Mitigating the barriers to green procurement adoption: An exploratory study of the Indian construction industry

Abstract

The construction sector in India is in the government's intense focus on creating a world-class infrastructure balancing environmental conservation. Adopting green procurement practices by mitigating adoption barriers is necessary for Indian construction firms to achieve the goal. However, none of the existing research identified the comprehensive list of barriers, analysed their impacts on green procurement adoption, prioritized the barriers and formulated the solution strategies to mitigate them and maximize green procurement adoption for the Indian construction sector. To bridge this gap, this study has identified barriers, analysed their impact, prioritized the criticality, and developed the solution strategies to alleviate them. Questionnaire surveys and descriptive statistics are first performed for data analysis of the firms based on the firm's size and domain of expertise. Later, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) is performed and identified the significant differences in the impact of the barriers on Indian construction firms having different sizes or domains of expertise. The fuzzy best-worst method (FBWM) is then used to identify the most significant barriers as “reduced commitment from higher management”, “lack of management support”, and “perception of higher cost for adhering to green procurement”. Finally, the Delphi technique and assessment of various portals of the Government of India (GOI) have been carried out to identify the solutions to mitigate the barriers. The research results in an original and unique approach to identifying and analysing the critical barriers to green procurement adoption and their impact on different categories of Indian construction firms. It has identified the topmost barriers and then the solution strategies Indian construction firms and GOI need to focus on to embrace green procurement. The procurement managers can identify the top-rated barriers derived from the present study to closely focus and make strategies to eliminate them, helping their organisations adopt green procurement practices. The solution strategies derived from the study may be ready to implement action plans for construction and infrastructure companies of India, environmental and social development of the country, and assisting the GOI in developing and implementing the policy of green procurement for the Indian construction industry.