Sustainable development and the power of the purse: A critical assessment of the EU’s Green Public Procurement policy
This article critically examines the European Union’s Green Public Procurement (GPP) policy, tracing three decades of incremental development and assessing current shortcomings. Public procurement represents a substantial share of government activity (around 15% of EU GDP), giving governments signi...
Uloženo v:
| Hlavní autor: | |
|---|---|
| Médium: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Jazyk: | Français |
| Vydáno: |
2026
|
| On-line přístup: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Shrnutí: | This article critically examines the European Union’s Green Public Procurement (GPP) policy, tracing three decades of incremental development and assessing current shortcomings. Public procurement represents a substantial share of government activity (around 15% of EU GDP), giving governments significant “power of the purse” to pursue environmental objectives. Despite high expectations for GPP’s contribution to environmental objectives, including market transformation, uptake remains low and uneven across levels of government and Member States. Fragmentation in the regulatory framework – across voluntary versus mandatory measures, procedural versus substantive requirements, sectoral versus horizontal rules, and below- versus above-threshold regimes – has produced patchy GPP implementation. Measurement challenges and a weak evidence base further obscure the policy’s effectiveness. Transformative market impacts are rarely captured, and GPP is not sufficiently benchmarked against other potential policies. The article also explores risks of overstretching public procurement with multiple, sometimes conflicting objectives, generating synergy or friction effects. Referring to the upcoming new Public Procurement Act, the article argues for clearer objectives, better evidence, and a more coherent regulatory design to enhance GPP uptake and effectiveness.
|
|---|