# Sustainable Public Procurement in Central European Countries. Can It Also Bring Savings?
## 1 Introduction
Like the EU public procurement directives, the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA) allows tenders to be evaluated based on the criteria that will allow the contracting authority to obtain the most advantageous tender [10]. The application of MEAT criteria by contracting authorities is one of several tools for implementing SPP. Other tools include the application of socially, environmentally, or innovation-oriented technical specifications, exclusion criteria, or special contract performance clauses [11; 12; 13]. Most previous studies on SPP have focused more on the application of only one aspect of SPP, such as the environmental [14; 15; 16; 17] rather than on the social or innovative aspects in public procurement. In addition, as noted by [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], and [PERSON], in some cases the term sustainable procurement is used to refer to Green Public Procurement (GPP) [18]. Several other studies point to challenges that make it difficult to integrate environmental considerations into public procurement and identify opportunities to overcome barriers and support GPP policies [19; 20; 21; 22]. However, there have been exceptions and some previous studies have focused on the application of social aspects in specific types of the procurement process, such as food procurement (see e.g., [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], and [PERSON], 2017) [23]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] have focused on the way in which certain procedures could increase the implementation of SPP [19]. Other studies (see e.g., [PERSON] et al., 2019) focus on identifying possible strategies for including social aspects in public procurement [24], or the collaboration between the contracting authority and supplier (see e.g., [PERSON] and [PERSON], 2016) [25]. However, most previous studies have worked with different operationalizations or conceptualizations of SPP, making it impossible to provide an overview of how much SPP, including its subcategories, is implemented and what patterns appear therein [8]. The use of the MEAT criteria as one of the award criteria and its effects has been the subject of several studies. [PERSON] [26] has investigated the effect of the MEAT criteria on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in public procurement. The study used procurement data from Sweden and found no significant effect on SME participation in procurement calls for tenders as a result of using MEAT in firm evaluations. [PERSON] and [PERSON] used the text mining technique to analyze more than 140,000 Belgian public procurement notices and found that the use of MEAT criteria by contractingauthorities was no prerequisite for SPP [8]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [27] argue that price-quality scoring is inappropriate, because it is non-transparent and open to strategic manipulations as a result of depending on irrelevant alternatives. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [28] used regression analysis to examine procurement award notices in Slovakia and found that using the lowest price leads to higher savings rather than using the MEAT criteria. [PERSON] et al. [29] point out that contracting authorities typically avoid preferring green criteria over conventional criteria. Green criteria are used rather than qualifiers or are directly incorporated into conventional criteria. According to [PERSON], [PERSON], and [PERSON] [30], the reasons for the rare use of environmental considerations in public procurement can be found in the lack of appropriate regulations at the national and international level or in the insufficient training of procurement staff. The issue of SPP, or rather its individual aspects, has been a widely discussed topic in response to climate change or social inequality. This deserves more attention in terms of the public finances which public authorities spend in the public procurement process. Therefore, investigating the use of the MEAT criteria within aspects of SPP and their impact on the public procurement process is a major focus of this paper.