Can we meet those great green expectations? Capacity measures for green public procurement

Session overview

Many national and subnational governments have declared climate emergencies and promise to leverage their contract spend to achieve Net Zero targets – but whose job is this to implement? In this session the Oxford POGO Club looked at capacity and staffing issues related to Green Public Procurement, including contract management. We had an exceptional panel discussing this issue around world at different levels of government. The discussion addressed potential trade-offs, levels of engagement, and training within the procurement workforce. We also considered various measures of capacity, how to compare capacity across different contracting agencies, and how changes in capacity might be observed over time. 

Our panel:

• Anne Davies, University of Oxford, UK (Chair)
• Lachezar (Lucky) Anguelov,  The Evergreen State College, US
• Allison Anthony, African Procurement Law Unit, SA
• Lena Brogaard, Roskilde University, DK
• Sergio Lazzarini, Western University, CA
• Joyce Liddle, Northumbria University, UK
• Michal Plaček, Charles University, CZ
• Lisa Vanden Eynden, OECD 

Helpful background resources:

Stewardship and administrative capacity in green public procurement in the Czech Republic: evidence from a large-N survey

Public procurement failure: The role of transaction costs and government capacity in procurement cancellations

Public Capacity, Plural Forms Of Collaboration, And the Performance Of Public Initiatives: A configurational Approach