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Is Green Public Procurement a deterrent for SMEs? Empirical evidence from France

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  • Adrien Deschamps

    (AU - Avignon Université, •JPEG - Laboratoire des sciences Juridiques, Politique, Economiques et de Gestion - AU - Avignon Université)

Abstract

Public procurement can be defined as the process by which public contracting authorities purchase goods, services, and works from private suppliers, including small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The access of SMEs to public contracts is one of the objectives of public procurement policies, as they suffer from complex procedures and high transaction costs. At the same time, public procurement is increasingly being used as an instrument for environmental policies, through green clauses (i.e. mandatory specifications in the contract performance) and award criteria (i.e. the dimensions of the offers the contracting authority assesses). The objective of this empirical work is to determine whether environmental clauses and criteria have an impact on SME participation in award procedures. This paper assesses for the first time the compatibility between SME accessibility and environmental issues in public procurement with a dataset encompassing approximately 10,000 award procedures in France between 2022 and 2023. The findings indicate that green public procurement stimulates SME participation. The intensity of this effect may vary between environmental clauses and criteria across sectors, but there is no evidence of a deterrent effect of green public procurement on SMEs.

Suggested Citation

  • Adrien Deschamps, 2025. "Is Green Public Procurement a deterrent for SMEs? Empirical evidence from France," Post-Print hal-04999776, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04999776
    DOI: 10.1007/s11187-025-01034-1
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04999776v1
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bernard Hoekman & Bedri Kamil Onur Taş, 2022. "Procurement policy and SME participation in public purchasing," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 383-402, January.
    2. Grant H. Lewis, 2017. "Effects of federal socioeconomic contracting preferences," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 49(4), pages 763-783, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Green Public Procurement Sustainable Development SME Participation Public Procurement Sustainable Public Procurement D22; Green Public Procurement; Sustainable Development; SME; Participation; Public Procurement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis

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