Monday, June 17, 2013

Capacity Building on Sustainable Procurement – The Way Forward


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.