Literature Review: Green Procurement's Relevance in Organizations

This literature review examines the relevance of green procurement within organizations. It defines green procurement, exploring various terminologies and definitions, while also discussing green supply chain management and its importance. The review analyzes environmental policy frameworks, highlighting the benefits of green purchasing, including waste reduction and environmental impact mitigation. It covers key aspects such as the integration of environmental considerations into purchasing policies, life-cycle analysis, and the promotion of recycling and resource reduction. The review further discusses green procurement in the context of various countries' environmental policies, detailing policy frameworks, programs, sectors, and practices. It emphasizes the importance of considering environmental, social, and price factors in procurement strategies and suggests steps for companies to implement green procurement effectively, including planning, implementation, and evaluation. The document highlights the benefits of long-term cost savings and improved internal efficiency through strategic procurement policies.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Green Procurement’s relevance with the organizations
In past years the strategies for making the better purchasing is applied by the
organizations so effectively. For this organizations is being focused on the activities related with
their core operations. The non-core activities are adopted for the outsourcing of the products.
This approach is being helpful to shift the major components of the manufacturing operations
outside to the organization and then the natural environment can have the impact of the
contribution of functions which are involved in the purchasing of goods. For this organization
being familiar to the suppliers as they must maintain the environmental factors for coordinating
the chain of activities. The opportunity is provided to the organization as openly as they can
integrate the aspects which are related to the environment and such aspects are involved into all
the processes and operations of the company (Blome and et.al., 2014). The impacts from the
environment which affect the actions of business can be reduced by this process. The power of
purchasing being so broad than any other function of corporate world. The green and
environmental purchasing makes a valuable effect as it is helpful in the reduction of the source of
waste by the possible instrument. The process is so active in promoting the recycling of the
wastage and makes benefit through the environment. It also helps to integrate various
environmental aspects which leads to the decision making process of organization. According to
the green purchasing also concerned with the responsibilities of the higher authority of the
organization related to environment as they have to cooperate with it because the chain of supply
can have impact on itself. Suppose an organization has applied the green purchasing in their
system, it means the supply chain which is associated by the leading companies may have greater
effect and it make influence on their suppliers. The whole process in which the environmental
responsibilities are increases will increase the activities related to the environment of the other
companies within their supply chain. The company’s supply chain get influenced with those
activities as they have to supply the required stuffs on the fixed time and also the quality of the
product should be matched with the market requirement. Green purchasing is being so beneficial
for the organizations and their suppliers in last few years(Testa and et.al., 2016). Due to the

effectiveness of the environmental aspects, the operations has been modified for giving better
outcome to the organization.
Definition of Green Procurement
The Green Procurement can be defined in various term as so many authors have provided
their words on the Green Procurement. In various terminology can be used in the different
perception of different authors. The example of terminology can be seen as environmental
procurement or purchasing. There is no one who have gave their deep opinion on the specified
notion of the “greenness” related to the suppliers of the organization. Under the consideration of
integrated aspects of environments into the purchasing policies, programs and various actions.
The Green purchasing or environmental purchasing consists functions of purchasing in activities
for managing the supply chain, life-cycle analysis and environment design which providing the
facility of recycling, reuse and reduction of resources(Butt and et.al., 2015). As per the
evaluation there is one more holistic definition that can be stated as Environmental purchasing
for an individual firm is the set of purchasing policies held, actions taken, and relationships
formed in response to concerns associated with the natural environment. These concern relate to
the acquisition of raw materials, including supplier selection, evaluation and development,
suppliers operation, in-bound distribution, packaging, recycling, reuse, resource reduction and
final disposal of the firm’s product.
There is one more definition which is given by the Appolloni, A. and et.al, 2014
according to which the Green procurement is as helpful as the technical issues like recycling and
LCA can be narrow down. Generally people can adopt any of these definitions for simplify their
observation but most of the chosen the Dou, Y. and et.al., 2014 definition, because it can emerge
new themes as it is expressed so simply and has less specified information. In this definition the
generalized view is shown as the basic aspects which can make impact on the operations related
to environment are covered. Green procurement has been defined as per its basic property.
Green Supply Chain Management
The supply chain management is a concept on which very few researcher have made their
opinion as the abundant literature based on green management, in which the various aspects and
facts are evaluated and the review is depended on these factors. In past few years the interest has

