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Building a Sustainable Society: Construction, Public Procurement Policy and ‘Best Practice’ in the European Union

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  • David Olsson

    (Political Science, Department of Political, Historical, Religious and Cultural Studies, Karlstad University, 651 88 Karlstad, Sweden
    The Centre for Societal Risk Research and Political Science, Karlstad University, 651 88 Karlstad, Sweden)

  • Andreas Öjehag-Pettersson

    (Political Science, Department of Political, Historical, Religious and Cultural Studies, Karlstad University, 651 88 Karlstad, Sweden)

  • Mikael Granberg

    (Political Science, Department of Political, Historical, Religious and Cultural Studies, Karlstad University, 651 88 Karlstad, Sweden
    The Centre for Societal Risk Research and Political Science, Karlstad University, 651 88 Karlstad, Sweden
    The Centre for Natural Hazards and Disaster Science, Uppsala University, 752 36 Uppsala, Sweden
    The Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia)

Abstract

Sustainability and sustainable development are political and essentially contested social phenomena. Despite this ambiguity, they continue to hold a central position as apolitical concepts in much of social science and policy making. In Europe, public procurement is increasingly used as a tool to reach sustainability, a fact that actualizes an inherent tension between politically charged objectives on the one hand, and technological processes and market logics on the other. Therefore, in this article, we investigate this tension by studying policies relating to sustainable public procurement of the built environment in the EU. We argue that governing any policy domain entails the construction and representation of particular policy problems. Hence, we focus on how the ‘problems’ of sustainable public procurement are represented in EU policy guidance and best practice documents. Our analysis shows that these central policy documents are dominated by a problem representation where unsustainability is constructed as technical design flaws and market failure. This has the primary effect that it renders sustainable development as, primarily, a technical issue, and beyond politics. Therefore, we conclude that current policy reproduces ‘weak’ forms of sustainable development, where the practice is depoliticized and premised upon continued growth and innovation.

Suggested Citation

  • David Olsson & Andreas Öjehag-Pettersson & Mikael Granberg, 2021. "Building a Sustainable Society: Construction, Public Procurement Policy and ‘Best Practice’ in the European Union," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-18, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:13:p:7142-:d:582065
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    References listed on IDEAS

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