Each year, 13–20% of global GDP is generated by governments buying goods, works, and services, and government spending is currently estimated to account for 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This means public procurement can be a high-impact tool in the fight against climate change, explored in a new report by a team involving the Climate Policy Hub.
Government spending decisions create predictable demand, influence supply chains, and shape investment in technologies, industries, and productive capacity. The environmental implications of these choices are significant. Aligning public procurement with climate and environmental priorities can help build economies that are both more resilient and fit for a low-carbon future, says the report.
Procurement for the Planet: Policy approaches to greening public spending is a white paper from the Oxford initiative on Green Approaches to Public Procurement (OxGAP), by authors from the Climate Policy Hub (a cross-Oxford programme based out of the Blavatnik School), the Agile Initiative at the Oxford Martin School, and Oxford Net Zero. Drawing on cross-national policy tracking from the Hub's Oxford Climate Policy Monitor, and over 60 interviews with procurement officials and experts worldwide, it examines green public procurement in practice.
There are encouraging signs of progress: since 2020, the number of green public procurement policies in G20 countries has more than doubled, and all but two G20 countries now have some kind of policy in place.
There are many examples in the report. The Netherlands’ procurement policy is encouraging suppliers to compete on corporate climate outcomes. Canada’s federal government is focused on reducing its construction sector emissions, engaging industry in its development of standards on embodied emissions in cement and steel. The US General Services Administration’s Green Proving Ground has helped emerging technologies move from demonstration to commercial deployment by testing them in federal facilities, with more than 100,000 CO₂ avoided and $28m saved each year. Brazil uses school-food purchasing to direct substantial, aggregated public demand towards family farms and indigenous communities.
The white paper identifies three complementary approaches through which governments are greening their spending.
The first is greening what governments buy, through tools like ecolabels, standards and life-cycle assessments that shift demand towards greener products and services.
The second approach greens the providers themselves, by using access to public contracts to encourage stronger corporate green governance among suppliers.
The third greens how governments buy, through earlier market engagement and innovative contracts that reward green outcomes and help innovative solutions reach scale.
Progress nevertheless remains uneven, not least because government procurement systems are complex, risk-averse, and capacity-constrained. However, says the authors, “the strongest examples examined in this report show that these barriers can be overcome. When used effectively, green public procurement can do considerably more than reduce the environmental footprint of individual purchases. It can shape markets, communities, and the climate."
The Climate Policy Hub is a collaboration between the Blavatnik School of Government and the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme (which is a joint initiative of the Oxford Smith School and Oxford's Law Faculty).
