Green supply management in the healthcare public sector: Stakes, practices, and perspectives

Academic research has focused on the sustainability concern by studying the different dimensions – economic, social, and environmental – for over two decades now but the question of sustainable supply management is quite a recent topic. The purpose of our paper is to explore issues and implementation of sustainable orientation on the procurement processes within French public hospitals. The aim is to understand the constraints of sustainable development according to public regulation and their integration into current buying practices. Data were collected from 15 French hospitals where semi-structured interviews were conducted with procurement administrators. Our findings show that different guidelines can be suggested in order to integrate the environmental and economic dimensions, for example through reviewing suppliers’ selection and interaction. Building on these results, managerial implications, limits and research perspectives are suggested.