Innovative public procurement (IPP) – Implications and potential for zero-emission neighborhood (ZEN) projects?

Abstract

As a component of the urban fabric system, zero-emission neighborhood (ZEN) projects represent an opportunity to boost the sustainable performance of cities. However, overlooking the potential of different actors or underestimating the complexity of interactions among them may threaten the projects themselves. Public procurement is a powerful tool that potentially enables national and local authorities to achieve sustainable development goals while procuring necessary products and services. This paper aims to understand the potential of innovative public procurement (IPP) to reduce some of the project complexity in ZEN. Besides literature on sustainable neighborhoods (SN), empirical insights are drawn from an ongoing ZEN project to map the primary sources of complexity in such projects. Afterward, the potential for dialogue with suppliers is mainly discussed in light of these sources. Our findings suggest that using IPP may assist in reducing the complexity imposed on ZEN projects.