Sustainable Procurement

The combined purchasing power of UN organizations holds significant potential to influence the market in favour of sustainable development. Sustainable procurement practices “integrate requirements, specifications and criteria that are compatible and in favour of the protection of the environment, of social progress and in support of economic development, namely by seeking resource efficiency, improving the quality of products and services and ultimately optimizing costs” (United Nations High Level Committee on Management Procurement Network - HLCM PN, 2009).

As part of the ASR, participating UN organizations report annually through a voluntary online survey on the extent to which sustainability considerations have been integrated into their procurement processes. For the 2023 report, 32 organizations provided information on sustainable procurement.

This section includes data from the most recent survey on sustainable procurement. An overview of recent trends can be found in the Report.

In addition to these statistics, UNGM provides a range of other materials and tools related to sustainable procurement in the UN context.

This includes information on the set of indicators developed in 2019 by UN organizations through the United Nations High-Level Committee on Management (HLCM) to improve the tracking, measuring and reporting on sustainable procurement implementation in UN procurement processes.

The Annual Statistical Report on United Nations Procurement is produced by UNOPS on behalf of the United Nations. More information