PhD defence: Sustainable Public Procurement

On Monday 26 May at 12 pm, Ruben Nicolas will defend his PhD thesis Sustainable Public Procurement: A Multidisciplinary Analysis.

The procurement of goods, works and services by the public sector, including, for example, software, public transport, infrastructure, vaccines and defence equipment, accounts for about 17% of the global economy. Because of this large economic share, public procurement can also be used strategically for higher social value creation. By including environmental goals in procurement decisions, for example, governments can limit the ecological footprint of their procurement, while also driving sustainability and innovation by suppliers.

Although the potential of sustainable public procurement is increasingly recognised, at the policy level and in procurement law, its application in practice is still limited. With his dissertation, Ruben Nicolas wants to provide more clarity about why this is. Three empirical studies, into what motivates contracting authorities to purchase sustainably, and why some actions are more effective than others in creating broader social value, lead him to the following conclusions:
 

• Simply addressing the frequently mentioned barriers to sustainable procurement, such as financial limitations and lacking knowledge, does not necessarily lead to more sustainable procurement, as these barriers are usually linked to other factors in the broader institutional context.
   
• Public buyers make sustainable procurement efforts insofar this can affect their legitimacy, or licence to operate, which is based, among other things, on the expectations of suppliers, top officials and society and the conditions formulated in policy and legislation.
   
• When contracting authorities pursue several societal goals simultaneously, the operational complexity of contracts increases and the control of outsourced tasks becomes more difficult. Nicolas explains how these issues can be solved and which conditions determine the optimal design of contracts with private and/or civil implementing actors. 

More transparency, more collaboration

In the light of the upcoming reforms of European Public Procurement Directives, Nicolas argues firstly for the higher transparency of public procurement, to stimulate sustainable procurement behaviour that is in line with endorsed societal goals and discourages superficial ‘box-ticking’. In addition, Nicolas argues for expanded possibilities within public procurement law to award contracts to social parties, and to work together with (potential) suppliers.

Ruben Nicolas is a PhD student at the Utrecht University School of Economics (U.S.E.).