Assessment of Green Public Procurement as a Policy Tool: Cost-efficiency and Competition Considerations

Runar Brännlund (), Sofia Lundberg () and Per-Olov Marklund ()
Additional contact information
Runar Brännlund: Department of Economics, Umeå University, Postal: S 901 87 Umeå, Sweden
Per-Olov Marklund: Department of Economics, Umeå University, Postal: S 901 87 Umeå, Sweden

No 775, Umeå Economic Studies from Umeå University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Public procurement is officially regarded as an effective means to secure environmental improvement. Estimates indicate that public authorities within the European Union typically purchase goods and services corresponding to approximately 16 percent of GNP per annum. Hence, it is believed, private firms can be stimulated to invest in sustainable production technologies if the market power of public bodies is exerted through Green Public Procurement (GPP) policy and legislation. However, GPP has been little studied within a framework of welfare economics. From this perspective we assess GPP as an environmental policy tool and compare it to other tools, such as taxes. The general findings are that GPP should not be used when cost-efficiency serves as the guiding rule for environmental activities and that there is a great need for research on the subject in general. This need concerns, besides effects on the environment, especially its effects on market competition. In all, this paper opens up for an interesting and most necessary research area, which is motivated by the importance of resource use for sustainability.

Keywords: Cost effectiviness; Degree of competition; Environmental Policy; Policy tools; Public Procurement Auctions; Sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H57 Q01 Q28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2009-05-11, Revised 2010-01-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff and nep-env
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econ.umu.se/DownloadAsset.action?conten ... Id=3&assetKey=ues775 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:umnees:0775

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Umeå Economic Studies from Umeå University, Department of Economics Department of Economics, Umeå University, S-901 87 Umeå, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by David Skog ().