In April I attended the 28th International IPSERA conference in Milan, Italy. I presented a paper written with Dr Peter Kruyen (Radboud University Nijmegen) that reported the results from a research into > 140.000 public procurement notices of Belgian contracting authorities.

The nature and extent of sustainable procurement is perceived to vary greatly, but little is actually known about the uptake of SPP and how it varies. Using text mining techniques over 140.000 procurement contract notices (published between 2011 and 2016) from Belgian public contracting authorities were explored to examine the current state of sustainable procurement, and identify patterns in the level and nature of attention for sustainability. Most notably we found that attention for sustainability increased and then decreased over time, focused on environmental sustainability, and varied between regions within Belgium. The paper was short listed for the best Public Procurement paper.