Product recycling rate

With earlier environmental KPIs, the focus is often on reducing or recycling waste from operations. Product recycling rate extends that responsibility beyond the factory or office: it asks what happens to the products a business makes or sells when customers have finished using them.

When to use it

• Use it to answer the key performance question: “To what extent are we minimising the environmental impact of the products we produce or sell?”
• Include it in the corporate social responsibility perspective of a performance framework.
• Define the collection method, calculation, reporting frequency and data sources before comparing periods or organisations.
• Track progress against an explicit target, a credible industry benchmark or the organisation’s own trend.

Origins

This indicator grew out of waste-management practice and the development of extended producer responsibility: the principle that producers should help manage the environmental consequences of products after use. Governments, industry bodies and businesses subsequently translated that principle into collection, reuse and recycling measures. Product recycling rate is one practical KPI for monitoring the outcome.

What it is

Perspective: Corporate social responsibility perspective.

Key performance question: To what extent are we minimising the environmental impact of the products we produce or sell?

At the end of a product’s useful life, the preferred outcome is usually to recover its materials or preserve its value through reuse rather than send it to disposal. Manufacturers are increasingly expected to take responsibility for that outcome, while retailers and other sellers may also measure and disclose what happens to the products they place on the market.

Product recycling rate expresses the proportion of eligible products sold or reaching end of life that were recycled or reused during the measurement period. A useful definition must state the denominator, the geographic boundary, whether reuse counts, and whether the result is based on units, mass or material value.

How to use it

Measurement