By: Professor Dato Dr Ahmad Ibrahim
Communication is a key enabler of the transition to a circular economy. It is about getting the buy in from the stakeholders, especially the public. A new study pulls back the curtain on Bulgaria’s public sector communication about the circular economy, and the picture it reveals is less a vibrant hub of green innovation and more a meticulously planned but eerily empty town square. The findings, distilled into the dimensions of space, agenda, language, and tools, expose a critical paradox: the infrastructure for communication exists, but the meaningful, mobilizing conversation is absent.
First, the space. The research confirms what many have suspected: the dialogue is overwhelmingly confined to institutional, elite spaces—ministry conferences, expert forums, and EU-funded project websites. It’s a closed-loop system talking to itself. The vibrant, messy, and crucial spaces where the circular economy actually happens—local community centers, business networks, mainstream media, and social platforms—remain largely untouched. The public sector is preaching, but from a pulpit most citizens and small businesses never enter.
This leads directly to the agenda. The communication agenda is not set by public need or entrepreneurial opportunity, but by external compliance. It’s driven by the ticking clock of EU transposition deadlines and funding reporting requirements. The topic is framed as a bureaucratic obligation to Brussels, not as a national opportunity for resilience, job creation, and cleaner communities. Consequently, the message is about “transposing directives” and “achieving indicators,” not about “saving money through waste reduction” or “building a modern Bulgarian industry.”
The language used is the technocratic dialect of this compliance-driven agenda. It’s laden with alienating acronyms, passive constructions, and vague aspirational nouns like “sustainability” and “transition.” It fails spectacularly to translate the circular economy into the tangible, visceral language of Bulgarian households and enterprises: less landfill stench, new markets for traditional crafts, lower energy bills, and innovative local products. The concept remains an imported abstraction, not a relatable reality.
Perhaps most damning is the analysis of tools. The state employs a predictable, top-down arsenal: formal strategies, official reports, and static websites. These are tools for announcement, not for engagement. Where are the interactive platforms for matching industrial waste with new users? The compelling local case studies presented in documentary style? The “how-to” guides for municipalities or SMEs written in plain Bulgarian? The tools in use are designed to inform the already-informed, not to inspire, enable, or co-create with a broader audience. The culmination of these four failings is a communication strategy that effectively maintains the circular economy as a distant, governmental project. It has successfully checked the box of “awareness raising” in official reports while failing to spark a public movement or a widespread economic shift.
The way out is clear, and the study implicitly points to it. Bulgarian institutions must vacate the exclusive space and join the public square. They must re-set the agenda from compliance to local opportunity. They must learn a new language—one of practical benefit and national pride. And they must deploy new tools that enable, connect, and showcase. The circular economy is, at its heart, about resourcefulness and smart loops. It’s time Bulgaria’s public sector applied those very principles to how it communicates the idea itself. The plans are on paper. The funds are, in part, allocated. Now, we need a conversation that actually matters—one that escapes the conference room and ignites the country. Until then, Bulgaria’s circular future will remain a well-documented ghost town.
A major challenge to the shift to a circular economy is to get buy in from the business and consumer community. Unless there is good buy in, implementing the circular economy aspirations will face daunting obstacles. Business must be convinced that moving from linear to circular will not jeopardise their earnings. That the circular economy model may be more remunerative in the long run. And the consumers must see the circular economy as the potential solution to overloaded landfills and other environmental hazards. The case in Bulgaria clearly demonstrated a serious lacking to reach out to the right audience in their communication strategy.
The author is affiliated with the Tan Sri Omar Centre for STI Policy Studies at UCSI University and is an Adjunct Professor at the Ungku Aziz Centre for Development Studies, Universiti Malaya.
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