Policy development at a crossroads*

Making, using and disposing of products can result in a range of environmental and human health problems. Water, energy and natural resources are often used unsustainably, humans and the environment can be exposed to hazardous substances, our air and water can be polluted, waste is often generated, and carbon emissions can be released to the atmosphere. For these reasons, taking steps to fast-track nationwide solutions is essential and overdue.

Product stewardship is an approach that national, state and territory governments in Australia have used for many years to address these problems, with varying degrees of success. From regulated producer responsibility, and the use of energy and water efficiency labels, to voluntary producer action. The Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence and UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures evaluated the benefits and effectiveness of product stewardship and Extended Producer Responsibility in 2022.

Lagging behind on circular economy performance and product stewardship action

However, despite some progress in certain jurisdictions to address the environmental impacts of products, Australia’s circularity rate is still embarrassingly low (about 4.6% in 2024, compared to the global average of 7%).

Progress against the Australian Government’s Circular Economy Framework (2024) and National Policy Waste Action Plan targets is glacial and piecemeal at best with the deadline for achieving the seven Action Plan targets pushed out a further five years from 2025 to 2030. Not to mention the misalignment of ministerial, action plan and framework priorities with these targets.

The mantra of ‘biggest bang for the buck’, as called out in the 2024 National Waste Policy Action Plan priorities reflects a constrained and timid approach to formulating and implementing policies and regulations that have impacts across the product lifecycle. Indeed, the mantra serves to reinforce old ways of thinking and narrow solutions, which in crude terms mostly manage the symptoms of over-production and over-consumption. The cliché of band-aid solution upon band-aid solution upon is not an inaccurate observation.

There is also little if any evidence that the recommendations made by the Circular Economy Ministerial Advisory Group (2024) have been adopted in a fulsome way. These include Recommendation #4 (2024, p35): “Introduce a Circular Economy Act that provides an overarching, integrated regulatory framework for the circular economy. The Act should enable and equip the Australian Government with a streamlined, agile and proactive tool to regulate the environmental performance of materials and products …”

As a result of this inertia the amount of materials recovered has stalled, and spare parts for whitegoods, electronic and electrical equipment, agricultural equipment and vehicles are less accessible and more expensive. Plastics are being found in our blood streams and food chains and hazardous forever chemicals such as PFAS are contaminating our environment. The lifespan and quality of clothing, bedding, small electronics and furniture is declining rapidly due to online access to cheap overseas imports, and demand for second hand clothes is reducing. More than 80% of mining tyres are being landfilled, rechargeable batteries are causing fires in homes and recycling infrastructure and, as we transition to renewable energy, our consumption of critical minerals grows, as does waste from this sector.

Of related concern is that the Australian Government is yet to publicly respond to the Productivity Commission’s final report on opportunities in a circular economy. And the outcomes of the internal 5-year statutory review of the Recycling and Waste Reduction Act (2020), that started 18 months ago, have yet to be released publicly. This ongoing delay strips away public and industry confidence, trust, and willingness to invest in product stewardship schemes, address actions on the Minister’s priority products list, seek government accreditation of voluntary schemes, redesign products, build repair services and recycling infrastructure .

On the positive side the NSW Government introduced the Product Lifecycle Responsibility Act in 2025 and subsequently a Product Lifecycle Responsibility Regulation for batteries in 2026. This approach represents a major shift towards states leading on product stewardship regulation in the absence of any federal government action (the last federal producer responsibility regulation was introduced in 2011). While a nationwide approach is preferable for many reasons as illustrated by the NTCRS and oil stewardship schemes, state-based regulations can also be very effective, as demonstrated by the state-based container deposit/return schemes.

Notably, NSW’s recent legislation and regulation have been crafted as a template for other jurisdictions to adopt and emulate. Importantly the NSW Product Lifecycle Responsibility Act reflects a much stronger lifecycle approach in comparison to the federal Recycling and Waste Reduction Act 2020, and it provides a legislative framework to make regulations that can be applied across the entire product lifecycle of products from design and production, through to consumption and post-consumption or end-of-life. It is vital that other jurisdictions follow suit swiftly to ensure that producers, service providers and consumers are not negatively affected by free-riders or by the absence of regulatory requirements outside of NSW.

Consequently, Australia is at a crossroads on circular economy policy and action, including how we evolve and improve our approach to effective product stewardship. Given the known impacts and issues of over-consumption and over-production, there is an unmistakable need to fast-track policy and regulatory development, and to ensure timely implementation. This will necessarily require a much more rigorous and system-oriented approach to eliminating and reducing the impacts of products, materials and services across their entire lifecycle, not just end-of-life interventions, as important as they are.

Acknowledging the hurdles and attitudes that hold Australia back

So, what’s currently missing in the Australian context if we genuinely wish to move up the waste hierarchy, transition to a circular economy, and ensure that well designed policy and regulation is applied to achieve environmentally positive outcomes? It’s a big question and has many responses depending on the specific interests, needs and wants of different stakeholders and actors.

In short, Australian policy and regulatory development, especially at the federal level over the past five years, lacks a clear, transparent, and inclusive process that can achieve system-wide shifts and interventions directly aimed at achieving a circular economy. We need to remind our policy-makers that frameworks, roadmaps, strategies and action plans are a means to an end, not ends in themselves.

Our current policy and regulatory development process is characterised by several factors that collectively work against effective circularity and producer responsibility across the product lifecycle. The most obvious barrier is our predominantly reactive approach, driven by retail politics, poor problem framing, lack of systems thinking, vested commercial interests and other ad hoc demands with disproportionate influence. The term ‘stakeholder capture’ comes to mind.

