What are the best practices for implementing circular procurement?

1 Assess your needs

Before you start looking for suppliers, you need to identify your needs and objectives for circular procurement. What are the main drivers and benefits for your organization? What are the environmental and social issues that you want to address? How can you align your procurement strategy with your sustainability vision and policies? You can use tools such as the Circular Economy Procurement Framework or the Circular Procurement Maturity Model to assess your current situation and define your priorities.

2 Engage your stakeholders

Circular procurement requires collaboration and communication with various internal and external stakeholders, such as senior management, budget holders, legal advisors, procurement officers, suppliers, customers and end-users. You need to engage them early and often, and involve them in the design and implementation of your circular procurement strategy. You can use methods such as co-creation workshops, surveys, interviews, webinars or online platforms to share information, solicit feedback, build trust and foster innovation.

3 Define your criteria

Once you have defined your needs and engaged your stakeholders, you need to translate them into clear and measurable criteria for selecting and evaluating suppliers. You can use different types of criteria, such as technical, functional, environmental, social or economic, depending on your goals and context. You can also use different approaches, such as performance-based, life cycle costing, best value or innovation procurement, depending on your level of ambition and risk. You can refer to existing standards, guidelines or best practices, such as the EU Green Public Procurement Criteria or the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's Circulytics, to help you define your criteria.

4 Manage your contracts

After you have selected your suppliers, you need to manage your contracts effectively to ensure that they deliver the expected outcomes and value. You need to monitor and review their performance regularly, using indicators and targets that reflect your circular procurement criteria. You also need to establish clear roles and responsibilities, incentives and penalties, dispute resolution mechanisms and exit strategies. You can use tools such as the Circular Procurement Contract Management Framework or the Circular Service Contract Canvas to help you manage your contracts.

5 Evaluate your impact

Finally, you need to evaluate the impact of your circular procurement strategy on your organization and society. You need to measure and report the results and benefits of your circular procurement activities, using indicators and methods that capture the environmental, social and economic aspects of circularity. You also need to identify the challenges and lessons learned, and share them with your stakeholders and peers. You can use tools such as the Circular Procurement Impact Measurement Framework or the Circular Economy Indicators to help you evaluate your impact.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?