Background
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) has been increasingly discussed as a concept to solve the current waste problems for specific products. Thomas Lindhqvist first described it in 1990 as “an environmental protection strategy to reach an environmental objective of a decreased total environmental impact of a product, by making the manufacturer of the product responsible for the entire life-cycle of the product and especially for the take-back, recycling, and final disposal”. Proponents of EPR argue that by assigning the organizational responsibility for waste management to a producer, EPR could reduce the financial burden of municipalities and support the internalization of commonly externalized costs associated with waste. As such, EPR might also constitute a transformative framework for a shared responsibility for waste handling between producers and consumers, as the latter might contribute to a sustainable waste management through increased purchasing costs.
In summer 2023, The TES Academy started a joint collaboration process with actors working on and with EPR to discuss its transformative potential in the circular economy. This includes for example a broader application of EPR internationally, but also its future potential to achieve environmental goals where EPR systems are in place for quite some time, e.g. in Europe.