When evaluating the quality of tenders contracting authorities have to use the objective criteria, which ensure the following principles of transparency, non-discrimination and equality, and guarantee that tenders are being evaluated in the circumstances of effective competition. Under the provisions of the Article 39 of the Law of the Republic of Lithuania on Public Procurement of the Law there are two criteria of evaluation: it can either compare offers on the basis of the lowest price alone or may choose to award the contract to the “economically most advantageous” tender, which implies that other award criteria will be taken into account, including the price.

The paragraph 4 of the Article 39 of the Law on Public Procurement proposes the non-finite list of possible economically most advantageous tender criteria (such as quality, price, technical merit, aesthetic and functional characteristics, environmental characteristics, running costs, cost-effectiveness, after-sales service and technical assistance, delivery date, delivery period or period of completion). The list clearly shows that one of the evaluation criteria of tenders can be environmental characteristics.

            From the list of possible economically most advantageous tender criteria provided in the Law on Public Procurement we can see that every separate criterion (such as aesthetic characteristics) doesn’t need to be economically advantageous for the contracting authority - bringing direct benefit or measured by economical approach. It means that determining most advantageous tender criteria related with environmental characteristics a contracting authority doesn’t need to choose economically measured criteria. The goal of the most advantageous tender criteria is to determine the tender that offers for the contracting authority the best value for money.

            The Law on Public Procurement clearly states that running costs and cost-effectiveness are possible evaluation criteria of a tender. The running costs can include direct running costs (such as energy, water or other sources used for production), saving costs (i.e. the investment for better warming in order to save energy and money in the future) and costs for the maintenance and recycling of the product. For example, evaluating tenders the contracting authority can take into consideration costs for water cleaning or waste recycling.

            The environmental characteristics in the list of possible economically most advantageous tender criteria provided in the Law on Public Procurement are mentioned next to functional characteristics, running costs and cost-effectiveness. This shows that term “environmental characteristics” has wider meaning allowing to include environmental characteristics which don’t have effect in consumption stage, i.e. characteristics intended for the method of product production.