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Transitioning from a linear to a circular economy is an important part of Europe's strategy to counteract climate change, boost green transformation and accomplish new business and welfare. Through the introduction of the European Green Deal in December 2019, this transition has received greater attention and activity to analyze and implement circularity throughout Europe. WoodCircus project of European Horizon 2020 program (2018-2021), a consortium of seven research centers, eight industry stakeholders, two EU networks and seven countries, aimed to increase knowledge, raise awareness, and improve conditions for an uptake of resource efficient processing, recycling and circularity in wood construction value chains, and foster competitiveness of the European woodworking sector. The project was based on an extensive fact finding and state-of-art process with a focused literature review and internet search, expert interviews of 99 stakeholders in ten countries in four macro-regions in Europe and three workshops with invited experts. The thematic focus was in wood-based side stream utilization and waste management systems, availability and suppliers of raw materials, bio-circular product solutions and markets, and resource efficiency, recovering, recycling, reuse and processing technologies. In addition, organization and set-up of different value chains, with specific attention to material flows, industrial ecosystems as well as composition and collaboration of stakeholders were mapped. The data were used for elaboration of SWOT analysis in the macro-regions, identification of good practices and development needs, and individuation of potential for novel bio-circular applications and cross-border transfer of practices. An invited review panel selected 25 of them for a European good practices catalogue. This paper summarizes this part of the project with recommendations for industry and policy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]