What Roles for Which Stakeholders under Extended Producer Responsibility?

This article analyzes extended producer responsibility (EPR), two decades after the concept emerged. It concentrates on the scope of the producers' responsibility vis‐à‐vis other stakeholders in the context of EPR for waste electronics. It argues that in order for a core aspect of EPR – the creation of design incentives – to function properly the responsibilities need to be shared between the producers and other stakeholders, and that the allocation of responsibilities needs to be both more rigorous and more nuanced than is presently the case. The article structures the discussion on, and presents solutions to, the proper allocation of responsibilities by creating a framework that distinguishes between issues relating to the core premises of EPR, those that are a function of the multilevel system of governance in which EPR is pursued, and those that are of a practical nature, cutting across jurisdictional levels.