Laura Treviño-Lozano is our ESR8 and will write her PhD on “PROTECTING HUMAN RIGHTS AND DIGNITY THROUGH Sustainable Public Procurement”. Laura recently published an article on “ Sustainable Public Procurement and Human Rights: Barriers to Deliver on Socially Sustainable Road Infrastructure Projects in Mexico” in a Special Issue of Sustainability journal co-edited by our lead Researcher Olga Martin-Ortega.

Public procurement involves a process through which the public sector buys goods, services, and works from private suppliers to accomplish its functions, including road infrastructure projects. Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) is acknowledged as a core dimension of sustainable development goal 12 (SDG12) on sustainable consumption by States and production by businesses, and as a State-business nexus within Pilar I of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs).

Sustainability, both within the procurement process and the infrastructure outcome, comprises economic, environmental, and social dimensions, all of which can contribute to delivering on more than 70% of SDGs. Economically, infrastructure has a relevant contribution to GDPs and job creation. Environmentally, it can have big impacts on efficient use of energy and water, recycling materials and waste management, biodiversity preservation and mitigation, and adaptation to climate change effects. Socially, sustainable infrastructure can have a double impact on people. On one hand, by preventing human rights abuses against workers involved in State’s supply chains, impacted communities where projects are physically installed, and against final users or beneficiaries of infrastructure services. On the other, by boosting its positive effects on poverty-related indicators such as decent job creation, adequate standards of living, right to food, health, or education. Clearly, SPP delivering sustainable infrastructure involves broad positive effects and benefits for involved stakeholders, and leveraging power over business suppliers to include social sustainable criteria within the procurement process is in the State’s hands. However, SPP has been little implemented in developing States such as Mexico resulting in unsustainable infrastructure outcomes.

This article collects five key barriers of socially sustainable infrastructure found in the literature. Through qualitative research methods and a business and human rights approach, it further analyses whether these barriers are present in a socially unsustainable road project -Paso Expres- and absent in a sustainable one -Necaxa-. Both case studies representing road infrastructure projects developed by businesses contracted by the State in Mexico. By identifying relevant barriers in the Mexican context, contracting authorities could be able to implement measures to tackle them and deliver on social sustainable infrastructure aligned with both State’s commitments on SDGs and international obligations on human rights.

The full article is now available in open access.