Collecting used textiles in the Augsburg City area
Drawing up and specifying sustainability criteria for tender invitation documents
In 2017, in cooperation with the law firm Dageförde in Hanover, bifa Umweltinstitut drew up a special use concept for the collection of used textiles and it was approved by the City of Augsburg’s municipal council at the end of 2017.
During the course of this, Augsburg’s council assigned aws (the waste management and cleaning firm of the City of Augsburg) the task of preparing the contract award documents for the collection and recovery of used textiles, and to submit them to it for a decision. For the first time, the call for tenders was to take into consideration the future sustainability guidelines of the City of Augsburg. Consideration of sustainability criteria fit for the future in calls for tender in this form is to date unique in Germany. aws plays a pioneering role. In cooperation with Kanzlei Dageförde, bifa Umweltinstitut compiled verifiable sustainability criteria specifically for Augsburg for the aspects of ecological, social, cultural as well as economic sustainability in direct relation to the collection of used textiles. The differences between charitable and commercial collectors were also considered. Overall, working in close consultation with aws and the City of Augsburg’s sustainability office, ten tangible criteria were drawn up. In all cases, the focus was on the verifiability of the criteria using credible documents.
As contract awards are no longer decided based on economic factors only but also on sustainability, a special evaluation matrix was developed. Different evaluation formulae were checked for their reliability, comprehensibility and ultimately their legal certainty and compared with each other. With the matrix, it was now possible to select a used textile collector, who on the one hand offers a fair price and on the other is actively committed in the areas of sustainability. The basic requirement for consideration as a tenderer was the fulfilment of certain minimum requirements, such as compliance with the EURO 5 exhaust standard for the vehicles deployed in the city, certification as a specialist disposal company of all companies involved in provision of the service and payment of the legal minimum wage to employees. Bonus points could be acquired for aspects such as compliance with the EURO 6 exhaust standard for vehicles, compliance with specified (standard industry) reuse and recovery rates as well as activity as a vocational training firm and paying employee’s wages above the legal minimum. The call for tenders was published and implemented in mid-2018. The City of Augsburg was divided into different lots, where one collection area was reserved for verified charitable used clothing collectors only. By using the matrix, in the contract award procedure, two bidders were identified for the different collection areas and the contracts were awarded successfully.
