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This study aims to assess the awareness and knowledge level of procurement officers (POs) in Ghanaian tertiary educational institutions regarding sustainability in general and specifically on environmental sustainability in the Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663) as amended.

Through purposive sampling technique and face-to-face interviews using semi-structured open-ended questions, qualitative data was collected from 19 POs who are well vested in the procurement profession and willingly agreed to partake in the research. The qualitative data were analyzed using content analysis technique to help organize and elicit meaning from the data collected and to draw realistic conclusions from it.

The results showed that most POs were aware of the Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663) as amended, primarily through seminars and workshops organized by the Public Procurement Authority. The interviewees demonstrated a good understanding of sustainable procurement, considering its social, environmental and economic aspects. However, one respondent primarily associated sustainability with only environmental issues. The POs were, however, of the view that the Amended Act 914 (2016) does not give detailed highlights on environmental sustainability, making implementation very difficult, especially regarding the procurement of goods. Overall, the findings indicate a positive level of environmental sustainability awareness and knowledge among the interviewed POs regarding the Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663) as amended.

The findings from the study could be used by policymakers to strategize educational campaigns by using the POs’ knowledge and awareness to the implementers of Act 663 (2003) as amended to effectively ensure environmental sustainability in procurement practices. The findings from the study have also contributed to the literature on procurement policy by drawing the attention of policy formulators to give equal attention to all the sustainability pillars, i.e. social, economic and environmental. This would consequently help the implementers to contribute to achieving sustainable development.

This study is one of the few empirical qualitative types of research seeking the views of POs in tertiary educational institutions in Ghana on sustainability and environmental sustainability as enshrined in the Public Procurement Act 2003 (Act 663) as amended. The findings give positive feedback to policymakers on the knowledge and awareness level of the POs on environmental sustainability and highlight the importance of awareness programmes and educational initiatives by the Public Procurement Authority and other stakeholders to ensure compliance with the Act.

In many countries, public procurement of goods, services and works is required to serve wider social purposes apart from the needs of the user agencies (which may be referred to as social responsibility procurement). In recent years, reforms have been implemented in the countries of East Asia to promote social responsibility procurement. They have entailed four main types of social responsibility: (a) supporting small and medium enterprises; (b) creating opportunities for small or start up venture firms; (c) fostering environmental sustainability through green purchasing, and environmentally sustainable construction (in the case of public works); (d) promoting work safety in site management in public works. The paper will examine the reforms in the countries of the region under which various preferential arrangements have been implemented to meet these objectives. It will consider why the reforms were adopted and also the differences between the countries of the region in the priority given to each of the reforms.

Procurement planning has always been a huge and challenging activity for business firms, especially in manufacturing. With government legislations about global concern over carbon emissions, the manufacturing firms are enforced to regulate and reduce the emissions caused throughout the supply chain. It is observed that procurement and logistics activities in manufacturing firms contribute heavily toward carbon emissions. Moreover, highly dynamic and uncertain business environment with uncertainty in parameters such as demand, supplier and carrier capacity adds to the complexity in procurement planning. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper is a novel attempt to model environmentally sustainable stochastic procurement (ESSP) problem as a mixed-integer non-linear program. The ESSP optimizes the procurement plan of the firm including lot-sizing, supplier and carrier selection by addressing uncertainty and environmental sustainability. The model applies chance-constrained-based approach to address the uncertain parameters.

The proposed ESSP model is solved optimally for 30 data sets to validate the proposed ESSP and is further demonstrated using three illustrations solved optimally in LINGO 10.

The ESSP model simultaneously minimizes total procurement cost and carbon emissions over the entire planning horizon considering uncertain demand, supplier and carrier capacity.

Housing delivery systems have been classified as developmentally‐orientated or conventionally‐orientated. It has been claimed that a developmentally‐orientated approach to building procurement would encompass the parameters of community empowerment and participation in design, job creation via the development process, and economically and environmentally‐sustainable procurement (Taylor & Norval 1995). New building procurement systems display an increasing awareness of sustainability, but concentrate on economic and social sustainability, as opposed to environmental sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to document and evaluate the extent to which issues of environmental sustainability have been incorporated in the delivery of affordable housing in South Africa. The paper elaborates on a range of relevant principles for sustainable construction, which incorporate: minimisation of resource use; maximisation of reuse of resources; maximisation of use of renewable and recycled resources; use of non‐toxic materials; protection of nature; achievement of quality criteria; and promotion of labour intensive methods, skills training and capacity enhancement of local people. The authors examine the extent to which the principles of environmental sustainability have been applied, both in practice and in the formulation of South African housing policy. Finally, recommendations are made for the application of criteria for environmental sustainability in the delivery process of affordable housing in South Africa.

This paper aims to identify, using a literature review and expert panel input, what impedes organizations from implementing sustainable procurement, particularly in an emerging economy context.

The extant literature review was carried out to explore and identify the barriers to sustainable procurement. Using interpretive structural modeling (ISM), the authors established a contextual relationship among the 22 identified barriers. These barriers are then classified into different categories, using the matrice d’impacts cross-multiplication appliqúe an classment (MICMAC) technique, based on their driving and dependence power.

The findings improve our understanding of the critical barriers and their direct and indirect effect on each other in obstructing sustainable procurement practices. The study is the first of its kind in identifying the barriers to sustainable procurement and developing a hierarchical relationship among barriers using an integrated ISM–MICMAC methodology based on data from an emerging economy (Pakistan). With a focus on sustainable practices, this study also responds to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The results of the hierarchical model help understand which barriers are the most crucial to be fixed immediately (i.e. absence of environmental laws and lack of consumer pressure) and how different barriers could influence each other, specifically in emerging economies. The practitioners can use the findings to make more informed decisions to mitigate the crucial barriers that could impede their goals of sustainable procurement.

