Effects of procurement practices on the environment

Mangla et al¹⁴ investigated the concepts of environmental sound management and related it to green procurement practices such as vendor assessment, collaborative supply strategies, establishing environmental procurement policy, and supplier involvement to allow for improvement. Other related studies^15–17 studied into the implementation and the evaluation of green procurement practices in other electronic organizations and offered a detailed investigation on the green procurement, green manufacturing, green distribution, and reverse logistics and to explore green procurement practices, measure green procurement performance, and green procurement coercion. One of the prominent issues of green procurement/green supply chain according to Dubey et al¹⁸ is that procurement of goods and services normally leads to extensive negative effects on public health and the environment. It is worthwhile to know that procurement and its related programs comprise both small and large scaled tasks and hence affect the environment in many ways. Nevertheless, procurement activities in a similar vein can be leveraged to conserve resources, mitigate pollution and waste, and promote a healthy economy by identification, usage, and dissemination of standards and practices that lessens or reduce destructive effects without compromising performance or cost-effectiveness.

Practices in public procurement

The practice theory refers to an idea that embraces what actually occurs in the organization; how employees function. To such employees, distinctive methods of working make sense and therefore practices can differ. In organization’s understanding of how employees function is critical to the success of 7 mining hospitals,¹⁹ Nelsen²⁰ observed how employees’ functions could bring conflicts on their work output because of certain practices in the organization. Companies normally see employees as though they performed their assigned tasks as per their formal work set of expectations regardless of any accuracy.²⁰ The practice theory is mostly associated with how workers oftentimes complete the firm activity.²¹ In this way, practice theory normally depends on habits.²² However, the practices theory should be revised with the intention to actualize new initiatives; this is one of the arguments why changes can be difficult to implement. Practice theories were hard to identify as it depends on performance of given set of time. One of the ways in understanding the practices in the organization is through the explanations given by the employees. Such explanations may mirror the social setting within the organization.²³ Practices in group reveal knowledge into how practices can differ between groups, eg, different departments.²⁴ The practice theories in individual groups are sometimes established in social processes through communication. The correspondence between various groups can be tempting as they have distinctive practices.²⁴ Therefore, transformational processes initiated by 1 unit could be difficult to implement in other units. Conversely, as practice theories are deeply established in the social groups, it becomes a challenge to transform. The green procurement practices focus on how green procurement is done in the organization in a given situation. If, eg, there is a tradition of using local trading partners, this practice might continue even if the procurement procedures specify another practice. However, management support for continual evaluation of green procurement is important to green procurement practices.²⁵ The procurement practices incorporate the tradition of how to collaborate on procurement of goods and services across units, the choices considered when purchasing, and the priorities are therefore made by the procurement methods. Furthermore, this infers that procurement is an organizational skill in which the learning made in the social interaction is put into practice.²⁶ The supply chain pressure is normally exerted by customer demand, a factor for the 7 mining hospitals to evaluate green procurement in the organization.²⁷ For the purchase of minor goods and services and the inventory, network pressure to green procurement was more likely to influence the green procurement practices by the buyers²⁸; eg, the buyers’ knowledge on the eco-names and green procurement intentions may influence these practices.²⁹ Similarly, the practices might be affected by the coordinated efforts between departments, eg, the inclusion of environmental issues in the procurement procedure.

