# Assessing the Degree of Sustainability Integration in Canadian Public Sector Procurement
## 1 Introduction and Background  
Canadian society and governments have recognized the urgency of global environmental and social challenges and are working to address them. The Federal Government has signed the Paris Agreement, committing to reducing Canada's emissions by 30% below the 2005 levels by 2030 [1]. To support this initiative, there have been numerous efforts ranging from putting a price on carbon, to investments in infrastructure and renewable energy [2], as well as the creation of the Centre for Greening Government within the federal government's Treasury Board Secretariat, and the development of a greening government strategy. Most recently, Prime Minister [PERSON] announced a ban on harmful single-use plastics by as early as 2021 [3]. From a social standpoint, Canada and 192 other UN member states adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015 [4] and Canada has invested heavily in a breadth of efforts, including Canada's first Poverty Reduction Strategy [5]. Despite these efforts, our progress is limited. Canada is projected to fall short on its greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction promise by 78 million tonnes [6] and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are described as a work in progress with 3 million Canadians struggling to satisfy their basic needs [7]. Given the critical and urgent need to advance sustainability, meaningful progress requires that we leverage all our available instruments. Sustainable public procurement, defined as the procurement of goods and services by government entities that take into consideration social, economic, and environmental aspects [8], is one severely underutilized and highly impactful mechanism. Prior research found that while a wide range of initiatives were in place to address the challenges related to sustainable development, they remained patchy in nature when it came to differences in sustainability aspects and across local authorities, as well as budgetary implications and priorities [9]. Relatedly, a combination of individual and organizational factors, and adaptation processes for small groups, within and external to the organization, seem to constitute barriers to the advancement towardssustainable procurement [10]. However, organizational leadership style has a positive impact on the likelihood of sustainable procurement practices [11], although there can still be insufficient support for sustainability tools in a trade-off situation [12] and a lack of influence by procurement professionals on the implementation of sustainability [13]. From a legislative framework perspective, green public procurement (GPP) [14] appears to be hindered by the legal institutes already in place [15]. The evaluation of GPP via an analysis of calls for tenders and assessment of criteria development process showed positive and encouraging results [16; 17] but also some weaknesses, such as a limited impact perspective and a lack of clear definition of sustainability objectives [17]; a lack of objective metrics to assess social sustainability, with some variance across countries [18]. Another study documented that while there is a focus on GPP in municipalities (in Norway), the requirements are far from being implemented and there are differences across various municipality sizes [19]. Finally, municipal councilors seem to consider--and use--sustainability as a \"political theme\" mainly to seek visibility and electoral support, and do not interact much with procurement managers [20]. From a strategic perspective, in utilizing purchasing as a social movement, sustainable public procurement works to use capitalism's fundamental principle against itself, replacing individual self-interest with broad based sustainability concerns [21]. From a practical perspective, public sector purchasing makes up 13.3% of Canada's gross domestic product [22] and uses existing buying power to drive established policy objectives, making it an important point of leverage, a relatively low-cost tool, and a stewardship mechanism for taxpayer dollars.