Product Systems and Waste Management

Head of Research Area: Thomas Lindhqvist

Environmental Product Policy is a key terminology to characterise a broad set of policy approaches and instruments that view environmental impacts as emerging from the consumption of products and services and the related product chains or life cycles. Many such approaches were initiated based on end-of-life (waste) and usage-related problems identified in the last couple of decades. The link between product-related and waste-related research has its origin in this fact.

During the last decade, the IIIEE has produced almost two PhD theses per year, a large number of Master's theses and a number of other studies. Present research at IIIEE has several themes and some of the main are outlined here.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
The policy principle of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) was coined by an IIIEE researcher in 1990 and the researchers at IIIEE have been in the forefront of developing the analysis and design of EPR systems by introducing and developing concepts such as the division into physical, financial and informative responsibilities, and the distinction between collective and individual producer responsibilities. The IIIEE has since 2000 presented four PhD theses on EPR and a multitude of other studies. Present research focuses on the influence of EPR on design of products and product systems, the role division between producers and municipalities, and the introduction of EPR in non-OECD countries.
Contacts: Naoko Tojo and Thomas Lindhqvist

Product policy and the law
The use of administrative instruments for regulating the environmental and sustainability aspects of products and product chains has gained an interest among policy-makers in Europe and internationally. This involves a number of new challenges of how to allocate responsibilities and to set requirements when products are increasingly part of diverse and international product chains without clear jurisdictions for single governments. Several projects related to the European EuP Directive and standard-setting to promote design changes of products are topical today.
Contacts: Carl Dalhammar and Naoko Tojo

Eco-labelling and informative instruments
At the end of the 1980s, researchers at the IIIEE took part in developing strategies for ISO Type 1 eco-labels and participated among others in the feasibility study for the EU eco-label. The IIIEE has also taken part in most of the major evaluations of the Nordic Swan eco-labelling and is closely cooperating with the Nordic labelling and the Global Eco-labelling Network (GEN). An IIIEE researcher also introduced environmental product declarations in 1988 (in Swedish: miljövarudeklarationer) that were later developed into today's ISO Type 3 eco-labels. Ongoing research focuses on the links between various information systems.
Contacts: Åke Thidell and Thomas Lindhqvist

Waste policy and waste prevention
From the very beginning, the IIIEE was active in researching and developing waste policies, in particular, related to recycling, and waste minimisation approaches for industries and organisations. This work continues in various forms. The IIIEE is a member of the European Topic Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production and is in this context involved in a number of projects related to waste management, recycling and waste prevention. Since its inception, the IIIEE is also active in projects in Central and Eastern Europe and participates in the spreading and development of various environmental approaches in these countries, especially in the Baltic States, Poland, Belarus, the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Moldova. Waste prevention and waste management play an important role in many of these projects. Today we are active in most of these countries through major projects focusing on developing Extended Producer Responsibility in Belarus, facilitating waste-related investments in several of the countries and developing environmental education in the Russian Federation.
Contacts: Andrius Plepys, Naoko Tojo and Thomas Lindhqvist

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