Learning as an approach to changing procurement practice

Learning is the method that involves the transformation of current practices³⁰ in which the changes occur either by making knowledge available for employee’s use or through social interaction. Learning is a broad theoretical concept that covers both cognitive and social process in which practice is developed through programs.³¹ Udimal et al³² posited that the process of learning plays a key role in the entire procurement processes until the organization decides to incorporate green thinking of buying goods and services in the mining hospitals. From a cognitive perspective, learning is a procedure in which some employees transfer relevant information and knowledge to their colleague employees.³³ The information regarding green procurement is made known to the buyers by providing the suppliers with knowledge and tools through either formal or communications.³⁴ The green procurement in recent past has attracted a lot of attention.³⁵ Learning as a social phenomenon incorporates a more social and reflective perspective-based outcomes.³⁶ In this view, the learner is a player, who processes information and modifies his or her perceptions based on this theory. This means that the learner is a social being who learns through social collaboration within the group in which he or she finds himself or herself.³⁷ Learning is thereby the result of a social process of defining what to do, when to do it, and how it is related to existing organization’s procurement practices. Changes in procurement practices occur through a social negotiation.³⁸ The social negotiation enables employees to examine their perceptions on each other in terms of improving their understanding. This implies that the players involved ponder on the changes between the buyers and the mining hospitals they belong,³⁹ and the existing practices impact on the employees’ decision to accept new practices, especially under conditions of vulnerability.⁴⁰ Uncertainty of acceptance appears if the buyers do not understand the environmental issues of the 7 mining hospitals’ procurement practices or how their procurement practices relate to the environmental management of the hospitals.⁴¹ The perception of environmental matters and initiatives is critical to employees’ social communication so far as green procurement is concerned.⁴² The process in which practices are altered can be said to be a double-loop learning.⁴³ The single-loop learning seems to take place when the goals and procedures are underestimated and the emphasis is placed on making green procurement more efficient in the 7 mining hospitals. However, the double-loop learning includes scrutinizing the current procurement strategies and practices that point out the organization’s objectives and strategies.⁴⁴ In double-loop learning, the present practices were questioned.

Introducing the case

The case study is a 7 mining companies’ hospitals in Ghana with more than 1500 employees in total. The study incorporated in the analysis 7 entities. The management of those entities has chosen to integrate green procurement as a part of the environmental strategy of the mining companies’ hospitals. There are 2 principle levels of procurement in the mining companies’ hospitals; a central procurement unit and the individual entities. In the mining hospitals, the procurement of minor goods and services such as fuel, machinery, formaldehyde, hiring building constructors, and pesticides only takes place at the central purchasing units. The implementation of green procurement at this level is a little bit difficult as not too many employees were involved. Purchase of goods and services occurs in the entities. The different players are associated with green procurement in each of the entities. A purchasing unit handles the acquisition of goods and services and applies the centrally developed purchasing or buying agreements to their daily procurement of goods and services. Purchase of goods and services occurs regularly and is tied to the habits of the purchasers, and therefore, the practices of the purchaser come into focus. Each of the entities also has environmental, and health and safety facilitators. In some entities, the 2 tasks were managed by the local management. Both the local buyers and the environmental facilitators refer to as local management. A green procurement procedure specifies how the buyers should send an environmental assessment scheme to the trading partners, and afterward, they follow certain steps to assess the outcomes according to the procurement plan. This assessment leads to results, together with an assessment of price and quality on the basis for endorsing or disallowing the trading partner. The minimum requirements set for the environmental appraisals must be fulfilled for the suppliers to be approved, regardless of the cost and quality of the products and services. The environmental appraisal of local suppliers must be accepted and applied for before the mining hospitals purchase products or services from suppliers. This approval is then registered in the internal purchasing system, and then, the entities can then hire the services of the suppliers.

The current green procurement practices

The analysis mainly addresses not only the practices of green procurement in the separate entities of mining hospitals but also the communication between the local and central units. This communication is critical to the study of the learning procedure linked to the execution of green procurement. The entities have identical environmental procedures, because they are ISO 14001 certified with the same environmental guidebook. The items purchased and consumed, by the different entities, are supposed to meet the same environmental requirement, as specified in the green purchasing procedures.

Existing practices for trading partner assessments

The supplier evaluation questionnaires were well-known green procurement tools.⁵⁰ In the 7 companies’ mining hospitals, the main tool for assessing the trading partners of goods was questionnaires sent by the local purchasers to every individual supplier. The buyers send the questionnaire to the trading partner, and if the appraisal demonstrates that the trading partner does not satisfy the predetermine requests, the trading partner is rejected in the process. There is a wider acceptance of the questionnaire among those buyers that have taken an interest in the purchasing system. It seems that the social interaction during this development process has brought about the mutual perception of green procurement, thus making the use of the questionnaires easier. Then again, the purchasers have set up green procurement as an organizational competence where the knowledge they have acquired through the social interaction was applied. As shown in Table 3, the rejection of trading partner due to environmental assessments only occurs in entities E and F. This may be indicated that even though the questionnaires were distributed to the suppliers or trading partners, no actual environmental benefits were obtained unless the purchasers actually follow-up on the surveys. This was supported by the following statement:

I do not really know if the communication leads to any modifications in the practices of the suppliers and I do not remember any exclusion of trading partners. (Buyer entity B)

Table 3.

