Determinants of Sustainable Procurement Practices at the Water Sector Institutions in Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract

For quite a number of years, a challenge on procurement practice has been widely and extensively experienced, more especially where companies do not take into consideration the effect of procurement on the environment. It is for this reason that modern procurement seeks to address and mitigate these challenges by setting up policies based on observations from practice of the same such that by way of adherence to these internationally recognized standards procurement practices, long term adverse effects of the environment are reduced. This research therefore sought to explore the determinants of sustainable procurement practices, to identify the impacts that sustainable procurement practices have in public water institutions, to establish the different sustainable procurement practices used by the public organizations, and to establish out the challenges of adopting sustainable procurement practices by public organizations in Kenya. The study revealed that the push to comply to new regulations, client expectations, reduction in cost of production to produce more affordable goods and services as well as reduction of costs of operation were the major determinants for sustainable procurement practices. The study therefore recommends that the government needs to enact environmental legislations and policies that promote sustainable procurement and those that already have such policies need to be reviewed and revised to integrate sustainable procurement issues and other sustainability issues. Keywords – Determinants; Sustainable; Procurement; Practices