Sustainable procurement practices in the public water sector institutions in Kenya

Abstract

The activities of individuals and organizations all over the world are increasingly raising concern over their impact on the environment. Governments spend between 12% to 30% of their GDP buying goods and services which indicate their power of the public purse as an enabler in ensuring markets transition towards a greener economy. It‟s in this regard that this study was undertaken with an objective of identifying the extent to which sustainable procurement practices have been implemented, drivers of sustainable procurement and the challenges facing the implementation of sustainable procurement in an effort to contribute towards implementation of sustainable procurement practices in the public sector to help preserve the environment. The study mainly focused on the Kenyan public water sector institutions with a questionnaire targeting procurement professionals in these organizations. The research employed a case study to achieve the objectives of the study.The study concluded that sustainable procurement practices are being considered in the public sector organizations. Sustainable procurement delivers savings and cost reduction objective to public organizations. The study nevertheless, highlights that there are many challenges to SP practices implementation in the public sector institutions and that minimal progress has so far been realized in resolving the challenges. Very few organizations have put in place a policy committing their organisations to a programme of environmental improvement. The study recommended that organizations sustainable procurement agenda needs be engraved in its organizational policy to succeed and that a lot of improvements need to be done to improve the progress in handling implementation challenges to sustainable procurement practices. In conclusion, the study emphasized that green procurement practices were important with the increased concern to environment degradation and that NGO‟s and media, which have not been vigorous in environmental advocacy in Kenya should be more vocal in advocating for sustainable procurement practices.