made of 100% recycled material
71 new benches have appeared in the street of Valencia last August 2018. Made of 100% of recycled material, these benches have been installed by the Department of Renewable Energies and Climate Change of Valencia City Council, through Las Naves, as a pilot purchase within the LIFE FUTURE project. Indeed, these benches were acquired through a green public procurement procedure which has been facilitated by the use of the GUF Tool. This purchase is expected to be a first green public procurement ...

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[24/10/2018] - 10 benches and 30 bins to be purchased by Koprivnica using the GUF Tool
In September 2018, City of Koprivnica started a real-life testing of GUF Tool for two of its public procurement processes. They are making use of the possibilities offered by the GUF Tool to purchase new equipment for the city. A first public procurement was launched for 10 benches made of combination of wood and metal while the second one enabled the acquisition of 30 waste bins made from the same combination of materials. Following the buying process, which will be finished by mid-October, the...

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[24/10/2018] - Hands-on the GUF Tool in Koprivnica and Valencia
Life cycle assessment of street furniture can be a significant commitment for public employees involved in public procurement. To simplify assessment processes, LIFE FUTURE partners have not only designed the GUF tool but are also in charge of organising training sessions to demonstrate practically how to use the GUF Tool! Strong of their experience as project partners but also building on the test they realised to buy some urban furniture through the GUF Tool, the city of Koprivnica and Las Na...

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[24/10/2018] - Nijmegen, capital of sustainable and innovation procurement for 3 days
From 3-5 October, the European Green Capital City of Nijmegen became the capital of sustainable and innovation procurement by hosting the 10th edition of the EcoProcura Conference, together with ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability. The three-day conference brought together 400 other procurers, policy makers, businesses, researchers and international organisations in Nijmegen to discuss the latest developments in sustainable, circular and innovation procurement: • Current bes...

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[24/10/2018] - Discover GPP good practices for more products or services sectors
Since January 2010, the European Commission has been promoting good practice experiences on GPP to illustrate how public authorities in Europe have successfully 'greened' a public tender or procurement process. These include the use of life-cycle costing (LCC), circular economy principles, and approaches fostering sustainable innovation, among others. In the future, the use of the GUF Tool could also become key practice for a successful GPP. Good practices exist for all fields, not only urban f...

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[24/10/2018] - LIFE FUTURE is reaching its end, stay tuned!
The first results of GPP processes are already available, with more to come in next months. Before the end of the project, in December 2018, two additional documents will be published: an assessment of environmental and economic impact of the GUF TOOL as well as a report summarising and compiling all the results obtained and general information on the use of environmental criteria in urban furniture products. The GUF TOOL being a web-based tool open to all, it is expected to be widely used in fu...

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[12/03/2018] - GUF Tool DEMO version
The GUF Tool is now entering its test-phase! Efforts made both in the selection and in the programming of the environmental criteria for urban furniture products yielded fruits: GUF Tool is available online to be used in a DEMO version. Users are asked to fill in a short form to get access to the demo version of the GUF Tool so they can work with picking environmental criteria for urban furniture,...

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[12/03/2018] - Selecting environmental criteria for urban furniture products
Simplicity and easy use are strong points of the GUF Tool. Environmental criteria can be selected by product - to be used when looking for criteria to include in a tender process - or by material - which help manufacturers identifying best practices for the entire manufacturing, assembly and transport process (Fig. 1).   Fig. 1 Selecting environmental criteria by product or by materials. ...

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[12/03/2018] - How to earn a GUF gold or a GUF silver label?
The Life Future project has developed two quality seals to identify the commitment level of users, the GUF GOLD and GUF SILVER labels.The “GUF gold” quality label is geared towards institutions that wish to show a high level of commitment. In addition to complying with all the mandatory Specifications criteria, the environmental impact of products is assessed using also the voluntary &...

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[12/03/2018] - The GUF Tool in action in Valencia
The City Council of Valencia will soon acquire through its Service of Renewable Energies and Climate Change, a total of 71 benches made with 100% recycled material, for an approximate amount of 17,000 euros.This acquisition of green public purchase has been possible thanks to the use of the GUF Tool which facilitated the inclusion of environmental criteria and specifications to be met by any urban...

