Public procurement as a policy instrument to support the diffusion and the use of renewable transport fuels

About the project

Many municipalities in Sweden have requirements on green cars in the procurement of municipal vehicles and some also have requirements on electric cars. This project has ana­lysed how green public procurement has been used in the transport sector in order to answer questions such as which potential procurement has to promote renewable fuels, what the practical experiences are, to what extent public procurement is used strategically, and how the policy instrument can be developed.

The methodological approach has been comparative case studies of the municipalities Malmö and Östersund and regions Skåne and Jämtland. The empirical material comes from a combination of document studies and semi-structured qualitative interviews with procurers, environ­mental strategists, public transport strategists, politicians and representatives of private transport operators.

Consisting of three parts, the project deliveries present

1. an overall analysis of public procurement,
2. an analysis of experience of procurement through case studies, and
3. a dialogue with stakeholders.

Together, they aim to increase the understanding of the challanges with green public procurement and how these have been handeled in a few selected cases. Even if differences in political, geographical and infrastructural aspects apply for different cities and/or regions, and, as a result of this, the specific design of procurement requirements, the study has been able to point to some general policy implications concerning laws and regulations, cost, political goals and backing and actor cooperation. The results from the project hereby contribute with knowledge on how the use of public procurement can be improved.