The Government of the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, is in a privileged position to use public procurement to promote sustainable development; its more than 1,800 procuring units have an annual budget of about US$12 billion for the purchase of goods, services, and construction works. This policy brief, which synthesizes the main aspects of a larger case study (Brauch, 2012), assesses the institutional, legal, administrative, and procedural characteristics of Sao Paulo’s Sustainable Public Procurement(SPP) policies. The first section surveys the political, institutional, and legal framework of these policies. The second section analyzes how the SPP program promotes sustainability in each phase of the procurement process. The policy brief closes with conclusions and policy recommendation to improve the Sao Paulo SPP policies and to make their successes a model exportable to other Brazilian states and other developing countries.