grown up so some of area should go for the research. The factors which are so essential for the
research on green supply chain management, can be seen such as considerations and evidences
which are related to the green procurement are not that much developed. This research is done on
the basis of various conceptual papers as the identification. There are some predicted surveys
under which so many facts are discussed about the green supply chain management. It can be
referred as the basic idea for getting the deep knowledge about such topic. The organization must
know about this concept under which the environment purchasing which can be also named as
green purchasing in which the environmental aspects can make impacts on the chain of supplier
and ultimately the quality and delivery of good will be on time. Suppliers will realize their
responsibilities related to the organization.
According to Mosgaard, M.A., 2015 the devotion of literature review is based on the
green procurement, in which the several common themes are synthesized by which is found in
the stream of literature. Also the theoretical directions can be proposed by it for further research
in future on the environmental purchasing. The review is all based on the previous practices and
conducting another review regarding the new themes and practices that have emerged on this
topic. There is another review that is based on the sustainable supply chain management, the
conceptual framework is designed to understand the green purchasing, but there is very small
brief of GP in that review. There is more review given by a research in which the relation
between the environmental, social and economic performance with the supply chain management
has been focused and the whole demonstration is based on that concept. But on the other hand in
this review there are no conversation about the other aspects of green procurement or the
environment procurement. The 9 broad organizational theories are taken as the base for a review
and those theories are related with the special emphasis on the investigation of the adoption,
diffusion and outcomes of green supply management practices(Shen and et.al., 2017). The whole
study is about the comprehensive view of that literature in the context of green procurement. The
conceptual framework in which the research is mentioned and the major common themes also
the number of research directions for future research are also proposed in this literature review.
Green procurement in selected environment policy framework
In this phenomenon the policy of environmental purchasing is defined under the
supervision of various factors. The policy have the discussion about benefit that is environmental

or socioeconomic and the benefits comes from the purchasing of product. The policy covers 9
countries under it such as USA, Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Australia, China, Brazil and
Mexico, these country’s organization can make their operations according to the green
procurement policy. The countries which are working under the green procurement policy can
work with the context of solid legal basis, in such the utilization by public organizations is
required. The public sector organizations are using the LCC for getting the benefit and costs of
green procurement policy. There is no analysis introduced by any kind of organization in which
the accompanying analysis of the impacts is done in this review. The impacts are basically seen
on the competitiveness of industry or the suppliers of that business sector. There are some
sections that as to be covered in the study of Green procurement for each country. Such as policy
framework, programs, sectors and products, the relative principles, practices of the
environmental policies, the various standards, metrics, indicators and some other data about the
organizations and the suppliers. Also the lesson and practices which are done with the best
learning strategies is so important in green procurement policy(Hu and et.al., 2015). The whole
study is containing so many section do matter for the execution of this study and through these
all sections the study will reach to its end.
The green procurement is defined as the purchase of environmentally preferable products
and services in accordance with one or more established green procurement preference
programs. The preferable products can be idolized as which can not affect the health and the
environment that means the effect should be reduced on the health of the human and the
environmental factors. The evaluation can be done on the basis of the material which is used for
the making those products and raw material acquisition, production, manufacturing of the
products, packaging of such goods which are produced in the organization, the distribution of the
packets to the retailers, the reuse or the recycling of the waste material, the maintenance of the
each and every aspect which is involved in the production department and also related with the
suppliers of the organization. The use of non-toxic products should be less according to the green
procurement policy. The products which are made in the company may be manufactured by the
material or the content that is recycled. The bio based products can be used for the
manufacturing of such products, the products and services that reduce the waste should be
supplied by the production sector, the energy efficient products and the products that reduce the
consumption of water should be according to this policy. Basically this policy leads to the

