Circular procurement in social rented housing: Experience from and perspectives for Dutch housing associations

Procurement transformation plays a crucial role in accelerating the circular economy transition by creating circular demand and translating circular ambitions into concrete practices. Although circular procurement has received growing attention in recent years, a holistic understanding and investigation that goes beyond incorporating circular economy requirements into existing procurement functions remains underdeveloped. Against this background, this thesis investigates how procurement can be transformed to facilitate the circular economy transition. The built environment, particularly the Dutch social housing sector, provides the empirical context. As a project-based industry, construction faces distinctive procurement challenges arising from fragmented and temporary supply chains, project-specific management, and complex production processes. To address the research aims from both theoretical and empirical perspectives, this thesis adopts a mixed-method research design, combining a systematic literature review, case studies, interviews, focus groups, Q methodology, and desk research. The findings suggest that circular procurement should be understood as an integrated management approach. This approach should align environmental goals, economic incentives, organizational capabilities, and societal expectations by coordinating supply chain management, stakeholder interactions, procurement decision-making, and value creation. Meanwhile, the system-level transformation also needs to be aligned with the complexities in operational practices of procurement. This thesis contributes theoretically to the literature on circular procurement, supply chain management, the built environment, stakeholder collaboration, and Dutch social housing. It also provides practical insights for organizations and supply chain actors within and beyond the built environment seeking to transform their procurement to facilitate the circular economy transition.