Practices related to supplier assessment in the individual entities.

The trading partner questionnaires were compulsory in the case of green procurement in the 7 mining companies’ hospitals, but the procurers in 4 of the entities clarify that they do not find it to be pertinent to their daily procurement practices.

Purchase of minor goods and services is a process based on habits, and the buyers clarify that they evaluate and select trading partners in a transparent way as procurement is constantly practiced. As illustrated by the following quote, the questionnaires were seen as a vital tool by some buyers: “The environmental assessment needs to be a policy tool. This creates an unreasonable rivalry between the providers because of insecurity” (Buyer entity E). Nonetheless, only entities E, F, and G engage in sending out this supplier questionnaires and entity C never uses it. As the buyers explained: “The trading partner assessment plans is mostly regulatory; we have never rejected anyone based on them” (Buyer entity C). “The environmental approval of product suppliers mostly leads to manual work. It does not make the suppliers alter their contractual agreement. Notwithstanding, quite a large number of suppliers have their environmental impacts under control” (Buyer entity A). Similar explanations were provided by entities A, B, C, and G, and it appears that the buyers help each other in this way, so that the questionnaires does not result in any improvements.

This gap existing between the activities prescribed in the formal systems and the actual green procurement practices can be clarified by the social process and social negotiation among the purchasers. The social process and negotiation affect the way in which the buyers relate to greener buying to their current practices in the 7 mining companies’ hospitals. They support each other to maintain training that balances the intended practices in the green procurement processes. The centrally developed purchasing agreements apply to the procurement units, and they all involve health and safety matters when purchasing services or products for the 7 mining companies’ hospitals. The social standards differ from the 1 identified to the supplier assessments. The buyers were positive toward the purchasing agreements, as these agreements make their job easier, and they require no evaluations themselves. This deduces that there was lack of vulnerability of how to implement the green procurement.

Environmental perception and its influence on procurement practices

The approach by which the buyers see environmental issues is not the same in the other procurement units. These differences can affect the green procurement practices as such practices make sense for the individual buyers. The central departments created policies based on a product-oriented method to green procurement, but for a vast majority of the entities, the environmental assessments depended on the environmental management initiatives that include environmental policies and environmental management systems. Table 4 demonstrates that the buyers in the entities A, E, and F have a life cycle perspective on green procurement, and the buyers in the remaining 4 focus on the production outputs. The accompanying statements indicate a very different perception of green procurement practices. The first statement from a buyer includes both life cycle viewpoint and occupational health and safety in ones perception of the environment:

Environment is our responsibility to the world we dwell in, both related to nature and humans, how we act on a regular basis. This includes, for instance using resources in their rightful way, reducing the number of chemicals, human welfare, and safety. (Entity F)

Table 4.

Environmental perception in entities carrying out of green procurement practices.

This product-oriented perception of green procurement is shared by the buyers and the environmental facilitators of the entity F. The respondents from entity F clarify that, they often with respect to green procurement, and the environmental facilitator, ensure that the buyers perform the green procurement assessments of suppliers. These collaborations help the buyers to make sense of green procurement for the 7 mining companies’ hospitals.

However, there are additional buyers who perceive the environment as the “internal environment” with accompanying statements like, “the identification to the documentation of our practices from unused items that are burnt in the hospital’s incinerator until the emissions leave the plant, and that the supplier can reciprocate same for the manufacture of their goods” (Buyer entity B).

