The Strategic Use of Standards to Foster Sustainability in Public Procurement in the Construction Sector in Romania

Public procurement offers an important potential to drive sustainable development and innovation through the strategic use of standards, accounting for 14% of purchasing power in the EU and more than 19% in Romania. However, despite existing policy and legal framework both at European and national level, the strategic use of standards in public procurement remains challenging, due mostly to lack of know-how, inadequate expertise, and a pervasive bias, linking efficiency to lowest price. This article presents an applied research analysis of public tenders in the Romanian construction sector from 2020 to 2024, using random samples of approximately 200 awarded contracts annually to study the occurrence of standard references and their relevance for sustainability. Findings account for a positive trend in referencing standards and a slight increase in the use of environmental or social criteria, where in 2020 less than half of the value invested by public authorities in construction works was awarded through tenders based on the of standards. While in 2024, the total value of contracts awarded through tenders referencing standards represented more than 75% of the total contracted value. Still, the overall approach to using standards strategically to foster sustainability and innovation remains fragmented, reactive, and unsystematic, with high unpredictable variations between the urban and rural environment or between various regions. This research argues for the need to invest higher efforts in devising more focused public procurement strategies, where standards can play a major role in driving behavioural changes in the private sector, and for targeted upskilling of relevant public servants and enhanced communication of both relevant standards and the strategic use thereof.