تأمین تجهیزات کم کربن: برنامه در حال ظهور

The importance of climate change is shaping public policy internationally at several levels with much of the effort aimed at reducing the amount of carbon emissions released to the atmosphere through anthropogenic activity. Public procurement is a key financial mechanism available to governments to drive policy change and because of its scale can be also one of the most effective. During the past decade Low Carbon Procurement (LCP) has emerged as focal policy agenda in the UK and other countries. However, the implementation of LCP requires improved definition by governments and a greater understanding of Carbon Management tools and concepts such as Lifecycle Analysis on the part of procurement chiefs. Focusing on public procurement in the UK within the context of international policy development, this paper develops a working definition and model for LCP to guide future discussions on policy and practice. The paper presents an agenda of expected challenges for the implementation of LCP, including problems associated with weighing trade-offs between carbon and wider environmental or sustainability objectives, use of carbon tools and methodologies. The paper concludes by identifying key directions for further LCP research.

The ‘EUROPE 2020’ strategy for sustainable growth highlights procurement as one of the key instruments to support Europe's shift towards a low carbon economy (EC, 2010a). EU and Member States are encouraged to use the power of procurement not only to achieve GHG1 (Greenhouse Gases) reductions, but also to support innovation and industry's adjustment to low carbon production processes and products. Because of its scale, public procurement is widely seen as one of the most effective potential mechanisms available to governments to drive public policies such as the low carbon agenda. Each year European public authorities spend the equivalent of 16% of the EU's GDP on the purchase of goods and services (CEC, 2008). The UK government alone spends around £220 billion in procurement and has already directed considerable resource towards introducing the concept of sustainability across its public organizations (e.g. health, defense) providing scope as a powerful policy tool alongside regulation and other economic instruments. Borg et al. (2006) estimated that through the integration of energy efficiency considerations in procurement, public administrations across EU Member States could save up to 20% of their energy use by 2020, with corresponding carbon reductions. It is considered that as much as 18% of the EU's Kyoto Protocol commitments could have been achieved if all European public authorities would purchase their energy from renewable sources (Erdmenger, 2003), and this is without considering other potential reductions achieved from energy efficiencies. The power of procurement to address global environmental goals has been equally picked up by the private sector which started to see a wave of initiatives in corporate responsibility with direct impacts of procurement on the supply chain (Walker et al., 2008, Andersen and Skjoett-Larsen, 2009 and Spence and Bourlakis, 2009). In retailing, for example, Walmart has announced its intention to eliminate 20 million metric tons of GHG emissions from its global supply chain by the end of 2015 (Walmart, 2010). Other major retailers are also piloting low carbon approaches in their value chains, from carbon foot-printing initiatives to changes in logistics, support to suppliers' development and research (see Sainsbury's, 2009, Marks & Spencer, 2010 and Tesco, 2010). Multi-national corporations such as IBM (Paterson, 2010) and Procter and Gamble (P&G, 2011) introduced their own supplier assessment tools and standards, featuring requirements for energy conservation, GHG emissions monitoring and reductions. The Carbon Disclosure Project has been gradually growing in importance both with the private and public sectors (AEA, 2009 and Pricewaterhouse Coopers, 2009), with the organization having a dedicated supply chain carbon reporting program that has been steadily growing in participation since 2008 (Accenture, 2012). Reflecting these trends, research on carbon considerations in procurement and supply chain management has taken its first steps with studies focusing on comparisons of the carbon intensity of different supply chain alternatives (e.g. Browne et al., 2005, Cholette and Venkat, 2009, Edwards et al., 2010, Williams, 2007 and Saunders and Barber, 2008). There is relatively little research, however, focusing on the strategic considerations of addressing overall supply chain carbon emissions within procurement processes, particularly in the public sector. This research note seeks to begin this conversation within the research community. We argue that such a growth in importance will require a new understanding of carbon management and reporting concepts on the part of public procurers and we develop a definition of LCP to guide future discussions on policy and practice. To conclude, we present an agenda of expected challenges for strategy and practice, including problems with weighing trade-offs between carbon and wider environmental or sustainability objectives and policies, with existing carbon tools and methodologies, and with potential resistance to change from within public procurement. By exploring the challenges facing public procurement as it struggles to encourage the adoption of low carbon practices, we suggest research directions that might support and critically analyze developments in the low carbon procurement agenda.

This research note has highlighted how the evolution of the climate change and low carbon policy agendas over the last decades have gradually been raising expectations from public procurement that it should act as a practical and policy instrument for emissions’ reductions. We have demonstrated that LCP is indeed an emerging agenda and will have an increasing role in procurement decision-making in future. However, the successful development and implementation of an LCP agenda will be dependent on the understanding by procurers and policy-makers of at least some CM concepts, processes and methods. Based on these assumptions we present a working definition of LCP, but its interpretation already points to some of the challenges which lie ahead. We have shown in Fig. 1 how the pursuing of an LCP agenda has the potential to raise a series of conflicting issues that ultimately have to be decided on strategic, economic, value-based and/or political grounds. Access to rigorous CM methodologies will then be essential in order to support informed decision-making, but CM/CF approaches are fraught with the same complex methodological challenges and trade-offs of the more general field of LCA. Even if these are sufficiently resolved though, the success of the LCP policy agenda ultimately will be dependent on its levels of uptake by procurement practitioners and its capacity to overcome the various internal and external barriers of the public procurement process. These can include issues of legal and administrative complexity, but also issues of risk-aversion, awareness, perceptions, attitude and lack of strategic leadership. Perhaps the most fundamental issue facing procurement leaders is how the LCP policy agenda translates from strategy to implementation in the face of such a harsh and prolonged downturn in the world economic climate. Like any emerging field, LCP at the moment has more questions than answers, but in this short research note we have hopefully provided some initial directions to the challenges ahead which point to equivalent opportunities for research. The nature of the topic means the questions raised are multidisciplinary, spreading across many more research areas than procurement or supply chain management, including policy making, sustainability sciences, leadership studies, organizational change, business management, and accounting, amongst others. We believe we have demonstrated that LCP is indeed an emerging agenda and will have an increasing role in procurement decision-making. Finally, we leave open an invitation to the wider research community to contribute to the critical debate and future practical and theoretical developments of the subject.