Buenos Aires, the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the capital as well as the most populous city of Argentina. It is considered as one of the most diverse cities of Latin America, as over the last century it has welcomed people from all over the world.

The Government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires has been working since 2012 in the inclusion of sustainability criteria in public procurement processes, using a flexible, staggered and progressive implementation strategy, which is materialized in actions such as:

• the awareness and training of purchasers and supply chain;
• the drafting of sustainability recommendations and guidelines, as well as the dissemination of such recommendations and guidelines internally, towards the community and the country, and
• the inclusion of sustainability criteria in the specification sheets for procurements and the continuous generation of synergies at local, national and international level with public and private bodies.

As a result of the work done in sustainability-related matters, since 2014 the body has been part of the Cross-Ministerial Team for Climate Mitigation and Change of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires and it is funding member of the network named “Red Buenos Aires Sustentable” (Sustainable Buenos Aires Network), whose members meet monthly to improve those actions and programs related to sustainable development.

The budget for government procurement of goods and services of the City of Buenos Aires between July 2015 and July 2016 amounted to AR$ 22,000 million.

Currently, the City of Buenos Aires is already taking into account sustainable criterion when purchasing materials and electronic devices, paper, and computer equipment.

For the future, the City of Buenos Aires seeks to redefine groups of goods and services to work on the short and medium-term, strengthening the social impact of government procurements, in addition to the mitigation of environmental impact, as well as to have a system of incentives for purchasers that promote achievement of those goals. Another of its goals is to make progress in the development of awareness and training tools to make decisions, such as recommendation guides, check lists, and supplier qualifications.