In recent years a significant number of OECD Member countries have introduced initiatives to reduce the environmentally damaging effects of public procurement. Through various policies and programmes environmental criteria are being applied to purchasing decisions. For example, in many countries purchasing guidelines require that particular products contain a minimum amount of recycled content or achieve specified levels of energy efficiency. In other cases, procurement officers are being provided with detailed information on the environmental impacts of the goods and services that they purchase, in the hope that this will influence their procurement decisions...

Governments increasingly include environmental criteria in their purchasing decisions. For example, purchasing guidelines often require that particular products contain a minimum amount of recycled content or achieve specified levels of energy efficiency. Guidelines may also favour - through price preferences, explicit set-asides, or other mechanisms - suppliers who exceed official pollution standards, abide by environmental frameworks, qualify for environmental labels, or otherwise demonstrate their “greenness”...

There is heightened public awareness of the importance of environmentally and socially responsible procurement. This is reflected in international efforts (such as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and the UN Global Compact) that encourage the private sector to improve their corporate labour and environmental practices (Gereffi et al., 2001). Similar efforts are being undertaken by public authorities since it is recognised that public purchasing, by virtue of its considerable size and diversity, can have considerable influence in the marketplace, and as such is one avenue to promote sustainable consumption and production....

This chapter is intended to provide background information on whether budget systems and procurement practices provide incentives or barriers to the purchase of environmentally preferable goods and services. The focus of the chapter is on budget and procurement practice in a general sense, rather than their implications for the environmental performance of public procurement. However, by providing an overview of common practice and the extent of reform in public expenditure management, the chapter allows for an analysis of the environmental implications in Chapter 4...

This chapter reviews the potential effects of public expenditure management on the environmental characteristics of goods and services purchased by public authorities. It builds on the discussion in Chapter 3, which reviewed procurement practices, budget systems and accounting practices in OECD member countries. The focus of the chapter is on synergies between budget reform, accounting and financial practices, and improvements in the environmental characteristics of procurement. It makes the case that environmental benefits can be the incidental by-product of improvements in budgetary systems, and accounting and financial practices...

Through adherence to regional trade agreements, membership in common market areas, and other international treaties, OECD Member country governments have agreed to subject their public procurement procedures to a certain degree of international regulation. In this report we will review the importance of legal constraints which such regimes place on the "scope" for including environmental criteria in public procurement...

In order to ensure transparency and competition in public procurement markets, OECD member countries have made themselves subject to a degree of regulation, both through competition policy generally and through specific laws related to public procurement. Such measures can place restrictions on the "scope" for including environmental criteria in their procurement practices. In many cases, such constraints mirror obligations agreed to through adherence to international procurement regimes, such as those discussed in the previous chapter. However, in other cases, there can be important differences...