The City of Oslo has set a number of climate and environmental requirements relating to how the products and services it procures are transported. With these requirements the municiplaity is aiming to ensure that all its purchasing entities act in a consistent and coordinated manner. Furthermore, it’s a signal to the market that by 2025 all vehicles working or delivering for/to the Municipality must either be zero-emissions or use biogas.

Suppliers who want to compete for contract with the City of Oslo will be faced with a minimum requirement stating that “all vehicles that are to be used in connection with performance of this contract shall either be zero-emissions (i.e. battery-electric or hydrogen) or biogas vehicles that as a minimum meet the requirement for Euro 6/VI according to the European emissions standards.” Until 2025, this requirement will only be imposed in procurements where market surveys show that there are at least three suppliers which can use zero emissions or biogas vehicles. From 1 January 2025 it is expected that the market will be sufficiently mature to incorporate this requirement automatically in all procurements. Suppliers who do not make use of zero-emission/biogas vehicles for the transportation of their goods and/or services will then not be able to sign a contract with the Muncipality of Oslo.

A combination of award criteria (e.g. potential suppliers will be given a score based on the fuel technologies they use, with most points given to battery-electric and hydrogen) and contract clauses will aim to further advance Oslo’s efforts to make the transportation of its goods and services more sustainable. As more than 60% of Oslo’s GHG emissions come from the transport sector, these requirements have the potential to significantly contribute to the City’s overarching climate goal to reduce its carbon emissions by 95% (from the 1990 baseline) by 2030.

Moreover, the City believes that its requirements will also have a positive effect on the rest of the region. Suppliers who invest in invest in zero-emissions and biogas vehicles will also use these when working for other customers who may not demand climate- and environmentally friendly transport solutions.

Oslo’s transportation requirements were the main outcome of its work in the Horizon 2020 Project BuyZet. More information about the project can be found here. For a more detailed overview of the requirements, see the link below.