Improving Sustainable Procurement: The Role of Information Systems

Sustainability has become a central corporate concern and can determine a company’s success. The purchasing function is crucial to a firm’s sustainability policy. It drives a company’s sourcing activities and connects its internal functions to external suppliers and providers. Sustainable purchasing plays a key role in effecting a global strategy, requiring high-performance tools. Information systems can provide support services and stimulate and disseminate sustainable purchasing policies. This article combines a literature review with a qualitative study to illustrate how information systems contribute to corporate sustainable purchasing policies. Using an exploratory approach and constructivist positioning, a business-forecasting method is implemented to suggest a possible sustainable purchasing management path and a new role for information systems. A scenario is co-constructed from the responses of 12 purchasing function experts to questions about their practices and experiences, the effects of the rising wave of environmentalism, and the problems in implementing and optimizing information systems.