Stakeholder Configurations as a Missing Dimension in Life Cycle–Based Circular Economy Analysis

Main Presenter:    Tabea Hagedorn 

Co-Authors:                                                  

Circular Economy (CE) encompasses strategies across the full life cycle of products. Recycling, as one key CE strategy, sits at the intersection of system-wide circularity ambitions and the legally governed management of end-of-life products. In highly regulated and multi-actor systems such as plastic packaging waste management, environmental outcomes depend not only on technological configurations, but also on governance structures, institutional responsibilities, and coordination mechanisms. Life cycle–based innovation in the circular economy therefore requires an explicit understanding of stakeholder interaction and system coordination (EU (2025); EASAC (2023)).
This presentation synthesizes insights from a current research project on mechanical plastic packaging recycling in Germany (KI³cycling) and a sector-specific stakeholder analysis of the German post-consumer plastic packaging waste management system. First, it outlines the status quo and current developments in plastic packaging recycling. Second, it maps relevant actor groups, their roles and interdependencies, prevailing coordination patterns, and key conflict potentials along the recycling value chain. The synthesis links these perspectives by examining how stakeholder configurations shape the real-world implementation of recycling strategies and the conditions under which interventions can be scaled.
The analysis indicates that stakeholders do not merely provide contextual background but actively shape life cycle–relevant decisions in operational and technical recycling processes, for example through access to data and infrastructure, incentive structures, and responsibility allocations. Fragmented coordination structures, asymmetric information access, and underrepresented actor groups emerge as critical factors constraining recycling performance and innovation pathways.
The contribution of this work lies in making stakeholder interaction explicit as a systematic dimension of life cycle–based analysis in circular economy contexts. Building on empirically grounded insights, it shows how stakeholder constellations can be used to interpret implementation constraints and intervention potentials in plastic packaging recycling. By linking stakeholder analysis to life cycle–relevant decision points, the contribution strengthens LCA as a decision-support tool for policy design and ex-ante assessment under real-world governance conditions.

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