Bottom-up innovation adoption of green public procurement in the United States

ABSTRACT

Climate change and its outcomes are complex issues facing communities worldwide. Among policy options to address such issues, existing scholarship focuses mainly on regulatory policies. An innovative market-based policy option is green public procurement (GPP), which may induce private companies to voluntarily switch to more environmentally friendly products. The study examines the adoption and diffusion of GPP practices among local governments under the influence of state governments which may have distinct environmental policies and efforts. By drawing on data from an original national survey and supplemental sources and by employing a multilevel regression approach, this paper highlights GPP as an innovative, yet often overlooked, environmental policy option and strategic management tool. Results suggest a bottom-up, grassroots GPP adoption mechanism, emphasising local initiatives, strategic planning, and vision in sustainability advancement.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy innovation
• green public procurement
• environmental policy
• climate change
• multilevel regression

Acknowledgements

Ana-Maria Dimand acknowledges the financial support of the Florida International University’s University Graduate School through the Dissertation Evidence Acquisition Fellowship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. At times referred to in the literature and practice as ‘sustainable public procurement’.

2. Selection criteria ensure that a supplier has the capacity to perform/deliver under the contract and often require the vendor to provide proofs of environmental competence, for example, minimising waste formation or minimising the disturbance of natural habitats (Bolton 2008). Award criteria are used to compare the bids submitted, often in areas of upfront costs, life cycle costs, delivery, quality, and environmental effects of a product/service/construction (Trepte 1993; Bolton 2008). For instance, governments may request suppliers to disclose the material used for packaging, whether the supplier has an environmental management system in place (Bolton 2008). Technical specifications outline the product or service the organisation seeks. For example, an agency might request that the product they look for should be produced from a certain percentage recycled material (Bolton 2008). Then, if the product offered does not meet this requirement, the bid would be rejected regardless of their capacity to perform under the contract or price (Bolton 2008). Contract stipulations can not only formally summarise previous elements of a procurement process but also supplement them with additional, general environmental considerations, for example, requesting product delivery in non-rush hours or using recycled packaging materials (Bolton 2008).