consideration for the environment, social aspects and price, the performance of such product
socially and environmentally, the availability of the products as the market demand. The
environmental qualities are specified under product attributes, process attributes, the attributes
which are specific for manufacturing, the perspectives which are done in the life cycle of that
product. The purchasing strategies which are responsible are also written in the green
procurement policy.
There are few sectors that has to understand the sustainability policy such that planning in which
the organization has to make sure about the right people in the place at they are conducting their
market. The policy provides the layout which can be followed for make sure about the formal
procedures and the various sections and factors that has to be consider for purchasing the goods
and services. The cost savings could be demonstrated for long term if the formal and strategic
procurement policies are implemented by the companies(Ahsan and Rahman, 2017). Also the
management and internal efficiency included in this green procurement policy.
There are some steps and considerations that could suggested for a company:
Plan- The market is research is so important for make sure about the policy under which
the organization is working. The availability in the market should be identified by the
organization as such product and services that has to be purchased. After the market research the
risk management and the waste management plan should be there. The areas in which the
organization can have most impact those area should be in focus of the management of the
organization. The labor and human policies are also part of the plan. Women empowerment and
the diversity in the terms of gender and the groups those are underrepresented should be
considered in this plan.
Implement- The implementation of each process and each operations should be proper.
The wording can be used for the purchasing any kind of product and then the suppliers will give
the preference. The specifications should be focused on the desires outcomes and also the
communication with the vendors should be very clear that why are you asking for those
specifications.
Continuity- The impacts should be measured after a particular range of time. Because the
success of plan must be determined as the instrumental(Yan and et.al., 2016). After the each year

the organization should measure that by implementing such plan the organization had the
impacts. The make sure that these impacts are internally and externally distributed. The each
stakeholders should know about it such as potential vendors, investors and employees.
Globalization theory
According to this theory the globalization is the reason behind the environmental
performance more than the localization. The opportunities and threats both can be discovered
due to the globalization. The chances of getting more opportunities will be increases in case of
globalization. Basically the multinational companies use various factors for producing goods at
competitive price such as they are threatening local companies by investing big capitals and by
using latest technologies and also they have producing capacity of goods at competitive rates.
The environmental performance can be improved by making pressure on the most enterprises.
According to the competitiveness of host industries, which has
preparedness and deliverables, translate to strategic and operation requirements which include
cost and quality improvement that add manufacturing aspects such as Just in time , enterprises
resource planning, total quality management. The shortening time to order and faster speed to
market can be seen as the other requirements. These requirements employs various strategies like
stock keeping unit rationalization, mass customization, process integration and the research
which are coordinated globally and the development also. The globalization theory is need to be
understand to discover the influence of the ICT infrastructure and the independent variables as
the supplier participation. And its impacts on the performance of the organization. The
globalization theory is so helpful to understand the various standard and trademark which can
help to improve the environmental performance. The product’s, manufacturing and the
packaging and other sections are included in this globalization. The multinational company
makes so many efforts and applying various operations which can ne idolized for production of
products and service at the price which can be in the competitive market. Multinational
companies uses the resources of local companies and provide them big investment and also their
infrastructure is quite huge so they became successful in making quality products for the
retailers(Zhang and et.al., 2010). The costs improvement can be done by emerging the waste
material as it should be utilized in recycling process and also the manufacturing can be done with
the recycled material so the cost of production would be so cheap as the cost can be improved.

