Sustainability firmly anchored, dialog stagnates
The reform of public procurement law is visibly changing the DNA of public procurement. The summer 2025 edition of the Procurement Monitor shows that sustainability is now the driving force behind this cultural change. While dialog procedures and variants are losing importance.
In 2025, the proportion of sustainability criteria in public procurement rose to 47.6%. An increase of 136 percent compared to the previous year. This means that the focus is clearly shifting away from purely price-oriented evaluations towards qualitative, life cycle-related approaches.
At the same time, other qualitative criteria stagnated at 53.1 percent. The proportion of dialog procedures (1.1%) and approved variants (12.2%) has almost halved compared to 2024. This development points to a trend towards simplification in the process, but also to growing uncertainty among many procurement bodies when dealing with open, creative formats.
New perspective on cultural change
For the first time, the report sheds light on the “drivers of cultural change”. The new evaluation measures which indicators have increased the most since the revision of procurement law at federal and cantonal level, weighted according to model quality and number of observations. A focus on reliable data should show where sustainable change is actually measurable.
The federal government and Basel-Stadt are leading the way
The federal government is proving to be particularly dynamic. At the end of the second quarter of 2025, it achieved 46 model quality points, with top scores for quality, sustainability and service plausibility. The Confederation is followed by Basel-Stadt (34 points), which has made above-average progress despite implementing the reform later. The increase in variants contrary to the national downward trend is remarkable.
Fewer indicators, more focus
The current report has also been methodologically streamlined. Instead of ten, it now comprises seven indicators. Innovation and price reliability are no longer included due to a lack of reliable data, and project and ideas competitions are assessed together. The focus is therefore clearly on those factors that actually support cultural change. Sustainability, quality and transparency.
Trend towards consolidation instead of opening up
The latest results point to a phase of consolidation. Sustainability has become established, but the dialogic aspect of the new procurement law is only being used hesitantly. While individual regional authorities such as Basel-Stadt are experimenting in a targeted manner, a reversion to traditional patterns is evident at national level.
This means that the sector is at a point where the reform is now being implemented in depth. A genuine change in culture will only fully unfold when dialog, diversity of variants and qualitative evaluation are understood as integral components of strategic procurement.