The increasing development of publication on sustainable procurement and issues in practice

This paper provides an overview of the developments in relation to sustainable procurement through a review of 63 publications indexed in Scopus and found published between 1996 and 2013. The increasing development of standards, guidance notes and research papers on sustainable procurement offers a means to examine ongoing developments and trends. The research aim was to review studies that contribute to our understanding of sustainable procurement; and critically examine some of the current sustainable procurement trends. The developments since 1996 have culminated in the publication of Procuring the Future (2006) which was a UK government Sustainable Procurement National Action Plan; BS8903: 2010 which is a generic standard on sustainable procurement; CIRIA 695: 2011 which is a guide on sustainable procurement in construction; training courses on sustainable procurement offered by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) for example; and development of policies on sustainable procurement by businesses. ISO 10845: 2010 defines procurement as the process through which contracts are created, managed and fulfilled. However, sustainable procurement requires the use of procurement to achieve wider objectives based on a mix of social, environmental and economic considerations. A content analysis shows the 63 papers from 16 countries are published in 58 different journals which reflect a multidisciplinary subject of growing international interest. More interdisciplinary research is needed to develop a consistent body of knowledge. In practice, the dominance of traditional competitive procurement approaches that focuses heavily on price and lead to wasted resources, exploitation of the “sustainability” label by businesses, and questions relating to the development of a comprehensive method for measuring sustainable procurement reveals significant gaps between theory and practice that should be addressed.