It is not easy being green: increasing sustainable public procurement behaviour

To achieve greater sustainability, governments need to continuously adapt their purchasing activities to innovations in the market. Sustainable procurement is a decision-making process in which the decisions of procurers determine if the full potential of sustainable procurement is used. The decisions and thus behaviour of procurers are therefore crucial for the successfulness of sustainable procurement. According to organizational theory, commitment to change could influence this behaviour. Hence, in the study, we examined if commitment to implement sustainable procurement increases sustainable procurement behaviour by Dutch public procurers and what determines this commitment to implement sustainable procurement are. Our study shows first that both affective commitment to implement sustainable procurement and procedural justice increase sustainable procurement behaviour. In addition, the results show that commitment to change acts as a mechanismbetween fitwith vision, ecological sustainability attitude, procedural justice and sustainable procurement behaviour

A field-level examination of the adoption of sustainable procurement in the social housing sector

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on a field-level examination of the adoption of sustainable procurement in social housing. It explores the role of regulation and procurement consortia in sustainable procurement. Design/methodology/approach – The study employs a case study of the UK social housing sector and uses an online survey (n=116) of UK Housing Associations. Factor analysis identifies three parsimonious dimensions of sustainable procurement. Attitudinal data are analysed to explore the field-level adoption of sustainable procurement and the role of consortia. Findings – The results delineate sustainable procurement activities into three factors; direction setting, supplier-centric assurance and local socially oriented supply. High yet sup-optimal levels of sustainable procurement activity are revealed. Prevailing attitudes identify positive commitments to sustainable procurement at individual, organisational and sector levels. The value of network collaboration is identified. Tenants as critical stakeholders do not prioritise sustainable procurement creating challenge for inclusivity. Regulators are seen to a have low level of sustainable procurement knowledge and procurement consortia a high perceived knowledge. Research limitations/implications – Results provide insight into the effect of sustainable procurement policy, the role of regulators and network structures and consortia, raising issues around legitimacy, coopetition, stakeholder engagement, performance measurement, and functional/sectoral maturity. Social implications – The identification of the potential exclusion of tenants in sustainability debates is particularly significant to deliver social value. Originality/value – The relative newness of the social housing sector and its quasi-public sector status provides an original contribution to the consortia and sustainable procurement literatures

Investigating the sustainable procurement practices among ISO14001 certified public and private organisations in Johor

Malaysia has developed from the agriculture-based economy to an organisationalbased economy which involves public and private sectors. Eventually, public and private sector began their contribution towards GDP of Malaysia. Literatures and researches have shown that public and private sector procurement activities are one of the reasons of environmental issues occurring in Malaysia. Hence, public and private sector organisation are facing pressure from global market to improve their sustainability performance by implementing sustainable procurement practices. This research was designed to identify the implementation level of current sustainable procurement practices in the public and private organisation; to examine the differences of sustainable procurement practices between public and private organisation; as well as to investigate the relationship between the barriers and sustainable procurement practices in public and private organisation. The research adapted survey research design using questionnaire to obtain data of sustainable procurement practices from representatives of ISO 14001 Certified public and private organisation in Johor. The questionnaire was adapted from previous studies, and random sampling was used to select respondents. In total, 282 questionnaires were distributed to the ISO 14001 certified public and private organisation, 149 returned and 3 removed which resulted in response rate of 52%. The results shows that the implementation level of sustainable procurement practices are moderate, and there are significant differences of sustainable procurement practices between public and private organisation. The results suggest that private sector should strive more to implement sustainable procurement from the environmental point of view. Four of the barriers are also identified to have a significant relationship with sustainable procurement practices, i.e. cost, technological barriers, supplier conflicts as well as resources conflicts. This study contributes valuable insight into the barriers of sustainable procurement practices of public and private organisations in Johor

Conceptualising the adoption of sustainable procurement: An institutional theory perspective

Sustainable procurement and supply chain management studies are growing; however several scholars have criticised the lack of theoretical development accompanying this literature. Sustainable procurement and supply chain management activities form part of an organisation's path to adopt sustainability. Some scholars have suggested examining the application of management theories to describe the introduction of corporate sustainability to address this gap. Institutional theory is frequently used to describe how new practices are adopted in organisations and has also been applied to several corporate social responsibility studies. This conceptual paper examines the applicability of institutional theory to describe the adoption of sustainable procurement and concludes by presenting three theoretical propositions to explain sustainable procurement adoption. © 2014 Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand Inc

Investigation of current perspectives for NHS Wales sustainable development through procurement policies

Public sector procurement has to operate under the pressure of policies and strict budgets. This paper examines the current perspectives of NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership (NWSSP) on sustainable procurement policies through the environmental, social and economic dimensions. In particular, it investigates the adoption levels of the sustainable procurement policies of buyers (NHS Wales), examines the level of engagement of SMEs to NHS Wales, and explores the support for the existing sustainable procurement function through order-processing analysis of catalogue coverage