Advantage and disadvantage of Green Procurement
The green procurement is a wealthy trend for the organizations as in the business world it
means so strong as going green concept. The organizations who are not aware of the properties
of green procurement can see the pros and cons of this concept as the each and every factor
would be clear to them.
Advantages:
 The very first advantage of green procurement would be taken as it increases the energy
efficiency and the waste from the production would be reduced. Resulting the electricity
bill will be so less due to the energy efficiency. The company can more average savings
in the name of their employees.
 The company can increase their revenue as the market has the huge demand of green
product and services. The number of customers will be increased due to the green
procurement process. The customers who want the quality products and who want green
product will pay more money, this is seen after a study of the target customers.
 If an organization will provide the green product to their customers than it will
automatically increases their respect and reputation in the community. The customers
have mindset that company have care of the local environment. For the each buck of
money the sustainability and community projects will be increased and also the sales will
be increased.
 The morale of the company can be boosted by applying the green procurement in the
organization as providing the green products and services. The individuals who are
searching the job, will keep the company’s name on the top of its priorities. The recruited
employees will have more commitment and motivation. And this is why the morale or
company will be boosted which leads to save the human resources for long term.
 The tax return will be reduced due to green procurement process as there some tax credits
are available for the companies as they can advantage of such business practices that is
friendly with the environment(Uttam, K., 2014).
 The green manufacturing will make benefit to the environment as the good product is
provided to the customers. The waste and harmful emissions are reduced in the
manufacturing of green products. The resources are preserved as they are finite and

nonrenewable. There are so many people who wants to support the green procurement
movement so the number of customers in a particular organization is increased.
 The green procurement can beneficial for the business also because the green product
costs little more than the normal one. The more efficient system will be implemented in
the culture of company will lead to the innovation in the each operation of each process.
Hence these efficient process will less waste from production from a business.
Disadvantages:
 The green procurement is a long process to implement because the decision can be made
in a night but the practice execution can take time. The environment of a business has to
be completely changed as it require constant maintenance and effort. A particular amount
of time and the effort will be the 2nd nature of this green procurement.
 The investment in the initial time is quite huge because so many resources should be
there for maintaining the better environment. The green technology is so new and still in
the development. That means the products which are quite produced by green technology
are quite expensive as compared with the typical products. It can reduce the money which
is consumed during the production like lighting energy cost for example the regular light
bulbs will be replaced with the alternatives and the savings from this can be used as pay
for the new light bulbs.
 After establishing the green technology in the company there is a huge requirements of
the new vendors. The company have to research and put to some effort to find the correct
partners who can maintain good relationship. They are the important as the product for
the business and this will get you to the lesson in which you can learn the efficient way to
handle the company.
 The big disadvantage of green procurement is a business must experience the transition to
the green manufacturing. This transition can fluctuate their stats for a small range of time.
The funding is the big factor as to switch the business into the green manufacturing. If the
company wants to switch in so less time than the green manufacturing will costs so high.
The needed technology and machines will cost so much of money then the
implementation of manufacturing process. So the business should want a new employee
who can replace the old one and work so efficiently in the green manufacturing company.

 International trade disadvantage is also a major cons in the green procurement. The
business organization have a hesitation to implement a green manufacturing system
because they fear that this process will became an impediment to the free flow of goods
and profitable transactions. If the international supplier will not participate in the green
manufacturing then it can be a fear as the hesitation to implement green procurement in
the organization.
 The conversion have cost so must in the green manufacturing or the green procurement
because if the solar power is the need that obviously the solar panel is must be needed
and it is the major business facilities. The cost reduction can be recovered by the green
procurement and it is enough to offset the initial conversion costs.
 Costlier products of green manufacturing can make difference on their profitability. The
manufacturing cost can be as high as the customers will have the products on the high
prices. Thus the green material can provide more expensive products to its customers.
The green procurement suffers from the lack of support because so many countries have
strict rules and regulations against the green procurement process and its operations.
 The green procurement is some of companies is done without using the paper as a
common method of going green is to eliminate the use of paper. This can be also a
disadvantage for the organization as employees will lose or their laptop is theft then the
sensitive information could not fall into the wrong hands. Also the customer backlash is a
disadvantage in this phenomenon. The false claims can be made by the companies
regarding the friendliness of environment and this may be intentionally and
unintentionally. The whole process is known as greenwashing. The credibility will be low
if the customers will know that the company is engaged in the greenwashing and this can
impact also on their profitability and their brand image in the market.
Benefits of from the Green Procurement
After seeing all the factors of this literature review it is proved that green procurement is
so beneficial for the environment, organization which has adopted it and also for the customers
who are availing it.
The environmental benefits

