Sustainable development and sustainable public procurement: political strategies

Abstract

Public procurement has been used extensively by public bodies to reach political, economic or social objectives. More recently, particularly since the mid-nineties, various countries have been taking steps towards adopting so-called "green" procurement policies that take into account the nature of production, as well as use and disposal costs, and hence contribute to achieving environmentally desirable outcomes.

In 1992, Agenda 21 identified unsustainable patterns of consumption and production to be a major cause of continued deterioration of the global environment, and briefly alluded to government purchasing as one way in which governments can exercise leadership to promote sustainable development.

In 1999, the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection were expanded to include promotion of sustainable consumption, calling upon governments and international agencies to take the lead in introducing sustainable practices in their own operations, including through their procurement policies.

The 2002 Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI), urged relevant authorities to promote public procurement policies that encourage development and diffusion of environmentally sound goods and services, and in the same year, the OECD Council issued a recommendation on improving the environmental performance of public procurement.

More recently, sustainable procurement has received international support in the context of the "Marrakech Process", a global process to support regional and national initiatives to promote the shift towards sustainable consumption and production (SCP) patterns, jointly coordinated by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Because sustainable public procurement (SPP) is still a relatively new subject in Latin America and the Caribbean, this paper is meant to provide background information concerning the international context in which the theme has emerged, to stimulate debate among those interested in improving the performance of public administration in general, and among procurement officials in particular, and and ultimately contribute to promote the dissemination of SPP in the region.

The paper first describes the evolution of global support for actions in support of sustainable procurement in the context of the broader sustainable development policy debate at the multilateral level and then proceeds to discuss the integration of environmental and social considerations in the United Nations and other multilateral organizations' procurement processes with the goal of highlighting the political difficulties involved and lessons learned.

Finally, an overview of the current state of affairs in terms of implementation of sustainable public procurement policies and programmes at the national level is presented.