Green public procurement from the contractor’s perspective

Abstract

Purpose: Governments in many countries are trying to prevent climate change. One way of doing this is through green public procurement that consists of procuring goods, services and works with a reduced environmental impact during their life cycle compared to goods, services and works with an identical purpose that might otherwise have been procured. So the paper aims to examine private companies’ readiness to provide green goods and services in response to demands of green public procurement. This may encourage public entities to wider use of green public procurement because they may be afraid of an inadequate amount of companies that can meet the procurement criteria. The paper provides tips on how to organize the work of a public institution to make green public procurement more widespread. Design/methodology/approach: The methods used in this study were literature analysis, statistical survey, static analysis and case study. By means of a statistical survey and analysis, the relationship between the knowledge of employees of a given company regarding the knowledge of concepts related to green public procurement and the type of position was demonstrated. On the other hand, with the help of a case study, it was shown how an existing public procurement can easily be transformed into a green public procurement. Findings: In order to achieve sustainable outcomes, it is necessary to introduce internal regulations of public organisations relating to the integration of environmental considerations into tendering procedures. Public organisations should realise how easy it is to turn a public procurement into a green public procurement and that companies are already ready to do it. Almost any company can meet the environmental requirements to participate in green public procurement, the criteria depend on the ingenuity of the public organisations' staff. The main difficulties in including environmental aspects in tendering procedures include insufficient knowledge and experience of the contracting authorities in their practical application. Originality/value: The paper discusses the role of green public procurement, as well as how to manage a public organisation, what to do to make green public procurement widely used. Relevant knowledge of public employees, political will, as well as the fashion for green public procurement are important in the introduction of the above mentioned procurement. The paper also focuses on the private company's point of view. Keywords: carbon footprint, public procurement, green public procurement, climate change. Category of the paper: research paper.