Green cars have once again surged to the front of the European Union’s (EU) agenda as the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety discussed legislation that could soon affect the way vehicles are purchased.

The committee voted in favour of proposals requiring public sector bodies across all member states to consider the environmental impact of any new vehicles they plan to purchase. The committee has also called on the commission to shorten the timeline for introducing the new rules with calls for them to be in place by 2010.

The new rules will see an effective monetary value be attached to a vehicle’s emission levels. Public sector procurement professionals will then be obliged to include these statistics in their running cost equations when making decisions about which vehicles to purchase.

The committee wants the new criteria to apply to all public sector vehicles, barring those that are highly specified, such as ambulances, or that are used to provide operational support.

The new rules will add three euro cents for each kilogram of CO2 the vehicle emits and 0.44 cents for each gram of NOx emissions.

It is expected that this will lead to a significant increase in demand for fuel efficient vehicles. Currently the EU estimates that public vehicle procurement features 110,000 passenger cars, 110,000 light commercial vehicles, 35,000 trucks and 17,000 buses.