Buying green in public procurement: Cross-country learning

Public procurement is a powerful tool to further other public policy objectives such as sustainability. When countries introduce a policy on sustainability through public procurement, they may learn from past successes and failures in other countries. This exploratory study aims to investigate the concept of cross-country learning on Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP). A threefold methodology was used that consisted of (1) an extensive review of scientific literature complemented by (2) a thorough examination of policy documents and (3) interviews with some leading public procurement experts from 10 countries including both developing and developed countries. The main findings indicate that there is no hard evidence for cross-country learning and that the lessons learned remain largely implicit. This indicates that countries either do not learn a lot from each other or it is not considered appropriate or worthwhile to mention it.