Like the buyers, the local environmental facilitators perceive environmental issues in an unexpected way (see Table 4). Three of them (entities A, E, and F) have a life cycle or product-oriented perspective and concentrate on health and safety. Health and safety have been a concern area for a long period, and this influences the green intentions when buying, eg, raw materials for drug manufacturing. “We focused on occupational wellbeing and safety and it takes so much resources that, I think it has taken the steam out of the environmental effort” (Entity C). From the focal buying units’ perspective, it was the intention to include life cycle concerns in green procurement. This means that, eg, environmental labels and energy consumption were included; the questionnaires from entities C, D, and G only concentrate on the environmental effects on the production. Entities A, B, E, and F include life cycle concerns when purchasing (see Table 4). These are the same entities that have a life cycle in understanding environmental issues, as opposed to focusing on the production output.

“When we were introduced to the green procurement procedure, its significance was determined by our facilitator, we have no reason not to trust in his judgment, He is the specialist” (Buyer entity E). Supplemented with the buyers’ account of how they used green procurement in close cooperation with the local environmental facilitator was therefore obvious that the perceptions of the environmental facilitator influence the green procurement practices.

An explanation of this is that the environmental facilitators were held in trust as the specialists, concerning green procurement, and in this manner, they can influence the social standards with the end goal of encouraging learning and the use of green procurement practices.

Knowledge and practice related to green procurement

The collaboration between the different groups of practice is an approach of gaining environmental learning, and thereby, it influences how to implement green procurement. Table 5 shows to what extent the individual entities interact with each other. Except in entities C and G, the buyers interact as often as possible with the environmental facilitator regarding green procurement, and the buyers in entities A, B, F, and G additionally tend to use the system created through green purchasing ventures, for instance, concentrating on environmental criteria for the acquisition of paint. In these sub-entities’ assignments, both buyers and employees take interest:

We have ended up, being mindful of environmental matters, because we are working with it, we know much more than we knew before. By participating in projects it becomes easier to see the purpose of environmental initiatives, but it can be troublesome, for instance even a scavenger at one of seven mining companies’ hospitals kitchen to have knowledge about it. (Buyer entity B)

Table 5.

Green procurement practices and environmental perceptions of significance to green procurement in the entities.

The buyers have picked up a typical impression of environmental issues through their interest in buying groups. Being a part of this group that practices green procurement influenced them to present green procurement in their local units too. The buyers say that the participation in these entities’ project groups have given them a better knowledge on green procurement that they can also apply to their daily practices and thereby reduce the uncertainty that is associated with changing procurement practices: “The projects in the buying group have made us all specialized within certain areas, and we know who to call to get help” (Entity F). In entity F, neither the buyer nor the environmental facilitator has an environmental education.

This implies that the impression of environmental issues mainly depends on the specific rules and goals in the environmental management system. On the positive side, the buyers know who to ask in case of doubt and were not afraid to do such a thing. They both have the freedom to learning how to perform green procurement, and this may clarify why they have actually managed to execute green procurement in entity F. The local management in the 7 mining companies’ hospitals entity handles green procurement in an astonishing way. Majority of them do not interfere much, yet, at some entities, the buyers felt that the management were not helpful: “Our top manager disclosed to us that, everything cannot be focused on environmental issues, and there must be space for the ‘small’ suppliers, this statement makes it difficult for us to enforce the procedures” (Entity C). In entities C and D, the buyers feel that the management was not helpful in the green procurement implementation. The buyers found out that the management support is critical as they inspire for changing their procurement practices; if the buyers are evaluated in terms of economic performance, this may lessen green procurement practices.

Expanding on the current practices of procurement

For 5 of the 10 interviewed buyers, applying the supplier surveys ended up as a known practice. For others, their current procurement practices do not make way for green procurement practices, as they tend to think about quality and cost as the fundamental components when buying. The buyers find it very essential to make the most bargains possible each time they embarked on procurement, yet to some of them, it includes considering environmental matters. Along with this line, the buyers have a different guideline for what a decent bargain is. Furthermore, the buyers have various levels of knowledge on environmental matters. A double-loop learning process is required, and the current practices ought to be addressed. Thus, there should be environmental education to encourage the transformation of the social standards with respect to purchasing, and to facilitate environmental commitment within 7 mining companies’ hospitals.

