Miljöhänsyn vid offentlig upphandling

Sammanfattning: One of the biggest challenges in the human history is to prevent environmental pollution. Everybody has an indirect or direct influence on the environment through his or her consumption. The stakeholders are not just interested in price and quality, they are also interested in the circumstances of production and how this affects the environment. By taking environmental concern in public procurement it is possible to speed up the environmental adjustment of services and products. Environmental awareness has become more and more self evident in the environmental work. For a purchasing manager it can be difficult to carry out an environmental procurement. The uncertainty of to which extent environmental demands that can be made in the procurement process may lead to decreased environmental demands or in the worst-case scenario will not be made at all. The aim of the master's thesis is to examine how the Swedish municipalities make their environmental demands at the public procurement. We also want to examine if the local authorities inquire that their purchases they make are economical, environmental and socially sustainable. The main questions in this study are; Which kind of information or guidance do a purchaser needs to make environmental demands in a greater extent? Which possibilities and/or obstacles are there with the laws, when it comes to environmental procurement? Which environmental concern is taken in procurement of wood and paper products? A selection of eight municipalities has been done based on differences in geographical location, number of inhabitants (small vs. large) and preconceived, reputational environmental awareness. The reason is to analyze differences and similarities in a comparative case study. Each case study is based on personal interviews and available official material about the municipality public procurement process. The theoretical limits of this thesis lay within the chosen theories that describes and explains the notions of purchasing and public procurement. In the empirical background the thesis has been limited to the structure of municipalities and laws and program of action that controls public procurement. The chapter also contains means to have an environmental procurement at municipalities and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The thesis is focused on paper and wood based products. Especial focus at FSC who "shall promote environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world's forests". The conclusions in our study are that the municipalities are well aware of that they should take environmental concern at their procurement process. They are not allowed to take concern to a specific label because it is discriminating according to The Act on Public Procurement. All the municipalities in our study use the EKU-tool, but some of them use it more frequently. In our study of the eight municipalities, seven of them have a purchasing policy and five of them have an environmental policy. We consider that municipalities at least should have a purchasing policy and that it is an advantage to have an environmental policy, either as a part of their purchasing policy or as a document of its own. Concerning procurement of wood and paper based products no special tools are used. The municipalities use the same policies and tools as used for other products. All the municipalities in the study are acquainted with FSC, but the knowledge of the meaning of the label varies. Only one of the municipalities declared that they use the criteria behind FSC frequently. We recommend that FSC should market themselves within the public sector.