Implementation of the Principles of a Circular Economy in the Procurement of Furniture for Public Needs

In this paper, the implementation of the principles of a circular economy in the procurement of furniture for public needs is examined. The research is focused on public procurement procedures conducted in Saint Petersburg in 2020 under 44-FL and 223-FL. The dataset consists of 1223 public procurement procedures initiated by contracting authorities at the federal, regional, and municipal level. For each public procurement procedure, the documentation was analysed and the occurrence of each of the circular criteria (“durability”, “maintainability”, “recyclability”, “reusable packaging”, “reuse”, “recycled materials”) was identified. The study found that 242 circular purchases meet more than one circular criterion (32.79%). The most frequently used criteria are durability and maintainability. The data was obtained from the Unified information system in the field of procurement and processed with the usage of econometric tools such as logistic regression, correlation analysis and decision tree. The analysis conducted identifies the relationship between circular purchase, contract, and contracting authority characteristics. This study contributes to the scientific discussion on the application of circular criteria in the public procurement system in Russia and estimates their prevalence in procurement documents. The research results can be used by authorized bodies of the public procurement system in planning procurement and by suppliers - to determine a strategy for participation in procurement procedures. Keywords: public procurement, circular economy, circular public procurement, furniture.