Other factors often cited by many stakeholders that continue to constrain circularity and producer responsibility across the product lifecycle include:

Limited transparency of government processes, due to inadequate stakeholder engagement and consultation, or submissions and voices that are politely ignored, overlooked or given lip service.
Inability to acknowledge and act on the true cost of late or no intervention.
Inability to acknowledge and act on externalities and the polluter pays principle.
Limited capability and expertise to develop and implement effective circular economy and product stewardship policy and regulation.
Substandard performance and accountability to timeframes and the ability to deliver and close-out policy and regulatory development .
A general government position that significantly over-reaches on the claim of ‘unintended consequences’ as a reason to not pursue regulatory intervention, whilst simultaneously not applying the same lens on the unintended consequences of voluntary product stewardship schemes. g. the ongoing negative impact of free-riders on the operations and effectiveness of the voluntary tyre, clothing, bedding and battery schemes.
A deficient intergovernmental process that talks about harmonisation and national uniformity but consistently fails to deliver actionable outcomes, policies and regulations. This includes the inability of environment ministers’ meetings to act as a productive forum to deliver tangible results in a timely manner.

Acknowledging these factors is the first step to developing effective solutions. These factors are symptomatic of short-termism, and the ‘tranquiliser that is incrementalism’. They are impeding the transition to a circular economy and are standing in the way of urgently needed mandatory product stewardship regulations for several products, including tyres, clothing textiles, packaging, solar panels, mattresses, batteries, consumer electronics and major domestic appliances.

These factors collectively tell us that we are well overdue for a joined-up policy development approach that places much greater emphasis on:

rigour, independence, inclusiveness and co-creation with all relevant stakeholders;
accurate problem identification and framing, as opposed to ad -hoc decision-making driven by political or commercial agendas;
transparency and accountability, especially with regard to timeframes and desired outcomes; and
policy and regulatory innovation that is informed by independent expertise, knowledge and experience, as opposed to commercially vested interests, or management firms providing formulaic and stereotypical advice that is digestible to governments.

A new systems orientated approach to policy and regulatory development

A new, system orientated approach to policy and regulatory development is urgently needed given that existing processes and structures have struggled for over ten years to deliver timely outcomes. Grants, public sector procurement, product/materials certification and labelling, are essential but are insufficient without complementary regulation that clearly articulates producer responsibilities and environmental, social and governance outcomes to achieve the system-wide shifts needed to double Australia’s circularity rate.

We need a policy and regulatory development process that is unambiguous and applicable across industries, sectors and communities to ensure that we are framing and prioritising problems and identifying solutions in a rational, objective and timely manner free from vested interests, yesterday’s ideological positions and poor decision-making.

This new, approach needs to be adequately resourced and backed by an elevated commitment to sustainable consumption and production that harnesses a strong pro-innovation and pro-competition lens and focuses on prevention and avoidance. It needs to go beyond simplistic arguments of regulation versus voluntary, dated waste management methodologies, or a reliance on consumers alone to change their behaviours and ‘fix’ the problem

It can’t be overstated that behaviour change is required across all industries, supply chains and sectors – public and private. This requires a policy and regulatory development process that secures their trust, confidence and investment.

This new system-oriented approach can then deal with many of the second and third order issues currently under justified scrutiny today regarding:

next and end markets for recovered materials;
adequate financing of collective product stewardship schemes;
fair market pricing for all services supporting product stewardship schemes including logistics, reuse, repair and recycling businesses; and
harmonisation and national uniformity.

Importantly it must ensure producer responsibility across the entire lifecycle to drive fundamental change in how we produce and consumer goods and services, not just mandatory regulation aimed at producer financing of collection and recycling. Until we proactively move into the top half of the resource and waste hierarchy with a focus on prevention and avoidance, our ambitions for a circular economy will struggle to move beyond a re-branding of recycling and wordplay.

It must also show an understanding of sustainable design and all that it can achieve along the supply chain, be it through standards, procurement, labelling, regulation, or import bans that keep environmentally inferior products out of the Australian market. Anything less, will perpetuate our current approach, which is mostly focused on managing symptoms rather than prevention.

Three initial actions that can drive the transition to a circular economy include:

Creating, resourcing and enforcing a Circular Economy Act and any subordinate regulation(s)
As per the final report of the Circular Economy Ministerial Advisory Group (CEMAG) Recommendation #4 (2024, p35): “Introduce a Circular Economy Act that provides an overarching, integrated regulatory framework for the circular economy. The Act should enable and equip the Australian Government with a streamlined, agile and proactive tool to regulate the environmental performance of materials and products …”
Ensuring mandatory product stewardship across the complete product lifecycle
Consistent with Recommendation #4 of the final CEMAG report (2024, p35): create “a clear framework for setting design rules for products and labelling their performance, similar to the European Union’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation. These design rules should allow the setting of circular economy requirements for products, including on durability, repairability, recyclability and the presence of chemicals of concern.”
Addressing the unintended consequences of voluntary product stewardship schemes
Establish well-designed mandatory approaches for products on the Minister’s priority list and for those industries proactively demanding regulated product stewardship, such as tyres, clothing textiles, mattresses, photovoltaic systems, and large household appliances.

Policy-makers and regulators need to explicitly acknowledge that Australia’s ambitions for a circular economy demand a frank reckoning with a focus on clear problem framing, the polluter pays principle, impactful solutions and an unapologetic approach to the design of intelligent regulatory instruments that are co-created with key stakeholders.

Transparency, timely action and genuine consultation are a must, as is responding to community expectations. Anything less risks cementing Australia ’s reputation as a nation that manages symptoms instead of leading with bold circular economy initiatives.

Rose Read and John Gertsakis
Directors
Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence

* A shorter version of this article was first published in the in Waste Management Review