Around 30 % of today's anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions originate from the food sector. Food production is the lead cause of deforestation, biodiversity loss, depletion of fish stocks, and scarcity of fresh water. The planetary resources rapidly decrease with a continually growing population demanding resourceintense food, such as dairy and animal protein. The global production of calories satisfies human needs, but while some suffer from hunger, even more, suffer from overweight or obesity.

For a food system to be sustainable, it must not negatively impact the three pillars of sustainability, i.e., economic, environmental, and social. One of the main challenges for the food system is to reduce the environmental impact to operate and stay within the planetary boundaries.

Three million public meals are served daily in Sweden. Public procurement has been recognized as a powerful tool with potential to promote quality and educate change. Previous research has shown that implementing sustainability criteria in the procurement document leads to an increase in certified products in procurements. The National Agency for Public Procurement (NAPP) in Sweden provides a library with sustainability criteria on different levels and for almost all commonly bought products. Active work with sustainability and applying sustainability criteria in procurement can contribute to pupils education health and a further sustainable food system.

In this thesis, I frame sustainable procurement through a systematic review of academic literature and interviews with Swedish practitioners who buy or sell food products through public procurements. Furthermore, I elaborate on the Swedish actors' experienced ability to influence the procurements, the use of sustainability criteria, and barriers and opportunities toward a further sustainable food system using public procurement. The goal is to examine possible ways toward a more sustainable food system through public procurement.

The results show that both the reviewed literature and the Swedish actors have a comprehensive take on sustainability and work with all three dimensions. Above all, the favoured sustainability aspects are predominantly procuring organically labelled and locally sourced foods. Working with food waste is recognised as important, but few initiatives are taken within the procurement process to reduce food waste. Despite a large amount of academic literature on efficiently reducing environmental impacts from the food system (mainly by dietary changes and waste reduction). The results show little interest among actors in promoting these specific public sector actions. The Swedish actors are overall satisfied with the services and the criteria library provided by the NAPP. A majority of the respondents contributed to writing and reviewing the criteria, adding to the criteria’s acceptance and usage within the sector.

There are several initiatives already taken by policymakers, procuring authorities, and not the least, the market to improve sustainability in the food system. iv Stockholm, Sverige 2023 Nevertheless, actions must be taken at multiple levels simultaneously to address the scale of our sustainability challenges. This thesis contributes knowledge that can guide future research toward sustainable food systems, bridge the stakeholder’s priorities with research where they differ today, and fully use the potential in public procurements.

Cirka 30 % av de antropogena växthusgaserna härstammar från livsmedelssektorn. Produktion av livsmedel är den ledande orsaken till avskogning, förlorad biodiversitet, utfiskning och brist på färskvatten. Planetens resurser minskar i snabb takt med den ständigt växande populationen som kräver en resursintensiv kost så som mejeriprodukter och kött. Även om den globala produktionen av kalorier tillfredsställer befolkningen lider många människor av hungersnöd och ännu fler till antalet är överviktiga.

För att ett livsmedelsystem skall kunna räknas som hållbart får det inte ha en negativ effekt på någon av de tre dimensionerna av hållbarhet. Om vi skall hålla oss inom de planetära gränserna är det nödvändigt att minska miljöpåverkan från livsmedelsystemet avsevärt.

Det serveras dagligen tre miljoner måltider i offentlig sektor i Sverige. Offentlig upphandling har blivit uppmärksammat som ett kraftfullt verktyg med potential att bidra till ökad kvalitet och lärande om hållbarhet. Tidigare forskning har visat att användande av hållbarhetskriterier i upphandlingsdokumentet leder till mer hållbara upphandlingar. Upphandlingsmyndigheten i Sverige tillhandahåller ett kriteriebibliotek, med hållbarhetskriterier som kan ställas på olika nivåer. Det finns kriterier för de flesta vanligt köpta produkterna.

Genom en systematisk litteraturstudie av vetenskapliga artiklar och intervjuer med svenska aktörer inom offentlig livsmedeslupphandling, skapar jag i den här avhandlingen en bild av hur aktörer definierar en hållbar livsmedelsupphandling. Jag vill också undersöka hur de svenska aktörerna upplever sin egen förmåga att påverka upphandlingsprocessen, om de avvänder hållbarhetskriterier, samt vilka hinder och vilken potential de identifierar på vägen mot ett hållbart livsmedelssystem. Avhandlingen avser att öka kunskapen om och undersöka olika vägar mot ett mer hållbart livsmedelsystem genom offentlig upphandling.

