Current consumption and production trends are the main causes of environmental degradation and resource depletion in Malaysia. Malaysia needs an economy that is able to grow and benefit people without increasing negative environmental impacts and pressures on natural resources. This approach called the Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) is emphasized in Malaysia’s 11^th five-year development plan as one of the focus areas that will help Malaysia to achieve green growth and transition towards a more inclusive development trajectory.

This project titled “Implementing the National Sustainable Consumption and Production Blueprint through Government Green Procurement (SCP-GGP)” is a 2.5-year project that supports Malaysia in the development and implementation of SCP as a means of achieving green growth. The project focuses on the role of the government as a key catalyst to create a green market for products and services.

The project will strengthen the enabling policy environment by providing incremental support to the full adoption and implementation of the National Sustainable Consumption and Production Blueprint. It also aims to assist Malaysia in achieving its 11^th Malaysia Plan target of 20% of selected groups of products and services in government procurement to be green procurement by the year 2020.

The Environment and Natural Resource Economics Division, Ministry of Economic Affairs Malaysia is the main implementing partner for the project. The intended beneficiaries of the project are government agencies and the private sector in the form of major corporations and SMEs in the construction or other relevant sectors.

What do we hope to accomplish?

The project will help the Government of Malaysia to finalize and institutionalize the National SCP Blueprint through technical and institutional capacity development, and pilot demonstrations of Government Green Procurement (GGP) best practices in the construction sector.

This will be achieved through three components:

Component 1: Enabling Policy and Institutions

This component will focus on finalizing and adopting the National SCP Blueprint, which will guide Malaysia in fully implementing the ten pathways for achieving SCP for green growth in 2030. Under this component, several baseline assessments including supply chain analysis, SCP/GGP feasibility study and cost-benefit analysis will be carried out as inputs to the finalization of the National SCP Blueprint.

Component 2: Technical and Institutional Capacity

The focus of this component is to remove the knowledge barriers and enhance the understanding of SCP and GGP practices among government procurement practitioners, decision makers, manufacturers, suppliers, vendors and the public. A series of capacity building and training activities will be carried out, which will include the development of training modules targeting government procurement practitioners and vendors or suppliers of goods and services. Awareness materials will also be developed to encourage the public to adopt sustainable lifestyles.

Component 3: GGP Pilot Demonstration

This component addresses the limitation in green products and disconnect in the current system, where manufacturers are certified for their green products but suppliers to the government are not in the vendor registry of MyHIJAU and e-Perolehan system. In this component, best practices of GGP are demonstrated by developing and piloting product criteria, guidelines, standard operating procedures, and eco-labeling schemes/ certifications for selected product groups in the construction sector. A clear monitoring and evaluation framework will be developed and integrated into the government electronic system for procurement of goods and services (E-Perolehan), to enable the tracking of green procurement results.

Current Phase

The project is currently at the inception phase. The draft National SCP Blueprint is being reviewed and finalized to ensure its coherence with national policies and programmes, and with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly on SDG 12- Ensuring Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns.

How will it benefit to Malaysia?

A finalized SCP Blueprint will help to strengthen the coordination and effectiveness of SCP implementation in Malaysia. With better expertise in green procurement, increased technical and institutional capacity as well as better market confidence towards green products as a result of the demonstration projects, Malaysia can better position itself as a regional leader in SCP.