Sandra Hamilton, PhD researcher at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research
*This article first appeared on the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research’s (@MIOIR) blog, and has been cross-posted here with permission.
In 2021, amidst a global pandemic, a post-Brexit, globally ambitious United Kingdom assumes the G7 Presidency. Hosting this year’s G7 summit presents the UK with the opportunity to unite the world’s most advanced economies around a more inclusive and sustainable #BuildBackBetter agenda. The Group of Seven consists of the USA, under newly elected President Biden; three EU member states – Germany, France, and Italy; the UK, Canada, and Japan. Operating as a newly independent trading nation, the UK has now secured trade agreements covering all but one, the USA, of the G7 countries, which combined make up a third of an increasingly inequitable global economy.
Economics has become uncoupled from society (Chataway et al., 2014), with increased productivity no longer equating to social progress (Alvaredo et al., 2018; Bivens, 2014; Saez and Zucman, 2016). Under pressure to shape an economy that works in service to society, G7 countries have a global responsibility to unite and design public policies that will proactively influence and shape the directionality of future economic growth (Mazzucato, 2018). In their role as regulators, G7 governments collectively influence the baseline standards for global trade. While regulation typically seeks to mitigate race-to-the-bottom market activity, public procurement offers an underutilised, potentially powerful, policy mechanism to stimulate and reward the most responsible, rise-to-the-top market actors.
“As large institutional customers, G7 countries must now become exemplary role models in the advancement of strategic Sustainable Public Procurement (SDG12.7)”
As large institutional customers, G7 countries must now become exemplary role models in the advancement of strategic Sustainable Public Procurement (SDG12.7). On January 1st, 2021, the UK became the first nation in the world to mandate that taxpayer-funded contracts must be fully leveraged to maximise social value. The UK’s policy progression from the voluntary guidelines in the 2013 Social Value Act, to the mandatory inclusion of social and environmental criteria in public procurement contracts (UK GOV, 2020) emulates the best practice leadership established at the sub-national level by Wales, Scotland and across the Greater Manchester Region.
In the pursuit of #SDG 12.7 Sustainable Public Procurement, the gap between the G7 leaders and laggards is growing. In Canada, the integration of sustainability criteria in public procurement has been described as superficial (Da Ponte et al., 2020). Today, a Canadian company bidding on a UK central government contract will, in addition to price and quality, also be evaluated based upon their level of commitment to addressing a societal problem. The fact that Canada has no equivalent policy or legislation requiring companies bidding on taxpayer funded contracts to do the same is a disservice to Canadians and reflects how very different national, and sub-national, approaches to public procurement can be; despite operating under the same trade agreement.
Webinar Global Policy Innovation: To #BuildBackBetter, public procurement is increasingly being transformed into a social policy mechanism. Some G7 countries have significantly strengthened policy and enacted legislation to stimulate more transparent, socially responsible supply chains in taxpayer-funded contracts. On February 10th, 2021, in this webinar hosted by the Centre for Sustainable Health Systems at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation, in partnership with the Centre for Global Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Manchester, MIOIR PhD candidate Sandra G. Hamilton will discuss global trends and the level of policy ambition across G7 countries to advance SDG 12.7 – UN Sustainable Development Goal, Sustainable Public Procurement.
Date: Wednesday, February 10th, 2021
Time: 12pm EST, 5pm GMT
Topic: Building Back Better: Sustainable Health Systems after COVID-19
Register HERE
Bibliography
Alvaredo, F., Chancel, L., Piketty, T., Saez, E., Zucman, G., 2018. The Elephant Curve of Global Inequality and Growth. AEA Papers and Proceedings 108, 103–108. https://doi.org/10.1257/pandp.20181073
Bivens, J., 2014. Raising America’s pay. Why It’s Our Central Economic Policy Challenge. Economic Policy Institute. URL https://www.epi.org/publication/raising-americas-pay/ (accessed 1.12.21).
Chataway, J., Hanlin, R., Kaplinsky, R., 2014. Inclusive innovation: an architecture for policy development. Innovation and Development 4, 33–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/2157930X.2013.876800
Da Ponte, M., Foley, M., Cho, C.H., 2020. Assessing the Degree of Sustainability Integration in Canadian Public Sector Procurement. Sustainability 12, 5550. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12145550
Mazzucato, M., 2018. The Value of Everything. Making and Taking in The Global Economy. Penguin, Random House, UK.
Saez, E., Zucman, G., 2016. Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data *. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 131, 519–578. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjw004
UK GOV, 2020. Procurement Policy Note 06/20 – taking account of social value in the award of central government contracts [WWW Document]. GOV.UK. URL https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/procurement-policy-note-0620-taking-account-of-social-value-in-the-award-of-central-government-contracts (accessed 10.13.20).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sandra G. Hamilton is a UK/Canadian PhD researcher at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (@MIOIR). Her research investigates public sector innovation and the role of public procurement in shaping more responsible business conduct and sustainable markets. Sandra is Canada’s first Social MBA, designer of Canada’s first municipal Social Procurement Frameworks and, as a recognised industry expert, in 2017, she was invited to present her work on ‘The Importance of People, in a People, Planet, Profit approach to Sustainability” at the WTO Symposium on Sustainable Government Procurement in Geneva.
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