Extended Producer Responsibility and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment in India, Thailand and Argentina: Insights from the Advocacy Coalition Framework

Extended producer responsibility (EPR) is a concept from Industrial Ecology that has changed waste management policies inside and gradually outside the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This article bridges the gap in our understanding of the policy process wherein policy change occurred. It employs the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) to explain the forces promoting and opposing EPR-based policies for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in India, Thailand and Argentina. The analysis of 92 qualitative interviews with stakeholders and key events in the three countries shows the division and dynamics between the EPR-skeptic and pro-EPR coalitions that shaped the policy decisions and preliminary outputs. This division in the policy subsystem was stable not only along time but also across the three cases. Skeptics like governmental agencies and a fraction of the electrical and electronic industries questioned the need and merit of profound changes in waste policies. On the other hand, leading producers of information and communication technologies and environmental NGOs were found to advocate EPR. The discussion explains the forces behind these advocacy coalitions, policy change and policy-oriented learning based on ACF hypotheses and suggests possible modifications of the framework. Based on the analysis and discussion, we suggest a new approach to revitalize EPR as a guiding principle to create shared values with environmentally sound product systems that align with the social and economic conditions of developing and emerging economies