Circular Public Procurement of Plastic Medical Consumables - the missing steps for implementation

The Swedish government has recently pointed to circular public procurement, CPP, as a strategic tool to promote the transition to a circular economy.

Two of the largest procuring public organizations in Sweden, Stockholm Region and the City of Stockholm, have clearly expressed the need for collaboration and co-creation to reach circularity in procurement.

However, there is a gap between national goals, policy and actual implementation of circularity in procurement processes and the main focus is on waste management. This is mirrored in circular indicators mostly including only the recycling aspects.

Few previous pilot studies which have addressed circular procurement but none targeting the value cycle of plastic medical consumables, PMCs.

Immense amounts of PMCs are used and discarded in the stakeholders’ activities the need to introduce circularity for this value cycle is vital. The obstacle is the lack of concrete circular procurement guidelines and methodologies to use.

The aim of this project is to advance and improve the implementation of circular procurement as an approach to promote a circular economy, by using the value cycle of PMCs as a concrete case.

Focus is to identify the obstacles, analyze the scope of the value cycle, including circular criteria and indicators, and to assess circularity in relation to other aspects such as social and cost. The results will be valid for stakeholder beyond the project group.