Procurement by private and public sector institutions is a major force in the economy. In BC, local governments and school districts alone spend more than $6.7 billion annually on procurement. How – and where – procurement dollars are spent can have important economic, employment, social, and environmental impacts.
This report uses the example of office supplies to investigate whether there is a difference in economic impact from buying local and if so, to what degree. This is the first study to examine the economic impacts of institutional procurement in a Canadian context.