SPRI was awarded the coveted President's Award for Sustainability from Arizona State University. This award recognizes SPRI's collaborative nature, impacts on campus, and use-inspired, research. Our submission discusses the importance of sustainable purchasing for fighting climate change as well as the organizations and groups we collaborate with to produce actionable research.

President Michael Crow explains that this award is an opportunity to celebrate and recognize the work of ASU faculty and staff, "Through the efforts of ASU employees, we are creating one of the greatest learning environments ever established anywhere. I appreciate the commitment and significant contributions demonstrated by our university employees, and I support the opportunities we have to acknowledge and celebrate the individual and collective accomplishments of our colleagues.”

We are honored to receive this important recognition and look forward to the award ceremony that will recognize our team and the other President's Award Recipients later this year!

Interested in seeing our submission? Take a look here.

Three SPRI affiliated students celebrated their graduations today. Each one was heavily involved in our work and we are so excited to see what is in store for each of them.

Anna Elovitz completed her undergraduate degree with a BS in Sustainability Studies and a BS in Economics. During her time collaborating with SPRI, she worked on our Advancing Green Purchasing in South Korean Municipalities report and received runner up for SURE (Sustainability Undergraduate Research Experiences) student of the year with a fellow SPRI student. Anna will be working as a Supply Chain Associate at PepsiCo starting in August.

Sarah Queen graduated with her Master of Sustainability Solutions degree. Through the summer, she will continue supporting SPRI through managing our social media, website, and newsletter. She has moved back to Atlanta, GA where she hopes to continue her career in corporate sustainability and ESG.

Jake Swanson completed his Master of Science in Sustainability. While a student, Jake conducted research and co-authored chapters with SPRI for UNEP's 2022 Sustainable Public Procurement Global Review. After graduation, Jake hopes to use his experience and education to consult both private and public sector organizations.

Please join us in congratulating these three students on their achievements and wish them luck on their next adventure!

Katelyn Reinhart from ASU News  interviewed Nicole Darnall and Justin M. Stritch about their involvement with the UN Environment Programme's 2022 Global Review on Sustainable Public Procurement.  The SPRI faculty highlighted how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted sustainable procurement and stakeholder engagement. This report is 200+ pages while the previous one was only 60, highlighting how timely and important sustainable procurement is today.

The ASU team made up of, Nicole Darnall, Justin M. Stritch, Yifan Chen, Angela Fox, and Jake Swanson contributed heavily to the report.

Read the ASU News' article here!

SPRI's Nicole Darnall & Justin Stritch  along with other professors, consultants, and members of the United Nation Environment Porgramme presented key findings and conclusions from the 2022 Sustainable Public Procurement Global Review on January 26, 2023.  The webinar had over 700 registrants representing over 90 different countries.

The team identified 9 primary recommendations including initiatives like making sustainable procurement/guidelines mandatory and enhancing supplier engagement, among others.  If you were unable to attend and interested in learning more, please take a look at the slide deck used during the presentation here.

ASU's SPRI was heavily involved in both the research and writing for the UN Environment Programme's 2022 Global Review on Sustainable Public Procurement.  The team made up of, Nicole Darnall, Justin M. Stritch, Yifan Chen, Angela Fox, and Jake Swanson contributed to the executive summary, Part I, and Part II of the report.  This report looks at sustainable procurement globally and can be downloaded and read in full here.

ASU News interviewed SPRI co-founder, Nicole Darnall, about her upcoming appointment with the U.S. General Services Administration's (GSA) inaugural Acquisition Policy Federal Advisory Committee.  Darnall also discusses why sustainable purchasing is so important especially at the federal government level.

Check out the full interview here!

As governments worldwide have begun embracing Sustainable Public Purchasing (SPP), researchers note that we lack a broader conceptual framework that articulates the motivations for public organizations to adopt SPP. SPRI faculty, Shirly-Ann Behravesh, Nicole Darnall, and Stuart Bretschneider address this gap by undertaking a significant literature review and content analysis to develop a cogent framework of SPP adoption. The resulting theoretical framework reveals four critical macro-themes associated with SPP adoption: capacity, culture, stakeholders, and institutional setting.

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As the public sector constitutes the single largest marketplace across the globe, accounting for 24% of U.S. GDP, it imparts significant sustainability consequences, affecting environmental, social, and economic outcomes. The public sector also creates enormous opportunities to leverage its purchasing power to advance sustainable public procurement and sustainability in general. However, at the local level, only one-quarter of U.S. cities have adopted sustainable public procurement, and of these, only about half indicate that their efforts have been successful.

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In March 2022, SPRI faculty presented at the Utah Sustainable Purchasing Summit hosted by Utah Resource Stewardship. The State of Utah is seeking to amplify its focus on sustainable purchasing and invited SPRI to discuss different approaches to its ~100 summit attendees.

SPRI faculty also presented to the City of Scottsdale Environmental Advisory Committee in May of this year to provide information about actionable sustainable purchasing practices. The City of Scottsdale is in the process of developing their first-ever sustainability plan and is considering how sustainable purchasing may help it achieve its sustainability goals.

