Municipal Green Purchasing in Mexico: Policy Adoption and Implementation Success
Open accessAbstract
In this paper, we seek to determine what factors drive the adoption of green purchasing among municipalities in Mexico and the success of their implementation. Given the lack of research and theory in the area, this study is exploratory in nature. We applied the green purchasing survey developed by Arizona State University to all municipalities in Mexico with a population of 25,000 or more inhabitants. Using the least absolute shrinkage and selector operator method (LASSO), we reduced the set of measures, which we then employed in a logistic regression to predict whether the municipality would adopt a green purchasing policy. We found that complementary environmental practices, department rules, and city-wide contracts to reduce purchasing costs have a positive and significant effect on the propensity to adopt green purchasing policies, but the time for routine low-cost purchases has a negative effect on green purchasing policy adoption. Then, using two-stage least squares, we developed a model of the factors leading to successful implementation of green purchasing. We found that complementary environmental policies, environmental practices, environmental program knowledge, and city-wide contracts to reduce purchasing costs are positively and significantly related to successful implementation. However, department resources and the time for routine low-cost purchase are significant, but negatively related.
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The use of citywide purchase contracts to reduce costs can foster the adoption of GPP, standardisation and centralisation.
“The use of citywide purchase contracts to reduce costs can also foster the adoption of GPP (Leal et al., 2020), standardisation (Rainville, 2017) and centralisation (Roman, 2017).”
From Green public procurement as an effective way for sustainable development: A systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis (2025) · cites this paper as Leal et al., 2020
Rules and rule enforcement are more likely to lead companies to adopt green purchasing policies.
“Leal et al. (2020) also found that rules and rule enforcement are more likely to lead companies to adopt green purchasing policies.”
From Green public procurement as an effective way for sustainable development: A systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis (2025) · cites this paper as Leal et al., 2020
The number of weeks for routine low-cost purchases was negatively related to the probability of municipalities adopting green purchasing practices.
“Leal et al. (2020) found that the number of weeks for routine low-cost purchases was negatively related to the probability of municipalities adopting green purchasing practises.”
From Green public procurement as an effective way for sustainable development: A systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis (2025) · cites this paper as Leal et al. (2020)
Use of citywide purchase contracts is a facilitator of GPP.
“Use of citywide purchase contracts Leal et al. (2020)”
From Green public procurement as an effective way for sustainable development: A systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis (2025) · cites this paper as Leal et al. (2020)
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- Authors
- Leal, A. R., Perez-Castillo, D., Amorós, J. E., & Husted, B. W.
- Affiliations
- University of Monterrey (MX)
- EGADE Business School, Tecnologico de Monterrey, San Pedro Garza García 66269, Mexico
- Universidad del Desarrollo (CL)
- Tecnológico de Monterrey (MX)
- Corresponding author
- Husted, Bryan W.
- Venue
- Sustainability
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Published
- 2020-10-10
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 20
- Pages
- 8339
- ISSN
- 2071-1050 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3091787128
- Cited by
- 14
- References
- 61
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 1.60
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Sustainability (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Global Consortium for Sustainable Outcomes (001036)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Public Procurement and Policy
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Marketing › Environmental Sustainability in Business
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Sustainable Supply Chain Management
- Keywords
- green purchasing, municipal sustainability, policy adoption, policy implementation, local government, environmental practices, acquisition cost, Mexico
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