The Environmental Performance of Public Procurement, Issues of Policy Coherence

Various OECD member countries have introduced initiatives over recent years to highlight the importance of applying environmental criteria in purchasing decisions, in order to reduce the environmentally damaging effects of public procurement. Examples of 'greener public purchasing' (GPP) policies include attempts to increase the recycled content of products or achieve specified levels of energy efficiency in capital equipment. These measures can have direct benefits on the environmental characteristics of public procurement itself, as well as indirect benefits through their influence on firms and households. This publication contains background reports produced for an OECD workshop held in Vienna in October 2001. It examines the potential economic efficiency and environmental effectiveness of GPP policies, and reviews the links between GPP programmes and related areas of public policy, including the general environmental policy framework, public expenditure management, and the legal framework for public procurement.