COMPRAS E CONTRATAÇÕES PÚBLICAS SUSTENTÁVEIS: um levantamento nas instituições federais de ensino superior da região Centro-Oeste, sob a ótica da equipe de compras

Abstract

Sustainable public purchasing and contracting are important tools for a sustainable development and yet, few are the studies on this issue from Higher Education Federal Institutions - HEFI, especially on the Center-West region. Thus, this work aims to contribute to the characterization process of implementation of the sustainability criteria on public purchasing and contracting in higher education federal institutions in the Center-West region, in view of the existing concerns and obstacles. This study chooses as main objective to analyze the strategies adopted by these HEFI in the implementation of sustainable procedure for public purchasing and contracting. For this, a survey was made through the descriptive-quantitative method, through the use of a questionnaire which was forwarded to the directors of Purchasing Departments in Higher Education Federal Institutions in the Center-West region. The data was analyzed and steered by groups performing this investigation. In this study, we seek to deepen the main bibliographic references: purchasing, strategies, sustainability, public bidding, bringing with it, the main results of the research show that the analyzed HEFI still lack a well-defined strategy for the implementation of criteria for sustainability on public purchasing and contracting, although most of the purchasing sectors in the studied HEFI take part on the planning and forecasting of the institution’s strategies which should be aligned to their own strategies. It can also be noticed that most of the purchasing sectors in the analyzed HEFI contribute somehow to the specifications of purchase orders and that most of the analyzed HEFI do not apply any methodology to the implementation of criteria for sustainability on public purchasing and contracting, only inserting the criteria requested by law and regulation. However six HEFI already claim to be adopting criteria for sustainability, and we noticed the application of the three dimensions of sustainability – environmental, social and economic – in the purchasing and contracting carried out by the HEFI in the Center-West region. Therefore, the results show the management in higher education institutions, the public servants and the manufacturers of sustainable goods, are relevant actors towards a successful implementation of the sustainability criteria in the bidding procedure even if these actors do not exercise their potential for change there is a tendency for sustainable criteria are increasingly included in tender proceedings.