The paper presents the finding of a study on the public and private funding opportunities for circular projects. The financial products and instruments such as crowdfunding, grants, venture capital, government support, bank lending, and etc., which are tailored to the specific needs of circular projects were examined depending on the stage of the company's life cycle.

This paper presents an assessment of Belarus’ progress on the way to the circular economy as compared to a number of the European countries. The monitoring framework proposed by the European Commission is chosen for these purposes, since its indicators capture the key elements of a circular economy, have a high degree of practical application, are easy to analyze and informative. The existing system of recording in Belarus does not permit to calculate some indicators used by the European Commission.

The paper deals with opportunities of circular economy for ensuring green growth. Analysis and comparison of concepts of sustainable development, green and circular economy revealed that despite similarity there is a differences in ways of their implementation. It is shown that the green economy is one of a tool for achieving sustainable development, and the circular economy acts as a practical way of putting it into effect. The concept of circular economy is interlinked with various scientific schools of environmental economic system, each of which can be considered as directions of its development.

This paper contains the results of examination of the experience of foreign countries in legislative support of the circular economy, summarizes the chronology of its  development at the European Union level, and identifies the reasons why the transition to the model of a closed-cycle economy is gaining momentum in the world.

The article includes best practices for development of circular economy and its implementation. It is stated that each country has national peculiarities of transition to this concept, as well as various priority directions of implementation caused by set of advantages and risks. The barriers which constrain access of the circular projects to bank financing, and confine its utilization as a result, are identified. Authors put special emphasis to the innovative business models providing the circular system of production and consumption, including Circular suppliers, Resources recovery, Sharing platforms, Product life extension, Product as a service.

The paper presents a study of waste statistics in Belarus based on the examination of Belarusian and European legislation, statistical reporting forms, and databases. The study reveals that the Belarusian statistics on waste faces three types of problems: those associated with the methodology, recording and coverage, and insufficient degree of international comparability of data, in particular, with the European Union countries.