Determinants of Sustainable Procurement Practices at the Water Sector Institutions in Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract

For quite a number of years, a challenge on procurement practice has been widely and extensively experienced, more especially where companies do not take into consideration the effect of procurement on the environment. It is for this reason that modern procurement seeks to address and mitigate these challenges by setting up policies based on observations from practice of the same such that by way of adherence to these internationally recognized standards procurement practices, long term adverse effects of the environment are reduced. This research therefore  sought to explore the determinants of sustainable procurement practices, to identify the impacts that sustainable procurement practices have in public water institutions, to establish  the  different  sustainable  procurement  practices  used  by  the  public organizations, and to  establish  out  the  challenges  of  adopting  sustainable  procurement  practices  by public organizations in Kenya. The study revealed that the push to comply to new regulations, client expectations, reduction in cost of production to produce more affordable goods and services as well as reduction of costs  of  operation  were  the  major  determinants  for  sustainable  procurement  practices. The  study therefore recommends  that  the government  needs to enact environmental legislations and policies that promote sustainable procurement  and  those  that  already  have  such  policies  need  to  be  reviewed  and  revised  to integrate sustainable procurement issues and other sustainability issues.

Keywords – Determinants; Sustainable; Procurement; Practices