The purchasing practices normally extend to a product-oriented understanding of procurement; quality and price are assessed regarding the expected lifetime of the product and the volatility of chemicals. At this point, when the suppliers’ appraisals were focused on the environmental performance, but not the items, they frustrate the green procurement practices and cannot be incorporated in the current procurement practices. This is lucid with the discoveries of Russel,⁵¹ who contends that green procurement should include environmental features and templates for the goods and services.⁵²

A few of the buyers clarify that the green procurement has not actually led to environmental improvements among the suppliers, as the suppliers do not change in their environmental effort or provide different products. The strategy for evaluating the appropriate responses from the providers was the only way to understand how green procurement leads to real outcomes, and as long as the buyers appreciate environmental issues, there is no purpose for scrutinizing the present practices. Notwithstanding the perception that green procurement does not prompt any genuine change in fulfilling environmental matters, no double-loop learning takes place. A plethora of studies have demonstrated that expectations of customer requests were drivers of green procurement (Walker et al²⁷). There was no supply chain pressure from customers or other players to the green procurement of minor goods and services. This might influence the buyers’ perception that they only engage in green procurement as a result of internal procedures, not because suppliers value it.

At entities E, F, and G, the buyers discovered that their responsibilities were of importance in the environmental performance of the 7 mining companies’ hospitals, and the remaining 3 find that their responsibilities were not important from the environmental point of view. The aim of the suppliers’ assessments was not clearly defined in the procurement guideline, and as a result, several interpretations occurred at the same time in the 7 mining companies’ hospitals. To some degree, the buyers refused to recognize that the trading partner evaluations are of relevance to the 7 mining companies’ hospital. One of the arguments for this is that the buyers normally evaluated the amount of products and services they purchased than the suppliers themselves. Thereby, the green procurement practices differ from the normal procurement practices. At this point, there was a need for addressing the environmental goals of the 7 mining companies’ hospitals to make the employees become aware of the importance of green procurement.

Changing the environmental opinion to impact procurement practices

The buyers’ views with respect to green procurement vary from 1 entity to the other, except in entities C and D—their opinions depended on how the local environmental facilitator introduced green procurement. In entities A, B, C, E, and G, the environmental facilitators were the buyers’ main source of environmental knowledge, and they were therefore involved in applying green procurement. Where the interaction between the local environmental facilitators and the buyers was regular, their opinions had a positive impact on the green procurement practices. The buyers have effectively transformed their procurement practices and scrutinized the environmental criteria, which they generally applied in procurement by including the environment as an additional factor. Lack of training and commitment was seen as a hindrance to green procurement,^53–55 and the interaction with the environmental facilitators frowns on this. The environmental facilitators perform their functions as middle agents between the focal units and the buyers, and in doing so, they encourage double-loop learning process. A detailed outline of the green procurement procedures clarifies why green procurement is of significance to the 7 mining companies’ hospitals in encouraging the buyers learning how to perform green procurement. It is not a hard thing to acquire knowledge, but putting the knowledge into practice through social negotiation is what should be seen of 7 mining companies’ hospitals.^56,57 The environmental facilitator could act as a backbone to improving green procurement practices if he or she has the necessary environmental knowledge. At that point, the buyers can approach him or her for direction on environmental issues, yet he or she may also be the one exhibiting and assisting them to appreciate new environmental initiatives. This neutralizes the barrier recognized by Scur and Barbosa³⁹ about the absence of appreciating how to fuse green thinking into organization for buying goods and services.

Encouraging green procurement through support and improved knowledge

Management support was seen as a key factor of green procurement practices. Management support varies in the management entities. These practices vary from the local management appeals to the buyers, not to disregard environmental issues when purchasing, on the contrary. Some studies have observed that green transport or cleaning services can reduce cost, whereas the procurement of, eg, green paper or degradable disposable bins, can be expensive. Nonetheless, the top management sometimes does not choose the green alternatives when they are buying. The support from the top management is therefore important for social standards and real practices for organizational transformation and sustenance. To the local management, financial resources might be a deterrent factor, so environmental issues might not be a highest priority to the mining hospitals; this could be translated to failure in the environmental assessment. For this situation, the local managers rely on existing habits and are therefore resistant to change.²³

