Technology-neutral green procurement in practice - an example from Swedish waste management

Area of Science:

• Environmental Policy
• Public Procurement
• Waste Management Economics

Background:

• Green public procurement (GPP) often relies on technology-specific criteria, potentially hindering innovation.
• Technology-neutral procurement is favored by economists to incentivize outcomes over specific technologies.
• Both approaches present practical challenges in achieving environmental goals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effectiveness of technology-neutral procurement in the context of green public procurement for waste management.
• To identify potential inefficiencies in sophisticated technology-neutral procurement models.
• To explore alternative mechanisms for achieving environmental targets in public procurement.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of a sophisticated technology-neutral procurement model used in Sweden for waste management.
• Evaluation of a scoring rule that weighted environmental impacts but not specific technologies.
• Exploration of the implications of assigning monetary surcharges to environmental effects.

Main Results:

• The studied technology-neutral procurement model, despite weighting environmental impacts, exhibited potential inefficiencies.
• The scoring rule could lead to arbitrary and unintended outcomes.
• No weight assigned to the particular technology employed did not guarantee optimal results.

Conclusions:

• Technology-neutral procurement, even in advanced forms, may not inherently resolve inefficiencies in green public procurement.
• Assigning monetary surcharges to environmental impacts presents a potentially more effective strategy for meeting environmental targets.
• Further research into optimal incentive structures for sustainable public procurement is warranted.