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[12/03/2018] - Sustainable use of metal in GPP criteria for furniture
The GPP criteria used in LIFE FUTURE will allow an easy inclusion of green requirements in public tender documents. These are mainly based on the EU GPP Toolkit (recently revised), supplemented with criteria obtained from other sources (Umweltbundesamt, ICLEI, Pianoo, US EPA, etc.). These criteria aim to reach a good balance between environmental performance, cost considerations, market availabili...

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[12/03/2018] - Cities and regions boosting innovation with ACR+
The Association of Cities and Regions for sustainable Resource management (ACR+) is an international network of cities and regions that has been facilitating the exchange of information and best practices on material resource management, following the multi-R approach (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – and more), and this since 1994. The network gathers almost 90 members, representing more than 1000 ...

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[12/03/2018] - AIMPLAS: excellence in plastics
AIMPLAS is a Plastics Technology Centre located in Spain with more than 25 years of experience in offering solutions to companies of the plastics industry, including manufacturers of raw materials, processors and end users.AIMPLAS services comprises the development of integral and customised solutions by coordinating and developing R&D&i projects, technical assistance, analysis and testing...

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[12/03/2018] - Update on criteria for green furniture procurement by the European Commission
The voluntary EU GPP criteria for furniture have been revised in 2017 to introduce, in addition to classic furniture purchasing, sections on the procurement of furniture refurbishment and of end-of-life services. Those new areas aim at prolonging the life span of furniture items, thus reflecting a reinforcement of circular economy aspects in EU GPP criteria. The use of the criteria has the potent...

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[12/03/2018] - Publications on GPP and Circular Procurement
Two brochures have lately been published on the topic, analysing the links between public procurement (and GPP in particular) and circular economy. • Public procurement for a Circular Economy Published by the European Commission in October 2017, the brochure on Circular Procurement provides an introduction to the European policy framework and practical guidance to those involved in pub...

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[12/03/2018] - Stay tuned for more updates on the new features of the GUF Tool
LIFE FUTURE project consortium is analysing the feed-back of the GUF Tool utilisation by members and stakeholders. In parallel, new features are being implemented to be added to the GUF Tool: simplified LCAs are being evaluated for several urban furniture products to be the new feature of the GUF Tool.Full user manual and dedicated guidelines for providers and purchasers of green urban furniture a...

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[12/03/2018] - GPP Best project: Best Practices Exchange and Strategic Tools for GPP
Last 20 December 2017, the Deliberation of the Regional Council n°56/24 adopted a new plan for green public procurement in the Sardinia Region for 2017-2020 (Piano per gli acquisti pubblici ecologici nella Regione Sardegna (PAPERS) 2017 – 2020) and thereby updating the previous one from 2009. Sardinia Region has been involved in the promotion and implementation of green public procuremen...

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[11/04/2017] - The GUF Tool is on its way!
The project consortium has continued to work on the design and development of the GUF Tool during the last six months. The design of the tool structure and features has been completed, as well as the graphical image and interface. The core programming framework has already been developed and the tool functionalities are now being programmed, including:   • Criteria for green public procurement (GPP) of urban furniture, which will allow public authorities to include environmental clauses for urban furniture in their call for tenders and evaluate the offers received accordingly. • Simplified environmental assessment, which will allow pu...

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[11/04/2017] - FOCUS ON GPP CRITERIA
The GPP criteria used in LIFE FUTURE will allow an easy inclusion of green requirements in public tender documents. These are mainly based on the EU GPP Toolkit  and complemented with criteria from other sources (Umweltbundesamt, ICLEI, Pianoo, US EPA, and so forth). The criteria aim to reach a good balance between environmental performance, cost considerations, market availability and ease of verification. Sustainability of plastics through GPP criteria for furniture Plastics, including both thermoplastics (with PS, PVC and PP being the most widely used for outdoor furniture) and thermosets (phenolic resins as adhesives, epoxy resins as the mat...

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[11/04/2017] - Ensuring future use of the GUF Tool, which characteristics to take into account?
The beta version development of the GUF Tool is one of the most decisive moments of the project. All the work done so far must be reflected and basic criteria should be established to ensure the future uses of the tool. The study of the state of the art in Life Cycle Assessment software helped us to extract the following criteria: - As end users may not be familiar with the Life Cycle Assessment methodology, the GUF Tool must be user friendly, intuitive and allow an easy data introduction or also to guide this data introduction. - Manufacturers and public authorities will use the tool and it could be a problem if the software requires too much comput...

