ABSTRACT
Government procurement is a big business. Government has increasingly sought to balance environmental preferences, prices, and performance. The chapter explores an example of semiotic analysis of a policy debate - where normative values and rhetoric are considered in their sign function together with competing values and program outcomes. The conceptual effort employs a Greimas square to discern underlying issues in the debate and discourse surrounding green public procurement. Understanding is furthered through an analysis for sign and symbol of green public procurement language in the EU case, but we do not have a clear view of what 'green procurement' is, as a defined and implementable concept. Instead, we see the trappings of administrative rules and procedure, addressing concerns on a piecemeal basis, and it is not clear to what end.
