Social sustainability criteria in public-work procurement: An international perspective

Abstract

Scientific literature highlights the need to engage social sustainability more effectively in the construction industry through public procurement. Previous contributions have been focused on establishing strategies and defining guides to encourage and facilitate the inclusion of social criteria in public procurement. However, to reach effective results, the characterization of the current scenario needs to be clarified. With this aim, this research analyzes 451 tendering documents from 10 countries in terms of social sustainability. Three research questions are stated to characterize what the current main social criteria are, how these are defined, and what the differences and similarities are with respect to the inclusion of social criteria in tendering procedures at the international level. To analyze tendering documents, a quantitative content analysis that combines inductive and deductive approaches is developed. Descriptive statistics and statistical analysis based on correspondence analysis and the chi-square contingency table analysis are performed. The results show a lack of metrics to assess social sustainability objectively, the predominance of health and safety as the main social criteria that are included in public procurement, and the importance of the contract size in the number of social categories considered in procurement procedures. However, the main result of this research is focused on showing the important role that the variable "country" plays when the behavior regarding the inclusion of social sustainability is compared at the international level since significant differences are found between Anglo-Saxon and Spanish-speaking countries. Policies should be implemented to promote the use of social criteria and metrics in the award of projects and in the evaluation and monitoring of social performance in the construction industry.

A Review of Multicriteria Assessment Techniques Applied to Sustainable Infrastructure Design

“…us, although standardised tools exist to assess the different life cycle impacts of products, there is no consensus on how to cope with the simultaneous consideration of the three pillars that define sustainability, nor on what particular criteria should be considered in the decision-making process of sustainable infrastructure design [16].…”

Beyond Policies and Social Washing: How Social Procurement Unfolds in Practice

“…These newer legislative acts and policies have spurred both public and private organizations to engage in social procurement [3,7,24,25], and in fact, social criteria relating to employment of vulnerable groups are today the second most used type of social criteria in public procurement in the construction sector [26]. In North Ireland and Scotland, new work roles which exclusively deal with social procurement are increasingly common, and in many ways, the work with social procurement has become business as usual [17,25].…”

“…For example, some doubts persist about how social procurement might require more resources than traditional procurement [2,3,5,16,25,27,32], how it might displace "ordinary" workers [14,15,27], or that social value and employment requirements are difficult to evaluate (cf. [1,26,31,[33][34][35]). Other concerns relate to whether, despite its potential business opportunities, engaging in social procurement benefits brand goodwill or not [27], and whether collaboration around social procurement is difficult [32].…”

Progressions In Corporate Sustainable Development: Knowledge Management Capabilities In Process Management Practices

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