Green public procurement practices in Norway : the application of environmental criteria and the use of scoring rules in Norwegian road transport tenders

Abstract

The goal of this thesis is to examine green public procurement (GPP) practices in Norway with a focus on road transport. In recent years, both in Norway and in the European Union there has been an increased focus on using public procurement to support environmental goals. The most suitable award method for this purpose is MEAT – most economically advantageous tender – which not only considers the price and minimum requirements of a bid but also other quality aspect. Such quality aspects can concern the environment. The use of MEAT as an award method usually requires organisations to adopt scoring rules. This thesis both identifies the extent to which public organisations in Norway consider environmental aspects in tenders and whether optimal scoring rules are applied. For this purpose, we use three data sources. First, two datasets comprised of road related tenders in Norway set the base for our analysis to better understand the status quo and past developments of green public procurement in Norway. Secondly, expert interviews help us explain some of the observations made in the data analysis. Lastly, survey results from public transport organisations in Norway inform us about the current scoring rules used for tenders, and allow comparing them with an existing framework on optimal scoring rules for different preferences. Our results show that there has been an increase in the share of tenders including environmental criteria in the past years and that there are regional, organisational and contractual differences. Northern Norway appears to have the lowest share of road transport related tenders with environmental criteria. Furthermore, tenders published at a county or municipal level are more likely to consider the environment than tenders published at a national level. In terms of contract type, it appears that service contracts have a higher share of environmental criteria than product contracts. Finally, we find that organisations or departments with the sole purpose of procuring road vehicles seem to value environmental criteria at a higher level than organisations where transport tenders are only a part of their value chains. When it comes to the use of scoring rules by public transport organisations in Norway, we identify a mismatch between the organisations’ stated preferences regarding tender features and the actual scoring rules that are used. The results of our thesis inform policy makers about current GPP practices in Norway and on which basis they can assess whether the current level is as desired.