Sustainable procurement : pathways of transition for Australian organizations

University of Technology, Sydney. Institute for Sustainable Futures.Organisations as discretionary customers exert a powerful influence on sustainability. Sustainable procurement, the subject of this thesis, represents an approach whereby the natural and social environments are explicitly taken into account in purchasing decisions. Guided by transdisciplinarity, this thesis explores interventions to accelerate sustainability considerations in organisational procurement by providing a range of practical and theoretical contributions to this field. The research findings are underpinned by a framework of strategic management theories and a social-constructivist epistemology. To examine the adoption of sustainable procurement in Australian organisations, this study employs a survey questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, complemented by an arts-based inquiry interpretation of the case studies. The combined findings reveal that sustainable procurement in most Australian organisations is an optional activity, in its formative stages, practised as environmental purchasing and typically sustainable procurement is introduced as part of organisational sustainability. This is aside from organisations with exposure to global supply chains that also integrate social considerations. Organisations with fewer than 100 people were found to have the highest adoption rates. In alignment with other green purchasing studies internal organisational determinants, including senior management support, and existing sustainability programs and policies, were found to be highly predictive of adoption. Existing formalised purchasing arrangement including policies, contracts with suppliers and strategic partnerships also supported adoption. By contrast frequently reported barriers, including the high cost of sustainable products and the introduction of programs and also lack of staff awareness and organisational size were not found in this study. Potential loss of reputation, as a form of competitive advantage was found to be the prime motivation for sustainable procurement adoption. In response to maintaining reputation, organisations were seen to frequently form collaborative stakeholder relationships, predominantly with NGOs and partnerships with suppliers, as the platform for innovative products. Use of a diffusion of innovations' framework indicates that sustainable procurement will be diffused as an innovation among Australian organisations surveyed by 2010. This was shown to be supplemented by institutional forces predominantly through supplier performance programs and sustainability frameworks, initially, then through mimetic and coercive forces between suppliers and their supply chains and industry peers. Mimetic tendencies amongst procuring organisations will also contribute to the institutionalisation of sustainable procurement in Australian organisations. Overall, this thesis contributes valuable insight to the status and future of sustainable procurement in Australia with findings that are more broadly applicable. It both strengthens the theoretical basis for examination of the sustainable procurement field, and offers practical tools, including a phase model tailored from the corporate sustainability literature to address this important area

Sustainable procurement strategies for competitive advantage: An empirical study

Procurement plays a key role in sustainability as policies and practices need to extend beyond organisations' boundaries to incorporate their whole supply chains. There is, however, a paucity of empirical research on sustainable forms of procurement initiatives currently being implemented in the UK construction sector to improve competitiveness - which is the core driver of this paper. In order to achieve this aim, a mixed research methodological approach was adopted to collect and analyse data. The findings are based primarily on quantitative data obtained from 53 completed postal questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with 17 professionals from 12 UK construction organisations. As revealed by this study, sustainable procurement is becoming increasingly important in the UK construction sector. The paper concludes that the process of integrating sustainable procurement initiatives into existing business models is often a complex issue. Therefore, there is an urgent need to explore the drivers and impediments associated with the successful integration of sustainable procurement initiatives into existing construction business models. It is also suggested that there is a need for cross-sector collaboration to capture and share best and worst practices relating to sustainable procurement strategies

Interrelationship Performance Indicators Model of Sustainable Procurement in Higher Education

Sustainable procurement is developing among practitioners and academics, but not many have done this research with the object of higher education institutions. This study succeeded in obtaining twelve indicators of sustainable procurement in higher education in Indonesia. The interpretive structural modeling method is used to model these indicators so that a four-level model is obtained, where the first level consists of seven indicators, the second level is one indicator, the third level is two indicators, and the fourth level is two indicators. In addition, the twelve indicators were also grouped using MICMAC analysis into four quadrants. Eight indicators are included in the autonomous indicators quadrant, four indicators are included in the independent indicators quadrant. Nothing is included in the dependent indicators and linkage indicators quadrant. This study proposes to the management of higher education to improve the performance of sustainable procurement, starting from level four indicators, namely the existence of routine monitoring and sustainability criteria (P12) and there is awareness of sustainable procurement on campus internals (P2)

INVESTMENT STRUCTURES FOR SUSTAINABLE PROCUREMENT ACROSS THE PUBLIC SECTOR

What is the meaning of the sustainable development concept? “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.Why is it necessary that a nation to create a strategy based on sustainable principles? A sustainable development reflects a cohesive and coherent strategic vision to achieve continuous improvement of the quality of life for the present and future generations by creating sustainable communities that are capable to manage and use resources efficiently and to realize the potential of the economy for social and ecological innovation in order to provide prosperity, a better environment and social cohesion.This trend will occur more frequently in the decisions of public authorities and institutions, because the State must be the example to follow for operators that work and create value added in a solid economyInvestment Structures, Public Procurement, Sustainable Development, Sustainable Public Procurement.