Green Public Procurement as a Leverage for Sustainable Development: Documental Analysis of 80 Practices in European Union

Objectives And Methodology

The research aims to analyze the state-of-art of the main practices of Green Public Procurement (GPP) in the European Union. After introducing the framework of green public procurement theme as part of the main theories of reference in the process of modernization of the public administration (between the New Public Management (NPM) and Public Governance (PG) paradigms), a synthetic overview of the legislative framework is presented (Paragraph of literature and regulation of GPP).

The documental analysis (Bowen, 2009) on the last two decades regulatory measures and policy, initiated by the European Commission, aims to provide a summary of the major themes in the field of green public procurement, underlying the growing attention to the instrument by the Commission and its evolution towards Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP), along with the inclusion of social and environmental requirements, within the tendering procedures (focus of the Directives from the beginning 2014).

The empirical research part (Part of empirical studies) is based on an exploration of a multi-dimensional cluster of 80 GPP practices (updated in February 2014), identified by the European Commission starting with 2010 and implemented by the 25 Member States public administrations at local, regional and national levels. In particular, a systematic analysis was carried out on the published cards by the European Commission.

Each card is structured on six dimensions, and underlines:

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  The Objective of Procurement: i.e. the reasons behind the public administration objectives to do a tender and the aims to be pursued;

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  The Background: A summary of the already activated GPP activities by the concerned public administrations;

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  The Criterion Used: The information on the environmental criteria adopted (falling into one or more categories available at Community level), as well as additional information about the tender;

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  The Results: i.e. the description of the procedure outcome;

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  The Environmental Impact: Results of the actions undertaken;

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  The Lessons Learned: Gathering key points on which to set future strategies and identified mistakes to avoid in the future purchasing procedures.