Sustainable Public Procurement Preparedness Assessment in Vietnam

This report assesses the preparedness of Vietnam to implement Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP), with a specific focus on the timber industry. It identifies a supportive political and legal environment, including the planned Law on Green Procurement for 2015, but notes significant hurdles such as a lack of specific implementation guidelines, limited human resource capacity, and higher initial costs for sustainable goods. The report recommends using the timber industry as an entry point for SPP due to its high political profile and the existing capacity of export-oriented enterprises to provide certified products.

• The Vietnamese government has integrated sustainable development into its high-level political agenda, specifically through the "Sustainable Economic and Social Development Strategy for 2001–2010" outlined in the April 2001 Report of the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
• Vietnam is planning to introduce a Law on Green Procurement in 2015, which is expected to be followed by an instructive decree in 2017.
• A significant legal hurdle for SPP is the lack of connection between different laws; specifically, there is no regulation requiring that environmental protection measures from an approved Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) be included in the procurement process.
• Market readiness for green products is low, with only approximately 200 companies officially registered for cleaner production certificates out of roughly 400,000 companies in Vietnam.
• The timber industry is identified as an ideal entry point for SPP because it is a high political priority, has simple technical specifications, and contains export-oriented enterprises already capable of providing certified products.
• Vietnam's wood processing sector shows some readiness for SPP, with 169 enterprises holding Chain of Custody (CoC) certificates at the end of 2008, the third highest number in Asia.
• Implementing SPP faces financial hurdles because environmentally friendly products are more expensive than regular products, which would increase the burden on the state budget given the recent deficit.
• There is a critical shortage of trained personnel to develop and supervise SPP processes, and there is a need to expand the job descriptions of procurers to include these responsibilities.
• The report suggests a pilot project for SPP involving the procurement of chain of command certified timber furniture for schools, potentially implemented at the provincial level.
• International donors use various approaches to SPP in Vietnam, ranging from integrating SPP into funded projects (e.g., the Trust Fund for Forests) to imposing green procurement as a non-negotiable condition of loans, as seen with the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.

APA

Ty, H. X., Anh, D. H., & Perera, O. (2011). Sustainable Public Procurement Preparedness Assessment in Vietnam. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/spp_vietnam.pdf

Chicago

Ty, Hoang Xuan, Do Hong Anh, and Oshani Perera. Sustainable Public Procurement Preparedness Assessment in Vietnam. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2011. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/spp_vietnam.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Ty |first1=Hoang Xuan |last2=Anh |first2=Do Hong |last3=Perera |first3=Oshani |title=Sustainable Public Procurement Preparedness Assessment in Vietnam |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=2011 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/spp_vietnam.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{ty2011sustainable, author = {Ty, Hoang Xuan and Anh, Do Hong and Perera, Oshani}, title = {{Sustainable Public Procurement Preparedness Assessment in Vietnam}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2011}, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/spp_vietnam.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }