Grounded in the CE-PRINCE Transnational Strategy, the Action Plan transforms strategic priorities into practical, country-specific measures designed to support enterprises in adopting circular economy practices and meeting C/GPP criteria.
From Strategy to Action
The CE-PRINCE Transnational Strategy identifies three overarching goals essential for advancing circular procurement across the region:
- Increasing the uptake of C/GPP practices,
- Developing shared standards and criteria, and
- Strengthening awareness and capacity among public and private actors.
The newly developed Action Plan operationalises these goals through a harmonised yet country-tailored approach. Our partnerns worked hard in the last few months to formulate our Action Plan to addresse persistent challenges such as the lack of common standards, technical knowledge gaps, and fragmented implementation.
A Practical Roadmap for Businesses
Focusing on enterprises in four key economic sectors — agri-food, construction, manufacturing, and tourism-related goods and services — the Action Plan provides a structured, transnational framework for implementation from now on until November 2026.
To support companies in increasing circularity and ensuring compliance with GPP criteria, the Plan introduces:
- Training and capacity-building initiatives to strengthen technical and organisational understanding of circular criteria, life-cycle thinking, and compliance with EU and national procurement rules.
- Practical tools and templates, enabling enterprises to embed circular requirements into specifications, documentation, and tender submissions.
- Peer-learning opportunities, including Business to Business exchanges, good-practice sharing, and demand–supply dialogue formats with public buyers.
- Pilot actions across partner countries, where selected SMEs test and improve circular practices using a common methodology and assessment framework.
- Strategic engagement with clusters, business associations, and certification bodies to align market expectations and support broader uptake of circular practices.
By grounding the Action Plan in findings from CE-PRINCE’s Initial Assessment and Transnational Strategy, as well as EU-level frameworks such as the New Circular Economy Action Plan and EU GPP criteria, the project ensures that all activities are evidence-based, future-oriented, and aligned with both regional and national priorities.
Empowering Enterprises Through Collaboration
The Action Plan targets a wide range of private-sector actors including SME owners, procurement and tender managers, product designers, sustainability officers, engineering teams, and supplier networks. It also involves public buyers as dialogue partners to strengthen the alignment between demand and supply in the circular economy.
Through its coordinated transnational methodology, CE-PRINCE ensures that activities remain comparable, transferable, and adaptable to different national contexts — while promoting a shared vision for circular procurement in Central Europe.
A Significant Step Toward a Greener Future
The publication of the Transnational Action Plan represents a crucial step in bridging the gap between enterprises and circular procurement opportunities. By enhancing supplier readiness, improving understanding of tender criteria, and fostering cross-sector collaboration, the Plan will contribute to a more innovative, sustainable, and competitive economic landscape across Central Europe.
“The TAPs offer a powerful opportunity to advance circular and green public procurement in Central Europe. ACR+ can leverage them as a practical, collaborative model that can be replicated and scaled across Europe to accelerate the circular transition.” (ACR+)
The document is available here.