Competitive dialogue procedure for sustainable public procurement

•The paper illustrates the competitive dialogue procedure.•The paper uses the practical case of an infrastructure project in Sweden.•Competitive dialogue procedure can enable sustainable public procurement.•Contracting authorities should pay attention to sustainable public procurement.•Sustainable public procurement-considerations must be discussed with contractors.

The construction sector has adopted green public procurement to improve its environmental performance. Green public procurement is a process whereby contracting authorities aim to procure services and products that meet environmental requirements. In recent years, green public procurement has extended to sustainable public procurement, which involves the incorporation of both environmental and social considerations in the procurement of goods and services. Previous studies have suggested the relevance of contractor engagement strategies and the need for appropriate models to promote dialogue in sustainable public procurement. This paper illustrates one such model called the competitive dialogue procedure. This newly introduced procurement procedure allows the contracting authority to hold discussions with shortlisted contractors regarding the authority's requirements. The paper uses the practical case of the Kvarnholmen link project in Sweden. The Kvarnholmen link is an infrastructure project that includes the construction of a bridge, tunnel, underpass and pedestrian and bike path. Action research was conducted to examine the competitive dialogue procedure. This paper has strengthened the conceptualisation that the procedure can facilitate sustainable public procurement with the aid of its key elements, such as provisionally preferred solution and dialogue sessions. In addition, the paper analyses the consequences of the weight used for environmental considerations in the bid evaluation process. This paper recommends that contracting authorities implementing competitive dialogue procedure must use provisionally preferred solution to identify sustainable public procurement preferences. Dialogue sessions with contractors should involve discussions regarding sustainable public procurement to ensure consistency between the weight for environmental considerations and respective preferences.