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.

Once the product or materials to be assessed have been defined, the GUF Tool generates a list of Specifications and Awards (Fig. 2). Users can use this list to identify the most suitable option. Two types of criteria are given by the GUF Tool: the Specifications and the Awards.

Fig. 2 List of criteria shown by the GUF Tool

Specifications are compulsory; to be included in a Green Public Procurement bid products must comply with these criteria. On the other hand, Awards are voluntary criteria that provide additional points to products, from an environmental point of view.

The GUF Tool enables its users to browse through both Specification and Award criteria and check the verification requirements before completing the selection of relevant criteria to include in the bid.
At the end of the proces, the user has the choice to download:
• a document including all the information related to the selected criteria;
• a checklist which can be used to check compliance with the criteria in a fast and effective way (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3 Document download

Since the environmental criteria guarantee compliance with minimum requirements (the so-called Specifications), public procurement of urban furniture made using the GUF Tool is indeed green. By allowing a comparison of products based also on Awards, it helps also identifying the most environmentally friendly choice (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4 Environmental assessment by GPP criteria

For more information or to try the GUF Tool, please register on: http://lifefuture.uji.es/

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