CiRclash Project

Rethinking how we use materials is essential for a sustainable future. Yet despite growing urgency around climate change and resource scarcity, the shift from a linear to a circular economy remains slow. Public procurement, worth around €100 billion annually in the Netherlands and accounting for 14–19% of EU GDP, offers a powerful lever for change. By using their purchasing power, governments can reshape markets and accelerate circular production.

Circular procurement allows public authorities to meet societal needs while promoting circular principles such as reducing, reusing, repairing, and recovering materials. But in practice, it is still rare. One potential major barrier is the legal framework that governs public purchasing. Designed primarily to create an internal market, not circularity, it often clashes with circular ambitions. Although the 2014 EU Directives regulating public procurement allow for criteria beyond price, most public contracts are still awarded on price alone. Fragmented rules with more than 60 pieces of EU legislation regulating public procurement besides the 2014 Directives, limited awareness, and legal uncertainties further seem to discourage both authorities and market parties from embracing circular approaches.

CIRCLASH tackles this challenge. The project investigates where circular principles  conflict with principles of public procurement law and develops solutions to bridge these gaps. With EU public procurement legislation currently under review, CIRCLASH will provide timely recommendations for legal reform as well as practical tools, such as circular criteria and model clauses, to help practitioners confidently procure for a circular future. The research design involves important stakeholders from the very beginning of the project to maximize impact in practice.

Involved stakeholders: Province of Utrecht, Municipality of Utrecht, Kenniskring Aanbesteden, UMC Utrecht, Bureau Inkoop Zuid-Oost Brabant (Bizob)