Did governments neglect the environment during the COVID-19 pandemic? An empirical analysis of green public procurement

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic posed various challenges to governments around the globe. One of them has been keeping green actions towards a better environment. The impact of the pandemic on these government actions remains unknown. We explore Green Public Procurement (GPP) in the award criteria on contract notices for twenty-seven European countries as recorded in the Tenders Electronic Daily database for the period 2016–2022. We find a negative effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on GPP implementation, an effect that became more marked as the number of COVID-19 cases increased. Countries with better levels of bureaucracy successfully navigated their way through these turbulent times and increased their green procurement. Countries with higher level of GPP before the pandemic were less susceptible to decreases in their GPP commitment during the pandemic.