This means that 1 target area for improving the green procurement practices is by persuading the local management of its significance to the 7 mining companies’ hospitals to ensure that the environmental goals are made much clearer. It is therefore not the existence of supportive of formal elements that needs to be changed, but how the top management supports them. This should be possible through reward power such as positive appraisals of green procurement practices or incentives for the buyers. What is required is really a double-loop learning process where the supervisors question their existing practices and support a change. A supportive management structure can support the purchasing department on the creation and evaluation of green procurement. For management to support green procurement, it is essential to incorporate green objectives in the 7 mining companies’ hospitals’ procurement practices. If the local management is measured only in terms of the economic performance and not the environmental initiatives, that might end up with conflicting goals. The support from central units of the procurement entity should be able to encourage the implementation of green procurement practices. The entities’ proximity to the central environmental unit (entity E) had a closed cooperation with the central unit, which ensured follow-up on its green procurement practices. The buyers explained that this is of significance to the execution of green procurement. However, there was an absence of monitoring and follow-up on the green procurement of the other individual entities. The focal environmental units have concentrated on developing procedures and focal purchasing agreements, as opposed to catching up, rather than on the local implementation in the 7 mining companies’ hospitals’ entities. It is important to speed up on the changes in practices and procedures, and some degree of follow-up is essential to ensure that green procurement is on the agenda of the individual entities procurement plans. The environmental facilitator can facilitate a learning process when, eg, introducing a new purchasing procedure. In entities E and G, the buyers explained that a detailed presentation of the supplier’s assessment plan have given rise to improved procurement practices. In entities C and D, these have changed neither their view of a decent bargain nor the actual procurement practice. For those initiatives that are introduced as a direct continuation of the current practices, changes have thus occurred faster. One case is that the centrally created buying agreements now included green initiatives. All 7 entities use these buying agreements. For the individual buyer, the practice has not changed much; he or she applies the buying agreements in the same way, as he or she is used to. The main difference is that some goods, such as liquid soaps and theater gloves, are now produced in different brands, because of the environmental awareness on the product. Considerably, the buyers incorporate green procurement by changing their conventional procurement practices, which were not identified as part of the green procurement agreements. However, applying the centrally created buying agreements may not facilitate any learning²³ with green procurement; the buyers simply continue their practices of using the centrally created buying agreements without reflecting on the environmental endorsement of the suppliers. The green procurement practices identified with the procurement of minor goods and services in these entities vary in that, and the environment was considered as a key issue to implementing green procurement practices. The central buying department seems to have difficulties in understanding why the differences in green procurement practices look like, as the similar procedures and implementation measures are applied to all entities. This implies that some entities do not comply with the 7 mining companies’ hospitals’ procurement policies. The fact that the formal descriptions and work procedures are identical implies that the explanation of the different purchasing ought to be found in the internal network of the 7 mining companies’ hospitals as it depends on the specific organizational context in each entity. The customers of the same entities and the external networks do not provide a possible explanation either. The collaboration in the buying groups strengthens the execution of green procurement practices. The lack of understanding of how to integrate green thinking into buying is perceived as a barrier.⁵⁸ Green procurement can be seen as an organizational capability where knowledge is translated into practice. It is, however, challenging for the buyers to apply knowledge because green procurement is seen by the buyers as “something other than what’s expected” from ordinary acquiring practice. Some of the buyers have taken keen interest in green procurement practices, and these have affected their practices on their day-to-day procurement assignments. This is because they know how to actualize the green procurement practices and the importance of doing so. This can be viewed as a learning process,⁵⁹ or learning through practice, as each buyer transfers his or her knowledge in environmental friendliness and opinions to the other buyers to sustain the green procurement practices in the 7 mining companies’ hospitals.

Those buyers do not just implement a procedure, but they actually challenge the priorities used in evaluating green procurement practices in the 7 mining companies’ hospitals. The green procurement has turned into an organizational skill among buyers, and the practices also turn into a limited spanner.¹² To ensure that, green procurement becomes an organizational skill in all 7 mining hospitals’ entities, it was necessary to include the buyers in the entities’ purchasing groups where they can acquire experience and practice green procurement. This can be viewed as a learning process,⁵⁹ or learning through training, as every buyer transfers his or her experience in green procurement practices to other buyers.