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[11/04/2017] - Participation of the Universitat Jaume I in life future project
The Universitat Jaume I (Spain), abbreviated UJI, is a young institution founded in 1991. Currently, it has around fourteen thousand students scattered across a wide range of degree, master and doctoral programmes in almost all disciplines from medicine, economy, law, humanities to studies of science and engineering.  Six European institutions participate in LIFE FUTURE project, including UJI. Rosario Vidal, Teresa Gallego and Núria Sánchez-Pantoja, professors and researchers of the Mechanical Engineering and Construction Department, with extensive teaching and research experience in the fields of sustainable architecture and indust...

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[11/04/2017] - AIJU, sharing knowledge in the industrial environment with LIFE FUTURE project
AIJU is a research centre specialized in toys, children’s products and leisure, based in Spain (Europe) and also established in China (Asia). AIJU is made up of a multidisciplinary team of over 70 experts in child safety, advanced manufacturing, market, consumer psychology, education, etc. AIJU’s objective is to optimize the process of creating and developing children’s products from the initial idea until its launch onto the market. With over 25 years of experience, AIJU advised hundreds of companies (small, large, multinational), on thousands of products to ensure their success. AIJU offers you a wide range of technological servi...

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[11/04/2017] - How to elaborate new proposals of urban furniture through different strategies of ecodesign?
The Project LIFE FUTURE has been a great opportunity to stimulate the ecodesign of urban furniture among the students of the Universitat Jaume I (Spain).  During the last two academic years, students of the degree in Engineering in Industrial Design and Product Development have developed new proposals of urban furniture following different ecodesign strategies, such as the reuse of tires or the optimization of distribution using local materials.  One of the tools to facilitate ecodesign is the EcoDesign Wheel or Wheel LIDS, which allows defining comparatively environmental strategies with respect to other products existing in the market. I...

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[11/04/2017] - Using circular economy for urban furniture, the example of a LIFE FUTURE Stakeholder
Interested organisations (public authorities, producers, NGOs, academics, etc.) have the possibility to get involved directly in the LIFE FUTURE project and benefit from the project outputs by becoming a stakeholder. One of them is a company in Valencia, CMPLASTIK, which offers innovative and environmentally friendly solutions to urban furniture following a circular economy philosophy and recycles plastic waste that have been left in the landfills giving them a second life.  This company is developing a lot of projects in the urban furniture and traffic areas, both nationally and internationally, and they are being implemented successfully in va...

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[11/04/2017] - WHAT'S NEXT
During the next six months of the project, the consortium will continue working on the development and simplification of the GUF Tool. LCA studies of urban furniture are being performed to simplify the tool based on their results. These studies will be completed and published by the end of April 2017, while the completion of the GUF Tool is foreseen by the end of September 2017. The consortium will continue to disseminate the project among stakeholders to engage them in the project. For example, AIMPLAS will present the LIFE FUTURE project in the event "Circular economy: the road towards the recycling targets 2020-2030", which will be held on the 27th ...

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[20/09/2016] - Valencia: sustainability and public procurement in the city
Valencia, located on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, with almost 800,000 inhabitants, is the third largest Spanish city. According to Cities in Motion Index, it has recently been described as one of the fifty best cities in the world. Sustainability and environmental criteria, as well as urban services place it near the top of the ranking of cities with the best quality of life.   This city is best known by its beaches, its food and its festivities–the famous Fallas–, which turned it into a tourist destination of excellence. Valencia is also an important enclave for knowledge, culture, research and technology. It has two public unive...

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[20/09/2016] - PROGRESSES OF THE PROJECT
The project consortium has been working on the development of the GUF Tool during the last six months. The work has focused primarily on the collection, evaluation and simplification of GPP criteria, which will allow public authorities to include environmental clauses for urban furniture in their call for tenders. These criteria are being processed in order to make them more accessible and understandable to the public staff. Furthermore, the project consortium has collected and evaluated characterisation factors that allow to assess the life cycle environmental impacts of the various materials that can be present in urban furniture products. Both GPP c...

