"The planet is swimming in discarded plastic”: How do circular economy policy statements affect corporate engagement in addressing plastic pollution?

Refk Selmi

Economics Bulletin, 2025, vol. 45, issue 1, 332 - 343

Abstract: With the global economy only 7.2% circular, strong collaboration among diverse stakeholders becomes increasingly required to tackle plastic pollution. Aware of the role of businesses as key stakeholders in designing new forms of resource use, this study seeks to answer how publicly announced circular economy (CE) policies affect the businesses' engagement against plastic waste. For this purpose, an event study methodology is used to evaluate differences in abnormal returns of large, mid and small-cap securities across 23 developed markets and 24 emerging markets - considered aligned with the overall objective of managing plastic waste and promoting circularity. The findings reveal that all companies react positively to CE policy announcements though with varying extent. Specifically, the plastic transition index appears more responsive to the CE Action Plans incorporating the product's whole life cycle into the waste management system (in particular, Australia, Danemark, France, Germany, South Africa). It is also shown that the European Union's initiatives introducing both legislative and non-legislative measures targeting areas have led to a decline in systematic risk for the plastic transition index. Overall, the results highlight that public awareness and support are pivotal factors in changing businesses' behaviour and thus can be crucial for the success of CE and waste policies.

Keywords: Circular economy policy announcements; Plastic transition Index; abnormal returns; Systematic risk; Event-study methodology. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G1 Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-03-30
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2025/Volume45/EB-25-V45-I1-P31.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: "The planet is swimming in discarded plastic": How do circular economy policy statements affect corporate engagement in addressing plastic pollution? (2025)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-24-00199

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economics Bulletin from AccessEcon
Bibliographic data for series maintained by John P. Conley ().