6. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
6.4 Suggestions for Future Research
Even though sustainability has gained increasing attention recently, there is a lot to be done in the future. Sustainable practices and processes are developing all the time and an increasing amount of academic research considering sustainability is done and
published. Because of this, the practices considering sustainability must be updated from time to time, which means that also the target setting process described in this research should be examined again later and possible changes should be then considered. Also, it must be noted that the process described in this research has not been tested in practice, which enables to develop the process based on the practical experiences.
Also, future research could focus more on the contractual period. When the target setting process has been implemented and targets for some category or group of products or services have been set, it would be interesting to examine if the defined metrics and ways to measure the outcome have been suitable and connected to the target – has there been actual progress towards the target and how to develop monitoring during the contractual period even further. This requires data gathering during many years and the results cannot be evaluated until there has been enough information gathered for the comparison and analysis. In addition, ways to evaluate long-term impacts should be examined to show that public procurement truly has a possibility to impact the sustainability issues and increase the level of sustainability as a result of the professional procurement. When the data is gathered, it truly should be utilized in future research to develop the sustainability practices even further.
One aspect that was noted while doing this research was cooperation when sustainability issues are considered. When public organizations combine their resources for creating new sustainability practices, more effective outcome can be expected. It can be noted that so far the lack of practical sustainability tools and the impact assessment have created barriers for developing sustainability in public procurement, but together also these challenges could be faced. Actually, a network based centre of expertise, KEINO, has been created to promote innovativeness, effectiveness and sustainability aspects in public procurement and also for example to support the procurement organizations’ strategic management, development of practical tools and measurements and to increase the level of expertise considering sustainable and innovative procurement (The Public Procurement Advisory Unit 2018a). When the network starts to work, it would be worth examining the impacts that the network has created together and also, since more education regarding sustainability and innovativeness is given, it would be interesting to examine the correlation between the level of employees’ sustainability expertise and the impact that it has on the organization’s sustainability performance.
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APPENDICES
Appendix 1. List of questions for the interviews made with Hansel and City of Vantaa
1. Your job title and job description at Hansel/City of Vantaa?
2. What is the role of sustainability in your work?
3. Why is sustainability important?
4. How is sustainability currently managed at Hansel/City of Vantaa and who are responsible for sustainability?
5. What kind of targets has been set to sustainability and from where do the targets for sustainability come?
6. Where are these targets recorded and where can one find them?
7. At which phase of the procurement process should sustainability be taken into account in a way that it would impact the outcome – what could be done better in different phases of the process?
8. What kind of impacts has sustainability been identified to have and what kind of impacts would it be hoped to have?
9. How is sustainability or the level of success regarding sustainability measured during the contractual period and how could it be measured in the future?
10. How are the supplier market and its possibilities investigated beforehand from sustainability’s point of view?
11. What kind of reporting requirements are currently set for the suppliers regarding sustainability and how could suppliers do sustainability reporting in the future?
12. Do you consider sustainability as a possibility or restriction, why?
13. What kind of information and/or tools should be available for those who might consider sustainability as a restrictive issue?
14. What kind of concrete tools would you wish to have to support your work in the field of sustainability?
15. How the reporting considering sustainability could be improved?
Appendix 2. List of questions for the interviews made with SYKE and Motiva
1. Your job title and job description at SYKE/Motiva?
2. What is the role of sustainability in your work?
3. Why taking sustainability into account from environment’s point of view is important?
4. How is environmental sustainability currently managed in public procurement and who are responsible for it?
5. Where do the targets for sustainability come from and what should be noted when these targets are set?
6. At which phase of the procurement process sustainability should be taken into account in a way that it would impact the outcome – what could be done better in different phases of the process?
7. What kind of ways there are to measure sustainability and how should the measures for different kinds of purchases be set?
8. How should environmental sustainability and the targets set for it be measured and monitored during the contractual period?
9. What kind of impacts has environmental sustainability been identified to have and what kind of impacts would it be hoped to have?
10. How could the impacts be measured in long-term and how should it be reported?
11. What should especially be paid attention to when investigating the supplier market and its possibilities in a way that environmental issues could be included to the invitation to tender?
12. What kind of responsibilities should be set for the suppliers considering the reporting of sustainability and how suppliers could report about sustainability during the contractual period?
13. What is the biggest challenge when it comes to the development of sustainability in public procurement and how could this challenge be faced?
14. What kind of tools and/or services there currently are to support the sustainability work in public procurement and what kind of tools could still be developed?
15. What are the possibilities for cooperation that environmental sustainability creates for public procurement and how the cooperation could be developed between different parties?