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[20/09/2016] - FOCUS ON GPP CRITERIA
The GPP criteria used in LIFE FUTURE will allow an easy inclusion of green requirements in public tender documents. These are based on the EU GPP Toolkit,  which provides a specific set of environmental criteria for various types of product categories, including furniture products (currently under revision). These criteria aim to reach a good balance between environmental performance, cost considerations, market availability and ease of verification. SUSTAINABLE USE OF WOOD IN GPP CRITERIA FOR FURNITURE Wood is one of the most frequently used raw materials for manufacturing urban furniture. We can found in our cities a wide range of furniture pr...

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[20/09/2016] - Buying Green Handbook in your language!
The “Buying Green! – A Handbook on green public procurement” published by the European Commission is now available in all 23 EU languages online.  It is the main guidance document of the European Commission to support the acquisition of good and services with a lower environmental impact by public authorities. It can also be used by policy makers and companies responding to green tenders. This third edition of the Handbook, published on April 2016, has been fully revised to provide the following: • Guidance on how environmental considerations can be included at each stage of the procurement process in the current EU legal...

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[20/09/2016] - Stay in touch
The GUF Tool is still under preparation but you can already make sure you will not miss any update on its development by staying in touch with us. Luckily, they are different possibilities to follow the project’s activities. It is of course possible to regularly check the website for new information; but to be following even closely the project, you can become a stakeholder and express your support through a letter. By doing so, you will not only show your interest for the project but also receive the project’s updates directly in your mailbox. Organisations who are already stakeholders are all displayed on the stakeholder page of the webs...

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[20/09/2016] - WHAT’S NEXT
During the next six months of the project, the consortium will continue working on the development of the GUF Tool, including the completion of the database and its connectivity to the online tool. Moreover, the consortium will intensify efforts to spread the project among public authorities, urban furniture manufacturers/suppliers and other stakeholders, in order to engage them in the project. For example, AIMPLAS will present the LIFE FUTURE project in the Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy to be held on the 6th of October in Valencia. ...

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[21/04/2016] - WHAT’S NEXT
During the next six months of the project, the consortium will work on the development of the GUF Tool, including the database containing GPP criteria and environmental profiles for materials and processes related to urban furniture products. The key issues of the tool that will be addressed during this period are the programming framework, including the connectivity to the database, the detailed structure and features and a preliminary interface. Efforts will be focused on functionality and user-friendliness. Monitoring actions will be also performed during the coming months in order to determine the current environmental and socio-economic situation...

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[21/04/2016] - Koprivnica
Koprivnica is a city situated in northern Croatia, near the borders of Slovenia and Hungary. It is the 18th biggest Croatian city by size, with 30.872 citizens. First mentioned in 13th century, the city has a rich culture and history which is still preserved to this day. Koprivnica is known as a city of knowledge, because it hosts the youngest state university, University North. But it also attracts small and medium enterprises (SMEs), thanks to its adequately developed business zones and efficient infrastructure and communal facilities. Great effort has been invested into creating a set of good basic business conditions, especially for SMEs. Thus, Ko...

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[21/04/2016] - FIRST PROGRESSES OF THE PROJECT
During the first six months of the project, the consortium completed the preparatory actions that will serve as a starting point for the development of the rest of the project. These actions included a technical update and the identification and characterisation of the different urban furniture products. A summary of the state-of-the-art on green public procurement (GPP) was produced, including current legislation and standards as well as existing procedures, tools and methodologies for GPP. Furthermore, thirteen urban furniture products were identified and characterised according to the different materials, manufacturing processes and technical specif...

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[21/04/2016] - LIFE FUTURE – Boosting the sustainability in cities
LIFE FUTURE is a 2.5 year European project that started in 2015, co-funded with support from the LIFE financial instrument of the European Union. It is led by a consortium of 6 partners representing both public authorities and research institutes. The partners are: - AIMPLAS - ACR+ - AIJU - InnDEA Foundation - City of Koprivnica - Universitat Jaume I LIFE FUTURE aims to promote green public procurement, focusing on urban furniture. The objective is to overcome the difficulties encountered by procurers when including environmental clauses in calls for tenders and assessing the offers received. To achieve this objective, an online tool will ...

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AIMPLAS Instituto Tecnológico del Plástico

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(València Parc Tecnològic) - 46980
PATERNA (Valencia) - SPAIN

PHONE

(+34) 96 136 60 40

EMAIL

Project Management department - Sustainability and Industrial Recovery
life-future-project@aimplas.es