## 5 Problematizations of Unsustainable Public Procurement
### Unsustainability as Unjust Politics  
As illustrated in the previous passage, most policies for sustainable public procurement reflected the overarching problematization that unsustainability is the result of technical design flaws--a problematization that mirrors 'weak' sustainability and sustainable development, particularly the production perspective, which included approaches such as ecological modernization and free market environmentalism. These policies were primarily centered on the production side and, accordingly, on fostering sustainable innovations. A few of the policy recommendations for sustainable public procurement did, however, break with this technocratic and market-oriented problem representation. They represented the 'problem' as unjust politics, which could create an opening for ideas that reflect'strong' versions of sustainability and sustainable development. This problem representation was, for example, produced through prescriptions centered on ways of engaging the wider community in procurement processes, including the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people. Specifically, the recommendation to use pilot projects to promote the trust and willingness of communities to engage in public procurement processes that focus on nature-based solutions was a case in point:  
Many urban communities suffer from lack of trust in public authorities' commitment to deliver infrastructure improvement projects, leading to consultation fatigue and a lack of engagement. In order to gain trust and increase the community's willingness to engage in NBS project, it can be valuable to focus on delivering quick wins that demonstrate the city's commitment to act. Procuring pilot projects can be a good tool to liaise with the community and show that their feedback is valued and acted upon before moving on to large scale co-designed processes. [82] (p. 44)  
This focus on community engagement reflected the emphasis of the environmental justice literature to facilitate public participation in policy processes that included the concerns and perspectives of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable populations. That is, unsustainable public procurement becomes a matter of inadequate political participation. As such, this passage formed part of the broader problematization that represented unsustainability as a result of unjust politics. As in the literature stressing the importance of procedural justice [84; 85; 86], a central assumption of this problem representation was that the notion of sustainability and the public policy processes centered on promoting sustainability are inherently political and always based on specific values and ideologies. Hence, they should be approached as such and not merely as technical issues. Another example that mirrored the assumption that sustainable public procurement should be approached as a political issue that requires value-informed decisions was a strategic objective in one of the studied documents. That is, the objective of \"... creating a fairer, more active and happier place, with a focus on supporting the most disadvantaged and vulnerable\" [82] (p. 30). This objective implied that sustainability-oriented procurements, to a significant extent, entail value-oriented decisions that relate to political issues such as 'fairness'. It, thus, opens up to arguments for a value-oriented, political framing of sustainability, in line with the literature on environmental justice and political ecology [86; 87]. Finally, there were a few recommendations that represented the problem of unsustainability as a result of overconsumption. This problem representation was made in passages that stressed the importance of assessing and reflecting on what the actual needs are, before a procurement process is initiated [75] (p. 5) [83] (p. 29). A crucial step before starting the procurement process is to assess your actual needs in light of the potential environmental impact of the contract. Proper consultation with internal or end users may reveal that lower volumes... can readily be applied.