Last
week I was witness to the divergent views prevailing among stakeholders on
sustainable procurement in India. In a workshop of leading public procurement
processionals organized by World Bank in New Delhi, I met many public procurement professionals,
who were quite excited to know about sustainable procurement ever since I told
in my introduction that I have a blog on the topic. When asked, during coffee
breaks, I explained to them how existing public buying concept based on initial
economic cost of products and services does not provide value for taxpayer’s
money because it does not consider all three dimensions of costs i.e. economic,
society and environment costs over whole life cycle of the products. It was indeed
heartening to see so many stakeholders showing such keen interest in this
topic. While I enthusiastically providing them the address of my blog, it was a
completely different scenario that confronted me on my return to my office the
very next day.
A very
senior procurement colleague wanted to know why was I perusing this topic? When I tried to convince him as to why this
topic makes sense for India, his next question was whether I really thought
such concept would take root in India? My reply of ‘why not?’ just made him
shake his head in disbelief. This experience was telling! For me, it brought
out the sharp contrasting scenario prevalent today and indicated the gap in
perceptions among stakeholders on sustainable procurement and the in-general
apathy for change. At one end there are people who have sustainability concerns
but the bulk remain unconvinced – at
least not to any degree of urgency. This brings
us to an important question i.e. why capacity building and training of
stakeholders is so vital for successful implementation of sustainable
procurement. The answer is – unless all stakeholders are on the same page, it
would be extremely difficult for this concept to make any inroads.
What worries me most is the complete silence on this issue. The documents
available in public arena give us hints on what is (not) happening inside the
corridor of power. The last time we heard about it when government gave mandate
to CII to suggest roadmap on green public procurement. Mr. Arun Maira, Member
Planning Commission, headed the committee and gave its final report in early
2012. Even members of the committee have no idea about what followed in
Ministry of Environment and Forest on that report. One can make wild guesses
but that is neither here nor there. The real issue, in my mind, is that
probably sustainable procurement is no one’s baby in the MoEF! India has
adopted national action plan on climate change, which has eight missions in
priority areas. Since it does not fit into any of the dedicated mission, it
finds no place in any public document. Other countries have adopted sustainable
procurement under sustainable consumption and production policy framework. In absence of such framework, adoption of
sustainable procurement policy remains a distant priority. This issue needs to
be resolved at the earliest as India is loosing a great opportunity to accelerate the shift towards more
sustainable consumption and production patterns, and more generally to contribute
to the achievement of sustainable development goals.
A
rough estimate by World Bank, India, tells us that there are approx. 7 million
people in India involved in one way or other in public procurement at central,
state and municipal level. This shows the enormity of the task ahead. It also
suggests that Government of India would be wise not to roll out sustainable
procurement policy in one go. Even if we
consider rolling out at central level in first phase, the number of procurement
professionals requiring training on sustainable procurement would be large. I
do not think conventional method of classroom training would be able to meet
this end. We would need to develop online training module available to thousands
of stakeholders simultaneously, free of cost, backed by designated national
accreditation body. The currently available GPP/SPP training tool kit of
European Union, IGPN, UNEP etc. are not relevant for India, though the concept
remains the same, as those were designed to cater to their needs. For example –
while the availability of eco labeled products is taken as granted in European
countries, eco label is a failed scheme in India! Therefore, the training
module has to be in conformity with existing rules and guidelines and
contemporary status of environmental standards and labeling in India.
Blogs
such as this one have their limitations. They definitely cannot reach out to
all stakeholders, who matter in the scheme of things. At best, they can facilitate
discussion among stakeholders, who are already on board. Therefore, we need to
have some kind of institutional supports for capacity building and training of
officials. And the time is now. We need to change our belief that sustainable
procurement will automatically get introduced everywhere once legislation is
passed in parliament. I agree that legislation will help but it cannot replace
the skills and tools required for making this happen. We need to test this
concept in our developmental context and build on the existing wealth of
knowledge. At present, sustainable procurement is not a part of any curriculum
offered by any institute or university. We need to immediately introduce module
on sustainable procurement at university level and in-service training
institutes. Similarly, the professionals getting into services should be
exposed to the concept so that we build critical mass of stakeholders, who can
take sustainability agenda forward in their own organisation.
There
is lots of knowledge available all around on this subject but unless we
deliberately make an attempt to use this knowledge to change our behavior, I
think implementing sustainable procurement in India would be a distant dream.
We have a choice – we could either remain like an ostrich, burying our head and
not acknowledging the problem or confront the problem head-on and start
embracing overarching concept like sustainable procurement wholeheartedly.