In May 2022, then PhD student Yifan Chen presented a paper at the Public Management Research Conference in Phoenix, AZ entitled "Is technology making local governments greener and more efficient? An empirical analysis of e-procurement systems in the U.S. and Japan.” Chen discussed the growing trend for public agencies to incorporate Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) into their managerial routines. In the study, Chen explores how digital technologies infuse ‘green’ thinking into government purchasing and affect procurement. Drawing from nationwide surveys of public managers in 459 U.S. cities and 860 Japanese municipalities, this study compares how these relationships vary between the U.S. and Japan.

Government purchasing in South Korea accounts for 25.7% of country-level gross domestic product. Examples of purchases include vehicle fleets, construction materials, chemicals, electronics, and office materials. These purchases collectively contribute to global climate change and a host of other environmental concerns when manufactured and while in use.

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Government purchasing in South Korea accounts for 25.7% of country-level gross domestic product. Examples of purchases include vehicle fleets, construction materials, chemicals, electronics, and office materials. These purchases collectively contribute to global climate change and a host of other environmental concerns when manufactured and while in use.

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In Spain, Government purchasing accounts for 18.5% of total gross domestic product. These purchases of vehicle fleets, construction materials, chemicals, electronics, and office materials contribute to global climate change and other environmental concerns during their lifecycles. As a result, the national government has pledged its commitment to the European Union’s Green Public Procurement criteria and has published a Presidential Order approving the General State Administration’s Green Public Procurement Plan.

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In Spain, Government purchasing accounts for 18.5% of total gross domestic product. These purchases of vehicle fleets, construction materials, chemicals, electronics, and office materials contribute to global climate change and other environmental concerns during their lifecycles. As a result, the national government has pledged its commitment to the European Union’s Green Public Procurement criteria and has published a Presidential Order approving the General State Administration’s Green Public Procurement Plan.

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Archimedes once observed that with a long enough lever he could move the world. In the case of moving the world to a more sustainable place, government purchasing could be just what he would have ordered.

“Government is the largest buyer of goods across the globe,” Arizona State University Sustainable Purchasing Research Initiative co-founder Nicole Darnall told an international audience during a Security and Sustainability Forum webinar April 22. That means, she said, that government purchasing can play a huge role in advancing sustainability around the world.

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Originally published in The London School of Economics and Political Science. Governments have the power to leverage their sizeable purchasing power to encourage widescale production of sustainable products and services, which can help them meet the Paris Climate Accord’s carbon reduction goals. Fatima Hafsa, Nicole Darnall, and Stuart Bretschneider write that the size of government purchases is underestimated and thus opportunities for greater sustainability impact are missed.

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Published originally in ICMA.

Researchers at Arizona State University share results on public procurement efficiency.

By Yifan Chen, Nicole Darnall, Justin Stritch, and Stuart Bretschneider of Arizona State University | Apr 5, 2021

Public procurement is the process by which governments acquire goods, services, and supplies to support essential functions. In the United States, approximately 10 percent of U.S. GDP is spent on public procurement activities, and more than 60 percent of these public procurement expenditures are occurring at the state and local level.

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A new report reveals what factors influence whether Australian governments are successful at adopting green purchasing policies, Elizabeth Bruns, Nicole Darnall, Kylie Flynn, and Angela Fox write.

In 2015, Australia’s government purchasing accounted for 36 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product. All the time, the government is buying construction material, chemicals, vehicle fleets, office materials, and electronics.

These purchases collectively contribute to global climate change, and a host of other environmental concerns during their manufacturing and use. As a result, many Australian governments are adopting sustainable purchasing policies to reduce their environmental impacts.

A sustainable purchasing policy formalises an organisation’s commitment to reduce the environmental harms associated with its purchasing and procurement.

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By: Elizabeth Bruns, Nicole Darnall, Kylie Flynn, Angela Fox

Italian local government purchases account for 10-11% of the gross domestic product. Examples of purchases include vehicle fleets, construction materials, chemicals, electronics, and office materials. These items are a significant contributor to global climate change and other environmental concerns during manufacturing and use. Implementing green purchasing policies can significantly curb governmental contributions to negative environmental impacts while stimulating the global production of green products and services.

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By: Elizabeth Bruns, Nicole Darnall, Kylie Flynn, Angela Fox

Italian government purchases account for 10 - 11% of the country's gross domestic product. Examples of these purchases include chemicals, construction materials, vehicle fleets, electronics, and office materials. Research shows that these purchases are significant contributors to global climate change and a host of other environmental concerns during manufacturing and when in use. For this reason, Italy passed the National Action Plan on Green Public Procurement to implement purchasing initiatives that reduce environmental impacts. While the plan has a minimum criteria requirement, implementing Green purchasing policies will increase Italy's adoption at the local level and help achieve its National Action Plan goals to reduce environmental impacts.

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