Life-cycle costing in the member sates: does the tool meet its goals?

The 2014 Directives have provided for life-cycle costing (LCC) as a possible award mechanism. Transposition by several Member States (MS) allows the conclusion that the default option was to copy the Directives’ provisions. Before 2014, there was already a mandatory LCC methodology in force, namely Directive 2009/33/EC, on the promotion of clean and energy-efficient road transport vehicles. However, the experience of that Directive’s implementation had already revealed several difficulties. The purpose of this chapter is therefore to identify not only the common premises in LCC methodology, but also the difficulties/challenges and solutions resulting from MS’ experiences before and beyond the Directives provisions (either the Clean Vehicles Directive or the Public Sector Directive). A comparative analysis of MS’ experiences in developing and applying LCC methodologies regarding several goods, services and works will be the starting point of the analysis, allowing us to assess the usefulness of this methodology along with its main challenges, namely legal constrains and the difficulties in applying the methodology itself. From those experiences, described in EU GPP solutions and in so many other studies and EU documents, it is also possible to pin point good practices and identify solutions to overcome those weaknesses.