The role of environmental requirements in Swedish public procurement of bus transports

Abstract

The transport sector needs to become sustainable and public transport has an important role to play. Green public procurement has proven to have great potential to influence the transition to a sustainable public transport sector. Sweden is a good example of a country that uses public procurement in the public transport sector to a large extent and has at the same time come far in the transition to renewable fuel. The aim of this study is to examine what role public transport authorities (PTAs) can have in supporting more environmentally sustainable public transport through public procurement. This was done by a content analysis regarding the expressions of environmental requirements historically, over a ten-year period, in tender documents in Sweden, followed by a workshop where the implications of the findings and future tender processes were discussed with relevant actors. The results showed that all the environmental requirements have become stricter during the studied period, but indicate a tendency for higher use of environmental requirements in tendering of larger areas as well as in tendering of public transport within cities. Specifically, for requirements for fuel, the same tenders also use specific requirements to a higher extent. However, the subsequent workshop discussions indicated that the use of specific requirements is one reason for disagreement among involved actors. Overall, this study of the Swedish public transport case showed that PTAs have a large potential to support more environmentally sustainable solutions using environmental requirements in public procurement.

Decision-making and decision support connected to biogas use in Sweden

“…Regarding what piece of the puzzle biogas is most suitable for, both my findings and previous findings (Aldenius et al 2021;Ammenberg et al 2018) point towards alternatives other than biogas that might work better for transports in central areas. Electric and fuel cell vehicles, which do not have an internal combustion engine, can have less local air pollution and are less noisy.…”

“…Different methods have been developed to support decision-making, such as different tools made sustainability assessments (Ness et al 2007). However, in a workshop connected to research on public procurement of bus transports in Sweden (Aldenius, Tsaxiri, and Lidestam 2021), it was brought up that there is a need for a broader and longer-term systemic perspective on sustainable bus transport. In another study, several actors that in different ways are connected to biogas in Sweden expressed a need to increase the level of knowledge of biogas systems to get an improved understanding among decision-makers in order to be able to make better comparisons with other alternatives (Ammenberg et al 2018).…”

“…There is also an inherent wickedness in decisions connected to sustainability since, for example, it is difficult to formulate exactly what the problems are, and there can be many solutions but none that are completely without problems (Norton 2005). In previous research, decision-makers connected to biogas have expressed a need for increased knowledge (Ammenberg et al 2018) and a broader systemic perspective on sustainable transport (Aldenius et al 2021). There is also a general need for improved knowledge and supportive methods connected to sustainability assessments in connection with public procurement processes (Cheng et al 2018;Lindfors andAmmenberg 2020), andOsorio-Tejada et al (2017) highlighted the need for assessments for buying freight transport that include a broader sustainability perspective as well as other relevant issues like legislation and availability.…”

“…Those aspects are not only important for public organizations and how the cities are built but also for private companies that want to move goods during the night. According to Aldenius et al (2021), it is also considered more important to work with air pollution and noise in cities, and so far, all procurements of electric buses have been for urban traffic. Biomethane might instead be better suited for surrounding areas or more heavy-duty vehicles, such as longdistance buses, working machines and heavy trucks (Ammenberg et al 2018).…”

“…Biomethane might instead be better suited for surrounding areas or more heavy-duty vehicles, such as longdistance buses, working machines and heavy trucks (Ammenberg et al 2018). Regarding buses, Aldenius et al (2021) agreed that biomethane has a wider range of uses and works for all kinds of bus traffic.…”