Sustainable Procurement Research Initiative
Professional Resources
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Advancing green procurement in local governments
While green procurement policies have the potential to significantly reduce carbon impacts across the globe, most US cities have either struggled to implement them or not have one at all. Consequently, green procurement policies have not reached their potential to help local governments mitigate their environmental impacts. These are significant concerns that the United Nations Environmental Programme, the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), the Sustainable Procurement Leadership Council (SPLC), and others suggest must be resolved if we are to move toward an environmentally sustainable economy.
SPRI has sought to understand the barriers and facilitators of sustainable procurement with the assistance of a grant from the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation. The survey generated 616 individual responses from 459 cities of 25,000 residents or more.
Our extensive report will help you understand what works for US cities that have implemented sustainable procurement.
Outreach
- Executive Summary—Don’t have time to read SPRI’s US report, Advancing Green Purchasing in Local Goverments? Read the executive summary.
- Podcast—Listen to SPRI co-founders, Nicole Darnall and Justin M. Stritch, talk about why sustainable purchasing is important.
- Video tips—Our video tips provide a quick way to learn more about our eight recommendations to help local governments advance their green purchasing.
- Slide deck—Review a visual representation of the key findings in Advancing Green Purchasing in Local Governments.
- Webinar—View our webinar with the Alliance for Innovation that summarizes our key findings in Advancing Green Purchasing in Local Governments.
Short Articles
- Five practices to help cities green their purchasing
- Going green on purchasing: Eight practices to reduce environmental impacts
- Green technology firms and sustainable public purchasing
- How cities are addressing climate change through sustainable purchasing
- US cities buy-green schemes, reduce their environmental liabilities and costs
- Want a successful sustainable purchasing policy? Six policy elements that cities should know
Case Studies
SPRI interviewed 14 City of Phoenix purchasing specialists to develop recommendations for the nation’s fifth-largest city to further advance its green purchasing efforts.
- Book Chapter–Environmental Purchasing in the City of Phoenix
- Report–City of Phoenix’s environmental procurement policy: Focus group findings and recommendations
US Survey Documents
SPRI surveyed 1,825 directors in nearly 800 cities. The documents below are the background materials for this survey, including our summary report, implementation protocol, codebook, and key stakeholders that we engaged.