Sustainable procurement in the public sector: an international comparative study

Purpose Public bodies are being encouraged to procure sustainably, to reduce their social and environmental footprint and in order to stimulate sustainability in the private sector. However, little is known about how public sector organisations internationally are responding to this encouragement or of the conditions that are most conducive to sustainable procurement (SP). The purpose of this paper is to address these gaps in our knowledge so as to inform policy development at the government and organisational levels. Design/methodology/approach The authors report the findings of a survey of SP practices within a sample of over 280 public procurement practitioners from 20 countries and with collective…