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Circular economy and green public procurement – case of Bulgaria, Croatia and Lithuania

The circular economy (CE) is a concept in which growth and prosperity are decoupled from natural resource consumption and ecosystem degradation. Shift from linear to circular economy can result in major environmental and economic benefits, contributing to innovation, growth and job creation. In order to transform European economy into more sustainable one, in 2015 European Commission (EC) prepared Circular Economy Action Plan which comprises general and material-specific activities as well as some horizontal issues. To boost its implementation in January 2018 EC adopted Circular Economy Package which includes set of measures, guidelines and proposals in the field of resource efficiency, raw materials, waste management, eco-innovation, production and consumption. There are different tools and instruments to enable transition towards a more circular economy, i.e. product environmental footprint, organization environmental footprint, eco-labels, eco-management and audit scheme and green public procurement. Green public procurement is a voluntary instrument which can increase demand for resource efficient products and promote new business models. Green public criteria are developed at EU level. One of the main roles of the EC will be to evaluate the relevance of green public procurement instrument in national economies and suggest how it could be implemented more broadly. Therefore, comparison of green public practices in Bulgaria, Croatia and Lithuania is useful exercise which can provide us with rich insights. Although they are all transition countries they have different economic background and European experience. While Lithuania and Bulgaria belong to fifth EU enlargement (2004 and 2006, respectively) Croatia joined EU in 2013 in the sixth enlargement process. A key objective of this paper is to present practices of circular economy and GPP in Bulgaria, Croatia and Lithuania. Special attention is given to countries’ special features while they are a good illustrations of different economic and political heritage.

Circular economy, Croatia, green public procurement

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