In June I attended the fourth International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP) in Montréal, Canada and presented a paper about the impact of ability, motivation and opportunity on different types of sustainable public procurement.

Factors related to the ability, motivation and opportunity to procure in a sustainable manner have been identified as barriers or drivers to the implementation of SPP. Existing studies on sustainable public procurement often only focus on green public procurement, thereby overlooking the other types of SPP. Little is therefore known about the impact of these factors on the various types of SPP. A survey has been administered amongst procurers working in public spending authorities (e.g. municipalities, ministries, universities, provinces, and water boards).

The results indicate the antecedents vary per type of SPP and thus that findings about the antecedent of green public procurement cannot be generalised to other types of SPP.