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Cited by 70Public Procurement and PolicySustainable Supply Chain ManagementEU Law and Policy Analysis

More Than a Nudge? Arguments and Tools for Mandating Green Public Procurement in the EU

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Mélon, Lela·2020·Sustainability
DOI 10.3390/su12030988
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Abstract

The present research paper analyses the EU general and mandatory sectoral legal framework on public procurement, arguing for its inhibiting effect on the EU-wide uptake of green public procurement. It explores de jure and de facto barriers to green public procurement, motivated by the need for a change in the business world towards more sustainable practices through preferably mandatory legal changes of EU corporate law. As the public procurement represents a strong nudge for a qualitative change in private market demand, accounting for a minimum of 12% of the national gross domestic product, it should become environmentally sustainable itself and guide markets through the qualitative and quantitative changes on the demand side. Given the complexity of the current legal framework and the novelty of the approach to public procurement as a strategic tool for the achievement of sustainable production and consumption, a better defined and clear legislative approach is called for, possibly in a mandatory form, clarifying the obligation of public procurers to account for sustainability in their practices, especially as regards incorporating environmental concerns in their purchasing activities. In its current form, the EU legislative public procurement framework entails a seemingly permissive attitude towards green public procurement, hampered in practice by the existing legal institutes in the field, which hamper the strategic use of public procurement and thereby its influence on sustainability on the private markets.

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Authors
Mélon, L.
Affiliations
Universitat Pompeu Fabra (ES)
Corresponding author
Mélon, Lela
ORCID
Mélon, Lela
Venue
Sustainability
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2020-01-30
Volume
12
Issue
3
Pages
988
ISSN
2071-1050 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3390/su12030988
OpenAlex
W3003800734
Cited by
70
References
45
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 21 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 7
FWCI
12.81
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Sustainability (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • Repositori digital de la UPF (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (789461)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Public Procurement and Policy
  • Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Sustainable Supply Chain Management
  • Social Sciences › Law › EU Law and Policy Analysis
Keywords
green public procurement, EU procurement law, sustainable consumption and production, corporate law reform

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