The study is the first of its kind to identify the barriers to sustainable procurement and develop a contextual relation and hierarchical framework in the Pakistani context.

The adoption of sustainable procurement in construction clients’ organisation remains a difficult concept. Current research of sustainable procurement adoption studies fails to focus on a multi-stage adoption process. The purpose of this paper is to develop an organisational adoption model in a multi-stage process for the adoption of sustainable procurement in construction.

The paper developed an organisational adoption model. The model was tested against data obtained from survey administered to 193 respondents of central and local government institutions with a response rate of 63.7 per cent. Structural equation modelling using the partial least squares was employed to determine and confirm the factor structure of the model, and to measure the relationships between the model constructs.

An organisational adoption model is developed, tested and is robust to aid the adoption decision process of sustainable procurement within construction organisations.

The study is limited in scope affecting generalisation of the results. Future study should expand the scope to include consultants, contractors and suppliers.

The adoption model will assist policy makers and top managers to understand the adoption decision process and prioritise on the technological, organisational and environmental factors that significantly affect sustainable adoption decision process within construction organisations.

This study appears to be among the first to empirically develop an organisational adoption model to aid the adoption of sustainable procurement in construction.

Most barriers and enablers of sustainable projects are related to procurement. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for evaluating green procurement practices throughout the lifecycle of road construction projects and demonstrates its application through an Australian case study.

The study is based on linking the phases of road construction with incentive mechanisms for proactively motivating behavioural change. A holistic view on utilised and potential incentives is attempted with a literature review and a state-of-practice review. The latter is based on interviews and 90 policy and procurement documents across five Australian states.

An evaluation framework with seven procurement stages is suggested to describe current state green procurement incentives throughout the delivery lifecycle of road construction projects. The Australian case study was found to provide useful data to identify gaps and strong points of the different states regarding their level of integration of sustainability and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reduction elements in their procurement practices. This understanding was used to draw recommendations on future advancement of green procurement.

Government entities across the globe can impact considerably the achievement of sustainability and GHG targets, by using their procurement practices and requirements to create incentives for contractors and suppliers to engage in more GHG conscious practices. The present study provides a systematic account of how green procurement practices can be underpinned using the Australian road construction industry as a case study, and distinguish between strong and weak links in the green procurement chain to draw recommendations for future initiatives.

The purpose of this paper is to identify drivers and deterrents to sustainable procurement (SP) via field-level inquiry in the context of public sector higher education institutes in an emerging economy like Pakistan.

Unstructured interviews guided by the interview guide were conducted. The participants were selected via purposive sampling. A three-step process was carried out for data analysis. The first-order codes were generated from the views expressed by the informants. The descriptive codes (second-order categories) were developed, providing insights into the main factors. These codes helped to generate the third-order themes related to drivers and deterrents of SP.

The results reveal that interdepartmental cooperation is the most discussed driver, followed by government regulations. The most noted deterrents include a lack of interdepartmental cooperation, a lack of environmental laws and resistance to change. The participants have highlighted interdepartmental coordination as both a driver if available and a deterrent if not available.

The identified drivers and deterrents shall help the managers and policymakers as a guide while transitioning from traditional procurement to SP.

With the increased focus of the higher education commission Pakistan on implementing green practices in higher educational institutes, this study proposes the understanding of a systematic and holistic view of SP by proposing a theoretical framework.

This paper aims to identify important factors in green public procurement (GPP) implementation and then to clarify how these factors affect GPP implementation.

The authors applied the Delphi method first and then conducted a focused and constrained multiple case study at 18 government procurement centers across China.

The authors identified four clusters of factors for successful GPP implementation: more clear, consistent and operational policy goals; a nation-wide green procurement campaign to enhance social capital and cultural resources; promoting staff’s ethics, professionalism, capacity and knowledge; and establishing checks and balances among organizations involved in the whole purchasing process.

GPP can significantly improve environmental protection and sustainable development.

Based on key insights from systems theory and agency theory, the authors emphasize that GPP implementation must take down its own functional silos and adopt a process approach across organizational tiers to synchronize human resource based and inter-organizational capabilities into a unified whole through information sharing, communications and collaboration.

Due to the environmental concerns in our society, governments are moving towards green purchasing. However, public sector organizations have substantial internal problems. By using a theory of natural resource-based view, this study aimed to analyse the influence of leadership styles and innovation capabilities on green purchasing in the public sector organizations of a developing economy.

Data was collected from 199 purchasing professionals of public sector organizations, and hypotheses were tested through a quantitative method using partial least square-structural equation modelling with the help of SmartPLS version 4 to validate the measurement model.

This study identified that transformational leadership and delegation style of leadership have a significant and positive effect on innovation capability and green purchasing. Similarly, innovation capability mediates the relationship between leadership styles and green purchasing. However, transformational leadership found a more substantial effect on innovation capability and green purchasing than the delegation leadership style.

Results provide insight into the role of leadership styles in green purchasing and innovation capabilities in public sector organizations. Thus, addressing the important issues of how leadership styles and innovative capabilities (IC) can improve green culture, specifically green purchasing, to enhance ecological sustainability.

Results provide insight into the role of leadership styles in green purchasing and innovation capabilities in public sector organizations. Thus, it addresses how leadership styles and IC can improve green culture, specifically green purchasing, to enhance ecological sustainability.