<p>The public sector in Norway purchases products and services for more then 300 billion NOK per year.</p><p>This purchasing power can play an important role in leveraging the market share of environmentally</p><p>sound products by increasing the level of environmental requirements in public contracts.</p><p>Environmental considerations in public procurement have been on the international agenda since</p><p>the 1992 conference in Rio, and the OECD, the EU and the Nordic Council of Ministers have also</p><p>placed Green Public Procurement (GPP) on their agendas. Together with statements from the 2002</p><p>World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, they all underline GPP as a tool for</p><p>making a shift to more sustainable production and consumption practices.</p><p>In Norway, the Government launched a Norwegian Action Plan on Environmental and Social</p><p>Responsibility in Public Procurement in 2007. The aim of the plan was to encourage the public sector</p><p>to demand environmentally sound products and services. However, several previous studies that</p><p>have assessed the status of GPP show that, despite efforts to promote environmental considerations,</p><p>there is a long way to go before these are fully integrated into public procurement practice</p><p>The aim of this study was to produce information about how widespread the use of environmental</p><p>criteria are in Norway, and to identify what drivers and barriers are seen to influence the GPP status.</p><p>Based on experiences from other studies, the method design chosen was an analysis of tender</p><p>documents complemented by case studies with interviews. Using both methods provided a way of</p><p>balancing the results so as to get the most objective status scores on GPP together with more</p><p>detailed answers on perceived drivers and barriers.</p><p>The results revealed that almost 60% of all tender documents included some kind of environmental</p><p>criteria, but 1/3 of these were so unclear that it was doubtful as to whether or not they would result</p><p>in any green procurement. Of the product groups that were in focus, the one that included paper and</p><p>print was by far the “greenest” of the groups, with the others both containing less GPP and more</p><p>unclear criteria. Compared to other studies this puts Norway at the same level as Sweden, and shows</p><p>a slight improvement in total GPP compared to previous assessments. Still, taking the high amount of</p><p>unclear criteria into account may lower the overall GPP score.</p><p>The interview results indicated that lack of knowledge, focus on economic considerations and</p><p>product functionality, lack of support and management focus and work pressure were the five main</p><p>barriers preventing GPP. Increased co-operation, increased focus from management, simplification of</p><p>criteria and more available products with environmental labels were identified as drivers. The drivers</p><p>and barriers identified correspond to those of previous studies, with some new finding such as</p><p>identifying the lack of product specific knowledge, where previous studies have focused more on lack</p><p>of procurement knowledge.</p><p>The findings are all important when it comes to working out a strategy to follow up the Norwegian</p><p>Action Plan. They give information about the needs identified by the procurement officers</p><p>themselves, thus giving an indication of what initiatives to prioritise.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:su-7822 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Dolva, Christiane |
| Publisher | Stockholm University, Stockholm Resilience Centre |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, text |
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