Incorporation of Environmental Criteria in the Tendering Process in Bhutan
Abstract
Green Public Procurement (GPP) is considered an important tool to improve environmental performance, reduce the consumption of natural resources, and motivate markets towards the green product with innovation. The study aims to develop environmental criteria of office supplies that can be mentioned in the tendering process for the Royal Government of Bhutan (RGoB). The main objectives of the current study are to identify and prioritize environmental criteria primarily for office supplies. A comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify the best-practiced environmental criteria. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was adopted to prioritize the environmental criteria that can be adopted in the procurement of goods. Four experts to weigh the importance of criteria performed the pairwise comparison. The result asserted that “use of recycled materials” with 12% of importance was the most important criteria among others, while “spare parts and repair services” (1.94% of importance) was considered as the least important criteria. This study is expected to ensure maximum environmental and financial benefits to the government as the RGoB spent approximately 60-70% of its annual budget on procurement of goods, services and works alone.