Green public procurement implementation challenges in Australian public healthcare sector

Abstract

This study investigates challenges of implementing green public procurement (GPP) in Australian public healthcare sector. Through an extensive literature review it develops a framework of GPP implementation that incorporates five challenge-categories and sixteen challenges. The problem is structured as an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) based multi-criteria decision-making model. The AHP-based structured interviews are conducted with the health-procurement executives to collect data and information. The results of the analysis reveal that the key challenge-categories of green health procurement are related to government, NGO and public issues, and organisational green issues. The most critical challenges found are lack of legislation on green procurement, senior management support for green, government incentives for green purchase, and lack of financial support. Some of the least important challenges identified are green preferences in purchasing, understanding of green policy, availability of green product supplier, and collaboration with supplier. The most critical challenges are mainly strategic, whereas, the least important challenges are operational in nature. An insight into the criticality of the challenges and a clear understanding of their decision-making domains could assist public health institutions devising strategies and policies on green procurement.