Diagnosis in the green public procurement of electrical and electronic equipment. Application to personal care and hygiene products

Abstract

Green Public Procurement (GPP) attempts to reduce the negative environmental impact of the public purchases by promoting sustainable practices. It is based on the incorporation of environmental criteria in public tenders for the selection of service suppliers and products. Although GPP is a non-mandatory instrument, it is being implemented progressively in the Spanish tenders, but incipiently in services and less commonly in products. Therefore, this study proposes to carry out an initial diagnosis on the criteria included in public tenders, taking the personal care and hygiene products category as a case study. To this end, 43 tenders were identified in the "Public Sector Procurement Platform", which included 1,200 devices. Each tender was analyzed descriptively and the awarding criteria in each one were identified and classified into different categories (technical, social, environmental, etc.) for each type of device. The weight given to each awarding criteria was also explored. © 2023 by The authors.