Unmasking green procurement: What drives adoption in developing-country construction?

Green procurement (GP) is increasingly recognized as a strategic mechanism for embedding sustainability within the construction industry (CI), yet its adoption in developing economies remains inconsistent and uneven. This study investigates the key drivers shaping GP adoption in Malaysia’s CI and uncovers the underlying factors that explain variations in stakeholder behaviour. Drawing on Institutional Theory (IT) and the Resource-Based View (RBV), twenty-one GP drivers were identified through a comprehensive literature review and evaluated using a structured questionnaire administered to developers, consultants, and contractors. Quantitative analyses—including descriptive statistics, Kruskal–Wallis tests, and exploratory factor analysis (EFA)—revealed four interrelated dimensions: Institutional and Strategic Support, Market and Business Competitiveness, Availability of Green Resources and Infrastructure, and Stakeholder Engagement and Social Responsibility. These dimensions form the basis of the Integrated Institutional–Capability Framework for Green Procurement (IICF-GP), which explains how external institutional pressures interact with internal organizational capabilities to influence both strategic intent and operational implementation of GP. The framework contributes theoretically by integrating IT and RBV within a single empirically grounded explanatory model, and practically by identifying targeted policy, capability-building, and supply-chain levers. Findings underscore that regulatory clarity, supplier readiness, technological capability, and stakeholder collaboration are critical to advancing GP in developing-country construction contexts.