WHY MANUFACTURERS OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT (EEE) CREATE PRODUCER RESPONSIBILITY ORGANIZATIONS (PROS) TO COMPLY WITH THE WEEE DIRECTIVE? THE CASE OF ERP ITALIA SRL WITH FOCUS ON COSTS
Abstract
This paper investigates the role of collective organizations created by producers to comply with the WEEE Directive. There are
limited case studies on these producer responsibility organizations (PROs) despite the crucial role that they play in Extended
Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes. An important aspect in order to evaluate the efficiency of these compliance schemes is
the analysis of their internal costs including transaction costs. First of all, this research provides an understanding of the Italian
WEEE system for households WEEE. Then, it focuses on one compliance organization and how it deals with physical,
informative and financial responsibility that are different aspects of the EPR principle. We provide evidence on the costs incurred
by the compliance organizations. We briefly describe the transaction costs involved in operating a collective PRO in comparison
to individual scheme. We investigate the issue with the “ERP ITALIA S.R.L.” case study. This is one of the producer
responsibility organisations (PROs) operating in Italy and the only pan-European compliance scheme. This will allow future
comparative studies with the other branches of ERP across Europe.