IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v68y2008i1-2p472-485.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Promoting environmentally sound furniture by green public procurement

Author

Listed:
  • Parikka-Alhola, Katriina

Abstract

Green Public Procurement (GPP) can be seen as a promising method to promote environmentally sound product design and motivate manufacturers to make products with reduced environmental impacts. For furniture, environmental impacts are quite limited during use but more associated with production and disposal. The requirements and criteria for furniture purchasing should be targeted to those environmental aspects that have the most influence and could, through eco-design, lead to the greatest environmental benefits. In order to do this, an RPS selection tool (Relevance-Potential-Steerability) is used. It is a tool developed for the assessment of the feasibility of eco-labelling criteria for a certain product group, and is applied in this study. The purpose of this paper is to recognize the major environmental aspects of furniture and to analyze to which extent they are taken into consideration in public purchasing, i.e., in the calls for tenders. The paper begins with describing the concepts of GPP and eco-design, as well as essential elements in this context such as the 'most economically advantageous' tender, the environmental aspects of furniture, eco-labels and eco-design strategies. The article continues with an analysis of 31 calls for tenders of furniture, including 15 Finnish and 16 Swedish calls for tenders. Finally, the paper discusses about the potential of GPP in promoting eco-design of furniture, i.e., what criteria are relevant from the view point of eco-design. The criteria that were presented in the studied calls for tenders seemed to be relevant from this perspective and subsequently may encourage eco-design among furniture manufacturers.

Suggested Citation

  • Parikka-Alhola, Katriina, 2008. "Promoting environmentally sound furniture by green public procurement," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1-2), pages 472-485, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:68:y:2008:i:1-2:p:472-485
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921-8009(08)00211-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edler, Jakob & Georghiou, Luke, 2007. "Public procurement and innovation--Resurrecting the demand side," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(7), pages 949-963, September.
    2. Petrus Kautto, 2006. "New instruments – old practices? The implications of environmental management systems and extended producer responsibility for design for the environment," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(6), pages 377-388, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marcel Bednarz & Tom Broekel, 2020. "Pulled or pushed? The spatial diffusion of wind energy between local demand and supply," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 29(4), pages 893-916.
    2. Ghisetti, Claudia, 2017. "Demand-pull and environmental innovations: Estimating the effects of innovative public procurement," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 178-187.
    3. T. Gries & R. Grundmann & I. Palnau & M. Redlin, 2017. "Innovations, growth and participation in advanced economies - a review of major concepts and findings," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 293-351, April.
    4. Fan, Cheng & Reiß, Thomas & Thielmann, Axel, 2014. ""Challenge-led"-Innovation in China: Das Beispiel Elektromobilität," Discussion Papers "Innovation Systems and Policy Analysis" 44, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI).
    5. Christoph March & Ina Schieferdecker, 2021. "Technological Sovereignty as Ability, Not Autarky," CESifo Working Paper Series 9139, CESifo.
    6. Sofia Patsali, 2019. "Opening the black box of university-suppliers' co-invention: some field study evidence," Working Papers of BETA 2019-46, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    7. Fagerberg, Jan, 2018. "Mobilizing innovation for sustainability transitions: A comment on transformative innovation policy," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1568-1576.
    8. Aschhoff, Birgit & Sofka, Wolfgang, 2009. "Innovation on demand--Can public procurement drive market success of innovations?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 1235-1247, October.
    9. RAITERI Emilio, 2015. "A time to nourish? Evaluating the impact of innovative public procurement on technological generality through patent data," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2015-05, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    10. Bento, Nuno & Sousa, Cristina & Trindade, Paula & Mamede, Ricardo Paes & Fontes, Margarida & Alves, Tiago, 2022. "Robust relation between public procurement for innovation and economic development," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    11. Martin, Hanna & Martin, Roman & Zukauskaite, Elena, 2018. "The Multiple Roles of Demand in Regional Development A Conceptual Analysis," Papers in Innovation Studies 2018/10, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    12. Paolo Castelnuovo & Stefano Clo & Massimo Florio, 2021. "Space policy drives innovation through technological procurement: evidence from Italy," Working Papers - Economics wp2021_08.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    13. Castelnovo, Paolo & Florio, Massimo & Forte, Stefano & Rossi, Lucio & Sirtori, Emanuela, 2018. "The economic impact of technological procurement for large-scale research infrastructures: Evidence from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1853-1867.
    14. Paula Cayolla Trindade & Paula Antunes & Paulo Partidário, 2017. "SPP Toolbox: Supporting Sustainable Public Procurement in the Context of Socio-Technical Transitions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-26, December.
    15. Andersen, Allan Dahl & Andersen, Per Dannemand, 2014. "Innovation system foresight," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 276-286.
    16. Raiteri, Emilio, 2018. "A time to nourish? Evaluating the impact of public procurement on technological generality through patent data," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(5), pages 936-952.
    17. Dmitri Vinogradov & Elena Shadrina & Marina Doroshenko, 2018. "KIBS for public needs," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 45(4), pages 443-473, December.
    18. Azevedo, Isabel & Delarue, Erik & Meeus, Leonardo, 2013. "Mobilizing cities towards a low-carbon future: Tambourines, carrots and sticks," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 894-900.
    19. Wiegmann, Paul Moritz & de Vries, Henk J. & Blind, Knut, 2017. "Multi-mode standardisation: A critical review and a research agenda," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1370-1386.
    20. Jesper Lindgaard Christensen & Ina Drejer & Poul Houman Andersen & Jacob Rubæk Holm, 2016. "Innovation policy: how can it best make a difference?," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(2), pages 135-139, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:68:y:2008:i:1-2:p:472-485. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.