ISO 20400 guidance standard for sustainable procurement: a search for challenges and recommended strategies for successful implementation

Abstract

Introduction: Organizations and academicians increasingly study issues of sustainability and sustainable procurement(SP) is one important issue, as it aims to contribute positively in matters of economic, social, and environmental impacts, relating to goods and services along the supply chains.  ISO 20400 guidance standard is, therefore, created to provide direction for the integration of issues on sustainability and the procurement process, strategy, and policy of an organization, outlining the procedure for adopting socially responsible behavior in the procurement process as a pursuit of sustainable development objectives. The article may help to introduce and enlighten those who are looking to implement sustainable procurement into their organizations.  Method: The article is framed mostly through content analysis of literature review available online on the internet, obtained by typing keywords as ‘sustainable procurement’ and ‘ISO 20400 standard’ in the search engine such as Google scholar. Objectives: 1) Definitions of sustainable procurement; 2) Development and implementation of ISO 20400 standard sustainable procurement; and 3) Challenges and recommendations of the guidance standard to an organization’s procurement process for bringing sustainability.  Conclusion: This article concluded that an organization needs to take into account of available challenges for implementing the procurement process sustainably socially and environmentally. In spite of having many challenges in its implementations, most organizations who have implemented sustainable procurement strategies in the review, firmly believe that the benefits are much more than the challenges.