Summary
An Assessment of Supplier Sustainability, Circular Economy Systems, and Market Readiness in Western Kenya conducted by Help Logistics and Pamela Steel Associates (PSA).
Content
Background
Environmental sustainability is becoming a progressively important priority within humanitarian and development supply chains. Procurement decisions influence greenhouse gas emissions, resource consumption, packaging waste, transportation impacts, and end-of-life disposal practices. As humanitarian organizations seek to reduce their environmental footprint while maintaining operational effectiveness, green procurement has emerged as a key mechanism for integrating environmental considerations into supply chain decision-making (Carter & Rogers, 2008; UNHCR, 2023).
In Kenya, these sustainability pressures overlap with broader challenges, including climate vulnerability, increasing waste generation, infrastructure limitations, and growing donor expectations regarding environmentally responsible operations. While sustainability commitments continue to expand across humanitarian and development organizations, limited evidence exists regarding the readiness of local supplier markets to support large-scale green procurement implementation (UNFPA, CHORD, 2024; Steele et al., 2026b).
To support ongoing efforts to strengthen sustainable procurement practices within humanitarian and development supply chains, the WREC initiated a Green Procurement Market Assessment within Kenya. The assessment was implemented by HELP Logistics in collaboration with Pamela Steele Associates (PSA) and sought to evaluate supplier sustainability maturity, environmental performance, circular economy systems, reporting capacity, and market readiness across procurement categories relevant to humanitarian and development operations in Western Kenya.
Assessment Overview
The assessment adopted a mixed-methods approach combining literature review, supplier interviews, field observations, site visits, document review, and sustainability maturity scoring. Eleven representative organizations were assessed across sectors including healthcare, renewable energy, WASH infrastructure, packaging and manufacturing, waste management, recycling, mobility, and medical supply systems.
Suppliers were evaluated across five dimensions:
• Environmental governance;
• Sustainable products and operations;
• Circular economy and waste management;
• Environmental reporting and data systems; and
• Market readiness and supply chain integration.
The resulting sustainability maturity assessment provides one of the first market-based evaluations of green procurement readiness within the Western Kenya supplier ecosystem.
Key Strategic Finding
The assessment finds that green procurement in Western Kenya is increasingly feasible, not because sustainability systems are already fully mature, but because a growing number of suppliers have begun integrating renewable energy, circular economy practices, resource-efficiency measures, and environmentally preferable products into their operations.
The market should therefore be understood as a sustainability ecosystem in transition rather than a market lacking sustainability capability.
The key constraints to wider adoption are no longer the absence of greener alternatives. Instead, the most significant barriers relate to weak environmental reporting systems, limited sustainability demand outside donor-funded procurement, financing constraints, fragmented sustainability standards, and insufficient procurement incentives.
This finding suggests that future interventions should focus less on awareness creation and more on strengthening procurement systems, supplier development, environmental reporting, and market incentives.
Please find more information and the full text of the report in the pdf to the right of the page.
