SPARKS (Sustainable Procurement Applied Research and Knowledge Sharing): Net Zero Targets in Government Contracts

SPARKS is funded by grants from the John Fell Fund and the Oxford Policy Engagement Network (OPEN). We are seeking additional, longer-term funding and greater collaboration with academics and practitioners focused on sustainability and public procurement.

Carbon reduction (Net Zero) targets now need to be implemented by governments at all levels. Insufficient attention has been paid to the challenges of implementing these targets, especially through public procurement. Facing major global challenges, governments have a huge lever in their direct control- their spending through contracts. However, pulling this lever for broad social and environmental goals also involves unresolved issues of capacity, accountability, and governance. SPARKS aims to explore these issues in collaboration with academic partners and practitioners.

Resources:

The SPARKS team has compiled our existing resources in a Zotero library

This library contains resources providing more information into Sustainable Public Procurement (also called Green Public Procurement). SPARKS research thus far has concentrated on the mechanisms used to enact SPP and the capacity of governments to use these methods in achieving Net Zero goals.

We invite everyone to access the library and its resources, as well as to please add to it! Any resources related to public procurement and Net-Zero targets will be helpful for the SPARKS team, future research, and collaboration!

SPARKS works closely with the Oxford Procurement of Government Outcomes Club. More information on POGO can be found on the Oxford POGO website.

June 2024 Symposium:

On June 24 and 25 the first SPARKS Net Zero Symposium took place at Brasenose College, Oxford. Twenty-seven academics and practitioners from across the globe (the UK, the U.S., Europe, South Africa, Paraguay, and Brazil) gathered together to discuss the question “How will we compare and improve green public procurement and Net Zero policy implementation at different levels of government around the world?”

SPARKS Symposium

The symposium discussion took place in a roundtable format split into four sessions:

Net Zero Policies in Different Places and Different Levels of Government

Comparing Public Procurement and Contracting Mechanisms for Net Zero Policy Implementation

Data Availability and Uses for Net Zero Implementation

Identifying and Comparing Capacity and Staffing Issues

The SPARKS research team has identified the OECD MAPS (more information here) methodology as an effective tool for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of procurement systems, with a particular emphasis on the Sustainable Public Procurement module.

Participants sharing their expertise during discussion sessions

After the success of the June symposium, SPARKS hopes to host future events to promote the exchange of sustainable public procurement knowledge. To get involved now, please refer to the SPARKS Zotero library above. Feel free to add resources to this library. Be sure to check out upcoming Oxford POGO Club sessions.

This special hybrid session of the Oxford Pogo Club examined opportunities and challenges to Green Public Procurement across levels of government and around the world. The session featured insights from a diverse group of academics and practitioners who came together for the first SPARKS Net Zero Symposium. Our speakers shared their thoughts on whether or how we might be able to observe, compare, and share knowledge about Net Zero policy implementation through government contracting around the world and at different levels of government.

Many national and subnational governments have declared climate emergencies and promise to leverage their contract spend to achieve Net Zero targets – but whose job is this to implement? In this session the Oxford POGO Club looked at capacity and staffing issues related to Green Public Procurement, including contract management. We had an exceptional panel discussing this issue around world at different levels of government. The discussion addressed potential trade-offs, levels of engagement, and training within the procurement workforce. We also considered various measures of capacity, how to compare capacity across different contracting agencies, and how changes in capacity might be observed over time.

In this session the Oxford POGO Club took an international comparative look at the integration of social and environmental goals into public procurement, including contract management. We considered mechanisms of green public procurement in the United Kingdom, European Union member states, and South Africa. Emerging mechanisms include deciding what to buy, trying to change how procurements are run with new evaluation criteria, and/or focusing on who to buy from based on contractor qualifications, efforts to shape supply chains, and/or exclude bad actors. Our panel compared different approaches in their respective jurisdictions and comment on the opportunities and challenges associated with different mechanisms of green public procurement.