Advancing Green Purchasing in Italian Municipalities

Italy was the first European country to create a full mandatory plan known as the National Action Plan on Green Public Procurement. This plan established a framework through which green purchasing polices can diffuse throughout Italian municipalities. A primary reason for this action is that green purchasing policies have the potential to significantly reduce carbon impacts across the globe and can help Italy achieve its carbon emissions goals. However, at the local level, many municipal governments have struggled to implement green purchasing policies. Consequently, green purchasing has not reached its full potential to help municipalities mitigate their environmental impacts. These are significant concerns that the United Nations Environmental Programme, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council (SPLC), and others suggest must be resolved if Italy is to move toward an environmentally sustainable economy. Researchers at Sant’ Anna School of Advance Studies’ Institute of Management and Arizona State University’s (ASU’s) Sustainable Purchasing Research Initiative have sought to address these issues. Our three broad objectives are to: 1) Determine the facilitators and barriers to adoption and implementation of green purchasing policies in Italian municipalities 2) Recommend actions for advancing green purchasing practices more effectively 3) Encourage Italian municipalities that lack green purchasing policies to adopt and implement them within their jurisdictions. To accomplish these objectives, we conducted a national survey of finance, environmental, and municipal engineering directors in Italian municipalities. The survey generated 152 individual responses from 395 municipalities with 25,000 residents or more. These municipalities were representative based on their population size, income, and geographic dispersion by prefecture.