The green procurement can be helpful to fix the problems which are related to the environment.
Also it allows the public authorities to reach the environmental targets decided by the various
organization in the business sector. Those problems can be seen as deforestation in which the
purchase of good and its products from legal areas. The greenhouse gas emissions, the water use
in which the fitting of water should be efficient. Energy efficiency and the resource use by
choosing products which are more efficient and implementing environmentally conscious design
principles. For example cradle to cradle is can be the taken as the resource used by the choosing
products. The pollution from various sources like air pollution, water pollution and the soil
pollution which can be controlled by reducing the use of chemicals and also the hazardous
substances(Kozik, 2015). Waste can be recycled by specifying processes and the packaging by
which the waste would so less and the materials will be recycled. The sustainable agriculture
which can be reduced by purchasing the food which is organically produced.
The green procurement have set an example before the private consumers of the typical
products, now they have started using green products. The general public and the private sector’s
people it is so convincing. It influences the market place. Establishing a green procurement
policy and their communication with the initiatives and their results. It demonstrates the action
possible action of that area and the outcome will be so positive. For the own procurement the
organizations of private sector can be encouraged to utilize the green limits.
Green procurement policy have aware about the environmental issues like environmental
impacts of such products and services which is typically provided to the customers. The impacts
can be seen by the lifecycle of the products or the information which is provided on the benefits
of alternatives. The public canteen can be the source for serving the organic and sustainable
food.
The Social and health beneficial benefits
The quality of the life can be improved by the green procurement policies. The public transport
will be cleared for example air quality has been improved.
The performance standards of environment can be established so high for the products and
services provided by the companies to their private of other customers.
The Economic benefits

The Green procurement policy helps in saving money and resources while the consideration is as
costs of life cycle(Dubey and et.al., 2013).
It incentives are provided to the industry by the green procurement policy to make innovations.
It reduces the prices for the technologies which are used environmentally.
The Political benefits
The environmental protection and sustainable consumption and protection are being under the
commitment of public sector which is demonstrated by an effective way as the green
procurement policy.

REFERENCES
Book and Journals
Blome, C. and et.al., 2014. Green procurement and green supplier development: antecedents and
effects on supplier performance. International Journal of Production
Research. 52(1). pp. 32-49.
Testa, F. and et.al., 2016. Drawbacks and opportunities of green public procurement: an effective
tool for sustainable production. Journal of Cleaner Production, 112, pp. 1893-
1900.
Butt, A.A. and et.al., 2015. Life cycle assessment for the green procurement of roads: a way
forward. Journal of Cleaner Production, 90, pp. 163-170.
Appolloni, A. and et.al, 2014. Green procurement in the private sector: a state of the art review
between 1996 and 2013. Journal of Cleaner Production, 85, pp. 122-133.
Dou, Y. and et.al., 2014. Government green procurement: a Fuzzy-DEMATEL analysis of
barriers. In Supply chain management under fuzziness (pp. 567-589). Springer
Berlin Heidelberg.
Mosgaard, M.A., 2015. Improving the practices of green procurement of minor items. Journal of
cleaner production, 90, pp. 264-274.
Shen, L. and et.al., 2017. Key factors affecting green procurement in real estate development: a
China study. Journal of Cleaner Production, 153, pp. 372-383.
Hu, Z. and et.al., 2015. Optimization decision of supplier selection in green procurement under
the mode of low carbon economy. international Journal of computational
intelligence systems. 8(3). pp. 407-421.
Ahsan, K. and Rahman, S., 2017. Green public procurement implementation challenges in
Australian public healthcare sector. Journal of Cleaner Production. 152. pp. 181-
197.