Sustainable procurement practices in the real estate industry in Ghana

The exhaustible nature of natural resources has called for a global strive to develop sustainably. The 1992 Rio Summit, Kyoto Protocol and Agenda 21 are some global efforts put in place to develop sustainably. Amidst these efforts, sustainable procurement is very essential. Sustainable procurement is the process whereby organizations meet their needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that achieves value for money on a whole life basis in terms of generating benefits not only for the organization, but also for the society and the economy, whilst minimizing damage to the environment. Sustainable procurement has greatly contributed to the achievement of sustainable development goals by encouraging more sustainable purchasing and production. Ghana together with other 192 countries embraced this practice which came into practice in January 2016. The adoption of this practice aims at achieving economic growth, social inclusion and also clean and sustainable environment. Real estate players in Ghana have a great role to play in helping Ghana achieve Sustainable Development through sustainable procurement. Regardless of the increasing interest in sustainable procurement, evidence of the organizational performance in implementing sustainable procurement practices is not encouraging. A clear understanding of how sustainability concept can be related to the procurement process is absent especially when it comes to developing countries. Ghana’s procurement Act, Public Procurement Act 663 (2003) as it stands now has no specific outlined measures to ensure sustainability in procurement of goods, works and services hence the elements of sustainable procurement are not factored in most procurement activities. Business firms in the country remain ignorant of the best sustainable procurement practices since literature on this study is limited. The case is intensified by the recent increase in the activities of real estate developers within the country due to population increase and demand for housing. Though sustainable procurement potential and risk for the industry is III high, there are “considerable differences from country to country”. Yet, sustainable procurement practices in the real estate sector have not been critically examined. This study therefore explores sustainable procurement practices in Ghana’s Real Estate industry. This dissertation made use of research findings and data collected from respondents. Structured questionnaires were circulated targeting the procurement department in the various real estate firms registered by GREDA in Ghana. Qualitative data was also sorted by means of an interview conducted at the various institutions who play vital roles when it comes to procurement and real estate in Ghana, and was analyzed using the thematic analysis approach. The Likert scale was used for most of the questions in the questionnaire. The scale measures respondent attitude towards sustainable procurement practices in the real estate industry. A link was generated for the questionnaire using the Survey Monkey form application, where the link was sent to 154 companies of which 126 were received and analyzed. It was realized from the study that; majority of the respondents do not prioritize sustainability issues when it comes to procurement. They are only interested in getting value for the money spent in procurement. Moreover, no effective monitoring and evaluation on procurement activities were done. For sustainable procurement activities to be done in the various firms in Ghana, the Procurement Act should be amended to favor not only the public sector but also the private sector in the country in other to achieve effective monitoring and evaluation of procurement activities of firms, both in the public and private sectors in Ghana. Through the amendment of the Procurement Act, new procurement policies and procedures will be generated, which will go a long way to help attain Sustainable Development in the country.

Source: KNUST