Co‐development of a framework for circular economy assessment in organisations: Learnings from the public sector

To seize the potential of Circular Economy (CE) organisations need to evaluate and communicate their progress moving away from the non‐sustainable paradigm of ‘take‐make‐dispose’ towards circularity. Existing CE assessments for organisations focus on companies. Although the need for CE assessment is recognised in both public and private sectors, little progress has been made towards developing an approach for public sector organisations. CE assessment in public sector organisations is particularly important due to their role model, agenda setting and economic function. Therefore, this article co‐develops a CE assessment framework for public sector organisations. Portuguese public sector organisations were involved as a participatory case study. The result is a framework that covers the following components: (i) a system definition; (ii) a definition of 35 CE assessment elements; (iii) CE assessment targets; and (iv) CE indicators. The framework contributes to the understanding of circularity from a public sector perspective considering three key aspects: resources, operations and processes as well as social and employee related activities. Implications for CE assessments in the public and private sector encompass the importance for an early involvement of stakeholders to get a sector specific perspective, the need to address user‐friendliness and the requirement for continuous testing of CE assessments.