# Analysis of Green Public Procurement of Works by Spanish Public Universities
## 2 Background and Previous Findings  
The current EU regulatory framework is Directive 2014/24/EU [26] on public procurement (repealing Directive 2004/18/EC) [27]. Both standards deal with environmental characteristics such as tendering criteria. In Spain, Directive 2004/18/EC was transposed into Act 30/2007 [28] (which evolved to become a refunded text in Royal Decree 3/2011 [29]), and Directive 2014/24/EU was transposed to Act 9/2017 [30], which went into effect in March 2018. Accordingly, relevant environmental criteria must contemplate contract requirements from an environmentally friendly point of view, such as the reduction of emissions or noise, reduced consumption of resources, etc. These criteria, as far as possible, should be measurable and not assessed by value judgments [8]. Many advances have been carried out on GPP in the last decade, and it has become one of the primary pillars in the environmental and procurement policies of the European Union [31; 32; 33] and around the world (USA [34], China [35], Hong Kong [36]), and including developing countries (for example, Malaysia [37], Vietnam [38]). In the European Union, [PERSON] et al. [39] identified in 2006 two groups regarding the use of GPP among the members of the European Union: The 'Green 7' (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, United Kingdom, Holland, and Sweden); and the 'Other 18'. In this research, the authors carried out an analysis from two approaches. Firstly, 865 responses from 8787 questionnaires were analyseanalysed; and secondly, 1000 tender documents in EU countries were processed. The results show approximately 67% of the respondents reported the use of environmental criteria in procurement, while only 36% of the tender documents reveal some environmental criteria. This finding, in which public authority staff exaggerate the implementation of GPP, was in concordance with other authors [24; 25; 40]. [PERSON] et al. [41] studied a sample of calls for tenders from Denmark, Finland, and Sweden between the years 2003 and 2005 and classified the products according to the importance of the environmental aspects included in the public procurement process--high, medium and low. They also identified a 'well-defined environmental criteria' as one for which the purchasing authority has given the information on how a criterion must be fulfilled and verified. In Sweden, [PERSON] and [PERSON] studied green procurement in 2004 with a sample of 558 public authorities. The results show that 15% of the 400 respondents stated that they always use environmental requirement, 46% usually do, 27% sometimes do, and 10% seldom or never [31]. The authors also identified several limitations on the impact on the implementation of GPP: Lack of administrative resources (including environmental know-how); high cost of green products within lean budgets; and the possible claims by unsuccessful bidders regarding the vagueness of environmental criteria. [PERSON] et al. [42] examined the use of GPP in Finland, Sweden, and Demark through tender calls in 2005. They found almost one-third of the tender calls contained environmental criteria, including environmental policy and environmental management systems requiring the fulfilment of eco-label criteria (chemical content, recycling, or reuse systems), packaging material, and noise. They also found that the weight of the environmental criteria was between 5-20% of the award criteria with an average weight for green criteria of 3.3%. In 2007, [PERSON] et al. [43] studied the green procurement practices at a local and regional level in Norway using two questionnaires, one addressed to personnel of municipalities and counties, and another addressed to personnel of suppliers of Norwegian public authorities (many of them were members of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprises). Results showed that GPP is significantly more established in large municipalities than in small ones because large municipalities have more resources for establishing a purchasing department which can generate knowledge and develop purchasing strategies.