Resultatet visar att både den studerade vetenskapliga litteraturen och de svenska aktörerna har en omfattande ansatts till och syn på hållbarhet och att det sker ett aktivt arbete inom alla hållbarhetsdimensionerna. Främst av allt är det ekologiskt märkta produkter och en ökad andel lokalproducerade varor som prioriteras i offentlig upphandling. Att arbeta med minskat matsvinn uppmärksammades av flera men det fanns få konkreta exempel på hur det integreras i upphandlingsarbetet. Trots den omfattande vetenskapliga litteraturen kring vilka åtgärder som är mest effektiva för att minska miljöpåverkan från livsmedelsystemet fanns lite intresse bland aktörerna för att tex främja ändrade dieter i offentlig sektor. Generellt var de svenska aktörerna nöjda med Upphandlingsmyndighetens tjänster och kriteriebiblioteket. De flesta hade deltagit i referensgrupper och således granskat eller varit med och skrivit hållbarhetskriterierna. Detta antas bidra till deras acceptans och höga användningsgrad inom livsmedelssektorn.

Det finns redan idag många exempel på initiativ från beslutsfattare, upphandlande enheter och privata aktörer som leder marknaden mot ett mer hållbart vi Stockholm, Sverige 2023 livsmedelssystem. Det är dock avgörande att vidta åtgärder på flera nivåer samtidigt för att adressera omfattningen av de rådande hållbarhetsutmaningarna vi står inför. Den här avhandlingen bidrar med kunskap som kan vägleda framtida forskning och möjligen överbygga de skillnader som syns i prioriteringar, för att fullt ut utnyttja potentialen i hållbar offentlig upphandling.

Public procurement has been recognized as a tool to promote more sustainable production and consumption practices. As such, an increasing body of literature has become available in recent years focusing on the sustainable public procurement of food. This article reviews the literature on the sustainable public procurement of food with the aim to analyze how sustainability is framed. This is done by analyzing what aspects of sustainability are emphasized and what practices are identified as sustainable. A systematic literature review was conducted between the years 2000 and 2020, identifying 103 articles. Results from the literature review indicate that the focus has primarily been on studies to evaluate and explore policy and good practices for procuring sustainable foods. A dominant focus on specific foods types and origins, e.g., those locally sourced and organic foods, is highlighted by a large share of the literature to address all three sustainability pillars. We observed that most articles focus on all three pillars of sustainability (environmental, social, and economic), addressing different aspects and types of foods, although the focus varied depending upon geographic location. Despite many studies identifying opportunities and potential, few articles assess the sustainability or outcomes of procurement processes through quantitative or qualitative methods or how actors in the procurement process can improve procurement toward more sustainable foods. This indicates a need for further case studies and guidelines to measure the development, progress, and performance of public food procurement.

With an expanding population and changing dynamics in global food markets, it is important to find solutions for more resilient food production methods closer to urban environments. Recently, vertical farming systems have emerged as a potential solution for urban farming. However, although there is an increasing body of literature reviewing the potential of urban and vertical farming systems, only a limited number of studies have reviewed the sustainability of these systems. The aim of this article was to understand the environmental impacts of vertical hydroponic farming in urban environments applied to a case study vertical hydroponic farm in Stockholm, Sweden. This was carried out by evaluating environmental performance using a life cycle perspective to assess the environmental impacts and comparing to potential scenarios for improvement options. The results suggest that important aspects for the vertical hydroponic system include the growing medium, pots, electricity demand, the transportation of raw materials and product deliveries. By replacing plastic pots with paper pots, large reductions in GHG emissions, acidification impacts, and abiotic resource depletion are possible. Replacing conventional gardening soil as the growing medium with coir also leads to large environmental impact reductions. However, in order to further reduce the impacts from the system, more resource-efficient steps will be needed to improve impacts from electricity demand, and there is potential to develop more symbiotic exchanges to employ urban wastes and by-products.

Vertical farming has emerged in urban areas as an approach to provide more resilient food production. However, a substantial share of the material requirements come from outside their urban environments. With urban environments producing a large share of residual and waste streams, extensive potential exists to employ these material and energy streams as inputs in urban farming systems to promote more circular economy approaches. The aim of this article is to assess the environmental performance of employing residual material flows for vertical hydroponic farming in urban environments in order to support more circular, resilient, and sustainable urban food supply. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is used to assess replacing conventional growing media and fertilizers with urban residual streams. Paper, compost, and brewers' spent grains were assessed for replacements to conventional gardening soil employed in the studied system. Biogas digestate was also assessed as a replacement for conventional fertilizers used in the recirculating water bath. The results suggest that large environmental performance benefits are illustrated when conventional growing media is replaced. Although not as significant, employing fertilizers from residual urban streams also leads to large potential benefits, suggesting the two residual streams have the potential for more circular hydroponic systems.

This study examines the interpretation and incorporation of sustainability in public foodprocurement by interviewing stakeholders, such as procurement officers, wholesalers, chefs,and food producers. Findings highlight a consensus on the need for sustainability measures,such as purchasing local and organic products, but disagreements on the most influentialactors in the process. The influence of system-level factors, including market dynamics andregulatory frameworks, plays a significant role in implementing sustainable procurement.There is trust in the organic label and locally sourced products, yet actors require furtherpractical examples and hands-on solutions to facilitate their work towards a more sustainablefood system for the future.