Successful Business and Procurement
The Sustainable Development Research Network (SDRN) has published its sixth Rapid Research and Evidence Review, entitled ‘Successful Business and Procurement’.
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The SDRN review of successful business and procurement was undertaken by Dr. Helen Walker of the Warwick Business School, University of Warwick. It aims to provide an improved understanding of successful businesses and their approaches to procurement and the relevance of these to current debates on sustainable public procurement.
The report concludes that there are three main lessons for policy-makers in the public sector:
Firstly, strategic procurement has been shown in the private sector to be an approach that can contribute to successful delivery of a firm’s strategic objectives. As such government should consider adopting (or in some cases expanding) a strategic approach to its procurement activities.
Secondly, government should use its significant procurement spend and power to stimulate the development of markets and supply chains for sustainable products and services.
Thirdly, on the basis of the evidence reviewed in the literature, more needs to be done to create a regulatory environment that encourages, enables or requires the private sector to adopt sustainable procurement practices.
Further reading
- The SDRN Successful Business and Procurement full report and briefing are available to download from the SDRN website.
- For further information about the Review, please contact the SDRN team.
The Sustainable Development Research Network (SDRN) is an initiative funded by both Defra and the Department for Transport, and is coordinated by the Policy Studies Institute in London.
SDRN aims to facilitate and strengthen the links between providers of research and policymakers across government, in order to improve evidence-based policymaking to deliver the UK government’s objectives for sustainable development.
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