On Monday the 30th of March I presented a paper titled ‘Fulfilling the potential of sustainable public procurement: Examining the role of behaviour, commitment to change and knowledge in determining the degree of sustainable public procurement’ at the International Research Society for Public Management (IRSPM) conference at the University of Birmingham. The paper is co-authored with Bram Steijn and Ben Kuipers and deals with the question “does the individual sustainable procurement behaviour of public procurers mediate the relationship between affective commitment to change, knowledge about sustainable procurement and sustainability, and the application of sustainable procurement in public procurement projects in the Dutch national government?”

To answer our research question a survey was held amongst public procurers working in the Dutch national government. The results show that sustainable procurement behaviour positively mediates the relationship between on the one hand affective commitment to change and knowledge, and on the other hand the application of both compulsory and voluntary sustainable public procurement in procurement projects. Especially voluntary sustainable procurement proved receptive for knowledge and affective commitment to change. It is therefore concluded that to increase the application of sustainable procurement public organisations should focus on increasing knowledge about sustainability and the environment, affective commitment to change and sustainable procurement behaviour.