Green Public Procurement practices drivers: Analyzing performance in the Swiss textile public market

Green public procurement (GPP) is a policy tool aimed at reducing environmental impacts of public authorities’ consumption of goods and services and influencing markets towards sustainable solutions. With GPP, adjudicators are expected to include mandatory requirements restricting the companies’ or products’ footprint or attach a higher bid evaluation weight to green voluntary criteria in their calls for tenders. However, given that local organizations and street-level bureaucrats have a wide scope of action and still largely determine to what extent and in what way they use GPP, practices and outcomes are highly diverse. Clothing, footwear and household textiles is one of the sectors prioritized by global and Swiss national authorities for public procurement because of the scope of potential environmental improvements. At the same time, many manufacturers and raw material suppliers are outside Switzerland and there is a prevalence of protective and defense equipment consumption, making the sector particularly complex for GPP. This article aims to analyze the product-specific determinants to implementation in such a complex sector. It explores which organizational factors influence why some Swiss procurers of textile products implemented best practice GPP in their tenders. Interviews with procurement professionals contribute to a more in-depth understanding of their reasoning and behavior.