The focus on circular economy legislation is intensifying. The EU has set a high bar, introducing shared multinational circular initiatives and goals for member states to implement. But wherever companies operate, compliance with policies that encourage zero waste is now essential.

A top priority for regulators? Action on plastics and packaging. Society wants rapid change: 44% of consumers want retailers to take action and 40% will pay more for recyclable packaging. Governments are responding with new regulation.

The result: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) fees and plastic taxes are much more common.

In the EU, 25 countries have EPR fees

400+ EPR schemes in use globally

A big challenge for business? The EPR landscape is growing more complex every day. And attempting to manage this regulatory patchwork is impossible with current systems.

• No dynamic tracking or insights by market
• Manual data collection and estimation of material volumes
• Static, inflexible redesign simulations.

Effective compliance with EPR regulations, SAP and Accenture have developed a holistic solution.

SAP Responsible Design and Production helps ensure compliance and save EPR-linked costs:

• Data collation – on production, recipes, logistics, materials and sales
• Checking volumes of materials and assessing impacts
• Measuring and managing EPR reporting forms, fees and payments
• Reporting for financial and sustainability reports.

Available as-a-Service, the solution benefits include:

• Designed for openness, security, and native integration
• Works with either SAP ECC or S/4HANA
• Standard EPR declaration reports
• Interfaces for packaging data from third-parties
• Producer-specific declarations using SAP Analytics Cloud.

Your business is entering the circular economy. Our solution helps to make the transition as rapid, efficient, and seamless as possible – for many stakeholders.