Several phases/objectives have been foreseen in the GPPnet project, as detailed below:

Target identification
In this phase, project’s actors have been identified. The work of the local Municipalities that have participated in the realization of the project was coordinated by the Province of Cremona, the project’s beneficiary. Participants have been provided with an informative booklet and an operational one: the first one containing general information on policies, tools and objectives of sustainable development, ecolabel, life cycle analysis (LCA), GPP policies, state of art and instruments; the second containing the programme of activities, meetings, training, logistics.

Check List on the activities/impacts of Local Authorities
Each Local Authority involved has been invited to compile a checklist of products and services that it purchases and to provide for each product and service information on quantities, technical features, life length, substitution times, maintenance, materials, field-yard activities.
The objective was to establish with precision the potential area of intervention of GPP into the local administration’s policies.

Hierarchy of impacts
Starting from the checklist it has then been possible to define, for each local authority, also on the base of the specific environmental policies of the local authority, a hierarchy of products and services, in order to decide which products and services should be substituted through the purchase of low environmental impact products, such as products with Ecolabel or other ecological labels (paper, lamps, PC, paintings, detergents, etc.), recycled products, organic products.

Selection of Procedures
All the calls for tender relative to the identified products/services and published over the last two years have been collected for each local authority involved. Each procurement phase has been analysed with reference to: choice of product or service, definition of technical specifications, definition of awarding criteria. This has enabled the identification of the possible fields of implementation of GPP.

Draft of the Handbook
A GPP Handbook has been drafted. The Handbook has integrated the work carried out two years ago by ANPA, now APAT, and has included: products with the Ecolabel; products with certification of controlled production; products that have been object of life cycle analysis.
The GPP Handbook is structured in a way that it is possible to identify relevant instructions for the introduction of GPP requirements into purchasing procedures of each product or service identified.

Training
Employees of local authorities involved have been trained and informed on the methodologies and implications of GPP. The training activities have been managed directly by the experts of Ecosistemi (external assistance). In addition, a web-forum has been activated that will remain in operation until the end of the project. Moreover, some Roundtables have been organized where PA’s have compared their experiences, difficulties and obstacles encountered in the implementation of GPP.
Suppliers have also been informed of the implications that the adoption of the GPP Handbook will have for them and they have been provided with informative material on the instruments that they can adopt to make their activities more sustainable.

Application of Handbook to Sample Calls for Tender
GPP has been implemented through the elaboration of a call for tender for each of the PAs involved in the project. The calls for tender have been differentiated in order to test the implementation of GPP in different sectors.
The GPP Handbook has been adopted by the target PAs; environmental criteria have been included in a call for tender, once the various procurement phases had been examined (choice of products or service, definition of technical specifications, definition of awarding criteria, candidate selection).

Dissemination
Project’s dissemination has taken place by means of:

•    a presentation of the project’s start;
•    the realization of a web-site;
•    the printing and diffusion of the GPP Handbook;
•    the creation of a project network, called GPPinfoNet, which sees the    participation of about thirty local authorities, distributed among Italian regions,    including municipalities, provinces, regions, regional agencies for environmental    protection, mountain communities and park authorities;
•    the link with the European BIGnet;
•    national conferences.

•    a national conference in Palermo (21 September);
•    a European conference (14 October) that will be organized with ICLEI    (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) in Aix en Provence    (France) for the dissemination of project’s final results; in that occasion it will    be distributed:
•    an interactive CD-ROM that will contain all the materials distributed over the    course of the project, the significant experiences registered through the forum,    the GPP Handbook, a description of the project’s methodology, the experiences    realised and the sample calls for tender.