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Institutional sustainable purchasing priorities: Stakeholder perceptions vs environmental reality

Madeleine Pullman (School of Business Administration, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA)
Robin Wikoff (School of System Science, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA)

International Journal of Operations & Production Management

ISSN: 0144-3577

Article publication date: 6 February 2017

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Abstract

Purpose

This purpose of this paper is to understand the environmental impacts of stakeholder-driven sustainable purchasing policies in institutional settings.

Design/methodology/approach

The research is framed using stakeholder and life cycle assessment (LCA) theories. The study uses a multi-method approach. Starting with interviews to understand the breadth of sustainability issues and significant food purchases facing institutional purchasing managers, the authors subsequently perform LCA of these various policies using the most popular food item in different categories.

Findings

From the interview results, the authors found that food purchasers focus predominately on cost, thus, are committed to food and packaging reduction. They are driven to buy local foods based on their consumer stakeholders but share their commitment to buying local products if the cost is appropriate. In the LCA of popular food items in multiple scenarios, avoiding food waste of various forms had significantly higher carbon emissions savings than packaging reduction or transportation minimizing (buy local) strategies.

Research limitations/implications

The sample relied solely on the perceptions of institutional purchasing managers in university dining services. Future research should involve collecting data from other stakeholder groups such as the customers themselves, institutional leaders, and in other types of institutional settings such as hospitals and government agencies.

Practical implications

The research provides managers with insights concerning the trade-offs between different sustainability objectives. In particular, findings show that reducing waste related animal protein has a bigger impact on environmental performance than many other popular sustainability objectives such as buying local or reducing packaging waste.

Social implications

The paper focuses on the purchasing trade-offs of buying local vs national food products, different packaging solutions, and food waste generation. These decisions offer some social benefits (improve the economic situation for local farms vs consolidated food producers) as well as multiple environmental benefits.

Originality/value

The paper presents new findings on the sustainability purchasing priorities of stakeholders in institutional food settings and subsequent LCA of those policies to show which might have the most environmental impact.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium (OTREC) for grant support with this research.

Citation

Pullman, M. and Wikoff, R. (2017), "Institutional sustainable purchasing priorities: Stakeholder perceptions vs environmental reality", International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 37 No. 2, pp. 162-181. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-07-2014-0348

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited

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