Sustainable Textile Procurement for the Public Sector
Client: Sustainable Textiles Switzerland (with support from BAFU, SECO, the City of Bern, the City of Zurich, and Swiss Textiles)
Project period: 2025–2026
On behalf of STS, ecos developed a practical guide and a detailed set of criteria to embed sustainable textile procurement in the (semi-)public sector. The goal was to provide procurement agencies with concrete, immediately applicable tools that can be used to systematically integrate social and environmental requirements into the procurement process.
As the core of the assignment, ecos designed and developed a modular catalog of criteria covering the five focus areas of transparency, working conditions, the environment, climate, and the circular economy. With two levels of ambition (“Basic” and “Advanced”), the catalog facilitates both a simple entry point and a challenging, impact-oriented procurement process.
In addition, a guide specifically for direct awards was developed. This guide is intended, in particular, to provide smaller municipalities with practical assistance in implementing sustainability simply and effectively, even in direct award procedures. The criteria developed also serve as the basis for a digital bidding and evaluation tool.
The resulting documents—the guidelines and the list of criteria—provide a well-founded and practical basis for increasing the proportion of sustainably sourced textiles and strengthening the public sector’s role as a model.
Competencies
- Analysis of the regulatory framework and desk research on existing sets of criteria
- Process support & stakeholder dialogue
- Evaluation and selection of relevant sustainability criteria
- Classification of labels and standards
- Design and guidance for the procurement process