Glossary term
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
Subject: Compliance and Regulation, Employment, Workplace, Health and Safety
Extended producer responsibility is a policy under which producers, importers or brand owners are legally accountable for collecting, recycling or disposing of their products and packaging once consumers have finished with them.
Explanation
Governments use it to move the cost of waste from taxpayers to the makers of the goods and to give those makers a reason to design for reuse and recycling. Common schemes cover packaging, electronics, batteries, tyres and vehicles. Producers register with the authority, report the quantity they place on the market and meet collection or recycling targets, either directly or by paying a fee to a producer responsibility organisation that does the work on their behalf. Some regimes vary fees by how recyclable a product is. Penalties apply to under-reporting and missed targets. Details differ greatly between countries and product types, so global companies track each market. Compliance staff meet EPR in annual returns, certificates from recyclers and supplier declarations. Missing a registration or a target in one market can mean fines there and, in some regimes, a bar on selling the product.
Example
Selling 50,000 units of a device in a new market, a consumer electronics company must, under the local scheme, register, report the weight of the equipment sold and arrange for a set share to be collected for recycling. It joins a producer responsibility organisation, pays a fee per kilogram and receives recycling certificates that it files with its annual return.
Not to be confused with
- Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
- CSR is typically voluntary or based on spending rules. EPR is a legal duty linked to the products a company sells.