European funds and green public procurement

Ruben Nicolas; Vitezslav Titl; Fredo Schotanus

doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108400

European funds and green public procurement

Ruben Nicolas^*, Vitezslav Titl, Fredo Schotanus

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

The European Commission co-funds public projects through the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) to stimulate the sustainable economic development of EU Member States. The ESIF budget is about 90 billion euros annually and ESIF beneficiaries are explicitly encouraged to increase their use of Green Public Procurement (GPP) since 2014. In this paper, we study to what extent ESIF co-funding affects the uptake of GPP, using a dataset with all public tender notices in the Czech Republic (2006–2019). Our findings suggest that ESIF co-funding instigates selection behaviour by contracting authorities to improve chances of receiving co-funding. After accounting for selection effects, we find that ESIF co-funding has a small but significant effect on the uptake of GPP. Studying exogenous changes in the ESIF policy conditions, we find that GPP uptake responds to changes in the availability of co-funding and not to stronger policy objectives related to sustainability. Finally, we find that the contracting authority's prior experience with GPP is positively associated with ESIF co-funding and has only a small effect on GPP uptake aside from ESIF.

Original language	English
Article number	108400
Journal	Ecological Economics
Volume	227
Early online date	27 Sept 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108400
Publication status	Published - Jan 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors

Funding

The research of Ruben Nicolas and Fredo Schotanus was financially supported by the Dutch Ministries of Defence, Interior & Kingdom Relations (DGOO & RIS) and Justice & Security, the municipalities of The Hague and Amsterdam, the Tax and Customs Administration (Belastingdienst), National Police, Employee Insurance Agency (UWV) and Stichting Rijk, in collaboration with the Dutch association for purchasing management Nevi. Vitezslav Titl also gratefully acknowledges financial support from the European Research Council (project ‘DemoTrans’ – 101059288 ). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the granting authority. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. CRediT authorship contribution statement Ruben Nicolas: Writing – original draft, Visualization, Project administration, Methodology, Formal analysis, Conceptualization. Vítězslav Titl: Writing – review & editing, Methodology, Conceptualization. Fredo Schotanus: Writing – review & editing, Supervision.

Funders	Funder number
Justice & Security
Tax and Customs Administration
Employee Insurance Agency
National Police
UWV
Dutch association for purchasing management Nevi
Stichting Rijk
DGOO
Dutch Ministries of Defence, Interior & Kingdom Relations
European Research Council	101059288

Keywords

Co-funding
EU
climate policy
green public procurement
policy evaluation
sustainable development

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108400Licence: CC BY

1-s2.0-S0921800924002970-mainFinal published version, 1.89 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "European funds and green public procurement",

abstract = "The European Commission co-funds public projects through the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) to stimulate the sustainable economic development of EU Member States. The ESIF budget is about 90 billion euros annually and ESIF beneficiaries are explicitly encouraged to increase their use of Green Public Procurement (GPP) since 2014. In this paper, we study to what extent ESIF co-funding affects the uptake of GPP, using a dataset with all public tender notices in the Czech Republic (2006–2019). Our findings suggest that ESIF co-funding instigates selection behaviour by contracting authorities to improve chances of receiving co-funding. After accounting for selection effects, we find that ESIF co-funding has a small but significant effect on the uptake of GPP. Studying exogenous changes in the ESIF policy conditions, we find that GPP uptake responds to changes in the availability of co-funding and not to stronger policy objectives related to sustainability. Finally, we find that the contracting authority's prior experience with GPP is positively associated with ESIF co-funding and has only a small effect on GPP uptake aside from ESIF.",

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N2 - The European Commission co-funds public projects through the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) to stimulate the sustainable economic development of EU Member States. The ESIF budget is about 90 billion euros annually and ESIF beneficiaries are explicitly encouraged to increase their use of Green Public Procurement (GPP) since 2014. In this paper, we study to what extent ESIF co-funding affects the uptake of GPP, using a dataset with all public tender notices in the Czech Republic (2006–2019). Our findings suggest that ESIF co-funding instigates selection behaviour by contracting authorities to improve chances of receiving co-funding. After accounting for selection effects, we find that ESIF co-funding has a small but significant effect on the uptake of GPP. Studying exogenous changes in the ESIF policy conditions, we find that GPP uptake responds to changes in the availability of co-funding and not to stronger policy objectives related to sustainability. Finally, we find that the contracting authority's prior experience with GPP is positively associated with ESIF co-funding and has only a small effect on GPP uptake aside from ESIF.

AB - The European Commission co-funds public projects through the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) to stimulate the sustainable economic development of EU Member States. The ESIF budget is about 90 billion euros annually and ESIF beneficiaries are explicitly encouraged to increase their use of Green Public Procurement (GPP) since 2014. In this paper, we study to what extent ESIF co-funding affects the uptake of GPP, using a dataset with all public tender notices in the Czech Republic (2006–2019). Our findings suggest that ESIF co-funding instigates selection behaviour by contracting authorities to improve chances of receiving co-funding. After accounting for selection effects, we find that ESIF co-funding has a small but significant effect on the uptake of GPP. Studying exogenous changes in the ESIF policy conditions, we find that GPP uptake responds to changes in the availability of co-funding and not to stronger policy objectives related to sustainability. Finally, we find that the contracting authority's prior experience with GPP is positively associated with ESIF co-funding and has only a small effect on GPP uptake aside from ESIF.

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KW - climate policy

KW - green public procurement

KW - policy evaluation

KW - sustainable development

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ER -

European funds and green public procurement

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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