Environmental commitment in public spending: a green index for Italian procurement

Green Public Procurement (GPP) has been increasingly promoted as a tool to drive the transition to sustainable economies. Unlike most European countries, minimum environmental criteria are legally binding in Italy. This paper introduces a novel Green Intensity Index to assess the environmental commitment of Italian public administrations through their procurement practices, focusing on the food and catering sector. Using a text-based analysis of calls for tenders issued between 2012 and 2024, the Index captures the frequency and distribution of sector-specific green keywords grounded in the Italian legislation, providing a systematic measure of GPP implementation over time and across Italian regions.