Social hållbarhet i upphandling: En kvalitativ studie om hur social hållbarhet kan skapas genom de institutionella förändringar som sker vid införandet av den nya lagen om offentlig upphandling

Abstract

Many researchers argue that there is a need for institutional change to reach sustainable development. One example of such a change is the new law of public procurement that will be implemented through Swedish law in January 2017. This study therefore focuses on how institutional change, though public procurement, contributes towards social sustainability. Social sustainability has received critique for being broad and vague as well as often omitting political aspects entailed by the concept. This raises questions about the implementation of the new procurement law and to answer these questions a case study of how the municipality of Växjö works with sustainable procurement has been conducted. By analyzing central documents and interviewing actors involved this study aims to contribute to the ongoing debate about how social sustainability can be created though institutional change. Informed by the theories on institutional change and social sustainability, the study concludes that while the pathway towards social sustainability depend upon institutional change, there are hindrances for example related to the concepts vagueness and the distance between political and organizational work that is important to acknowledge.