Circular Economy Status in Bulgaria

Circular Economy Status in Bulgaria

Short overview of the current situation, developed by Bulgarian-Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry 

In the period 2014-2020, the topic of green economy started to occupy an appropriate place in Bulgaria and was included in a wide range of planning documents for regional development, as well as in a number of national sectoral strategic documents – in the fields of energy, economy, and environmental protection. However – according to the latest data only one fifth of the Bulgarian companies are investing in new technologies. And the good news: 70% indicate positive results from the investments. 

Main drivers to invest are the needs for technology level improvement to secure resource efficient production. The majority of the companies are from sectors such as chemistry, tailoring and textile and construction. Companies investing in technologies for protection of environment are mainly from the mining industry (50%), construction (19%) and pharmaceutical companies (75%). 

Barriers to circular economy implementation in Bulgaria are mostly economic with limited funding available for enterprises of all sectors to modernize equipment and a notably low level of domestic, private and foreign capital investments. 

Bulgaria still doesn’t have a specific strategy regarding circular economy (actually, a project of a strategy is published on the website of the Ministry of environment and water). 

More detailed review of the current situation in Bulgaria can be found in the National Report, created under the I.CE.A. project. For this document the following methods have been applied by Bulgarian-Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Lead Partner of I.CE.A. project): desk review, two online round-tables with 16 representatives of local authorities, green entrepreneurs, NGOs’, SMEs, educational institutions and adults, research via online questionnaire among 22 companies and 22 adults.