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September 29, 2026 · Del Razo & Rábago Consultores Ambientales

Circular Economy and Extended Producer Responsibility: The New Regulatory Landscape for Businesses

By Jessica Labra Granados, Senior Associate at Del Razo & Rábago Consultores Ambientales

For years, corporate environmental compliance regarding waste has focused, to a large extent, on what happens once a material stops being useful: how it is stored, who transports it, what treatment it undergoes, and what its final destination is. The circular economy, however, shifts that conversation to an earlier stage: how the product is designed, how long it retains its value, and how to keep it in use or reincorporate its components into new production processes.

In Mexico, this shift took on a new dimension with the publication of the General Law on Circular Economy (“LGEC”) on January 19, 2026. This Law incorporated Extended Producer Responsibility (“EPR”), Circular Management, and the design of mechanisms for gradual implementation by productive sector or product, among other measures. The change is significant for businesses because environmental responsibility no longer focuses solely on waste, but instead becomes linked to decisions made throughout the product’s life cycle.

The practical scope of this new framework covers a new logic of circularity in waste management, management plans, and the responsibilities of producers, consumers, and authorities.

I. From Waste to Life Cycle: Circular Economy and EPR

The starting point of the circular economy is its critique of the linear model of production and consumption (produce, use, and discard) and of the loss of value that occurs when materials and products leave the economic system prematurely. Contemporary literature on circularity insists that the objective is to design systems capable of retaining the value of products and materials for as long as possible, through strategies such as reuse, repair, refurbishment and, ultimately, recycling.

EPR emerged within that logic. Thomas Lindhqvist formalized the concept in the early 1990s as a strategy aimed at reducing the total impact of products by extending producer responsibility throughout the product’s life cycle, with particular attention to take-back, recovery, recycling, and final disposal. He also distinguished among different forms of responsibility (economic, physical, informative, and liability-based), noting that extending responsibility does not mean the manufacturer must physically carry out every post-consumer activity.

In practice, that responsibility can consist of financing the management scheme, organizing it, taking on operations directly, or participating in individual or collective systems; however, the regulatory purpose is twofold: to improve the recovery of products at the end of their useful life and to generate signals so that design decisions reduce costs and impacts.

II. From the European Experience to Mexico’s New Framework

Spain developed the logic of the circular economy in Law 7/2022. This law makes it possible to establish, by product stream, obligations related to eco-design, take-back, information, deposit systems, financing, and the organization of management; it also regulates registries, audits, transparency, and oversight. The Spanish experience is a useful reference because it shows that EPR works through rules that determine who is responsible, for which products, with what targets, with what information, and under what financial and control mechanisms. Spanish legal scholarship even distinguishes between a broad conception of producer responsibility and a stricter one, focused on financial responsibility over the waste stage.

Mexico, in the General Law for the Prevention and Integrated Management of Waste (“LGPGIR”), had already incorporated responsibility within management plans as instruments to organize the prevention, valorization, and management of certain waste streams. Relevant examples also existed at the local level: Querétaro, for instance, regulated extended responsibility plans, collection, recovery, and valorization targets, and individual or collective systems; while Mexico City introduced instruments such as the Circularity Assessment and the Circularity Seal.

The LGEC reorganizes and expands this conversation. Its definition of EPR establishes that the producing or importing party is responsible for its product throughout its life cycle, under the terms of the Circular Management plan it registers with the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (“SEMARNAT”), and states that this implementation will be gradual, through general EPR agreements by productive sector, product, or both. Once an agreement becomes applicable, the producers and importers covered by it must prepare their Circular Management plan and apply for registration.

Circular Management must integrate environmental, functional, economic, and social aspects throughout a product's life cycle and, among other elements, incorporate a life-cycle analysis, circularity mechanisms, and targets and indicators. When evaluating an application for registration, the authority must consider whether the product already has a management plan under the LGPGIR and recognize, where applicable, existing authorizations or information.

At the business level, Articles 36 and 37 of the LGEC require productive sectors to generate or develop products with circular design where environmentally, technically, and economically viable, and to organize, promote, and, where applicable, finance the circular economy schemes for the products they generate or import, in accordance with the applicable implementation agreements.

III. Changes for Businesses

The first change is one of approach: for a company, compliance analysis will begin with the design of the products it places on the market — what materials it uses, what information it keeps about them, and what happens once their useful life ends. This will become particularly important as the general EPR implementation agreements are issued, since those instruments will be the ones that define sectors, products, mechanisms, and compliance deadlines.

The second change is documentary: traceability gains greater regulatory value. Knowing the composition of materials, recovery schemes, the managers involved, the destination of materials, and the results achieved will not only make it possible to operate circularity mechanisms, but to prove them. As a result, production areas that traditionally worked separately will need to share information with greater consistency.

The third change is operational and contractual: companies will need to identify which of their obligations they can fulfill directly and which will require third parties or coordinating bodies. This requires reviewing contracts, recovery evidence, the performance of waste managers, and monitoring mechanisms; EPR, therefore, should be treated as a governance framework between the product and the value chain.

Mexico already has experiences that help illustrate this logic; for example, the Campo Limpio Program, which coordinates the collection of empty agrochemical containers among agricultural producers, distributors, and collection centers, and under which SENASICA keeps updated information on collection centers and triple-rinsing, puncturing, and hand-over practices. Although this program should not be confused with the LGEC’s new federal EPR regime, it does illustrate how post-consumption management requires coordination among those who manufacture, sell, use, and receive a product at the end of its use.

In this regard, secondary regulation will be decisive: although the decree issuing the LGEC provided for 180 calendar days to issue the corresponding regulations, as of this writing they had not yet been published. Their content will be especially important in clarifying the requirements and procedures for registering Circular Management plans, the compliance and environmental offset mechanisms, and the circular-economy audit procedures. These will be complemented by the general EPR implementation agreements, which must define, by sector or product, the applicable targets, indicators, methodologies, and circularity mechanisms.

Conclusions

The circular economy introduces a different way of viewing corporate environmental compliance: waste remains relevant, but now design, material selection, product lifespan, recovery, and the ability to demonstrate what happens to a product after its use take on greater importance.

EPR is one of the instruments that translates that logic into concrete responsibilities. International experience shows that its effectiveness depends on clear rules regarding who is obligated, targets, financing, information, oversight, and coordination. Mexico has chosen to build its own model, organized around Circular Management, gradual implementation, and sector-specific agreements, without displacing the instruments that already existed under the LGPGIR.

For businesses, the challenge consists of identifying products and materials, reviewing existing compliance instruments, improving traceability, and preparing reliable information to respond to obligations that will become increasingly specific. In this transition, circularity will stop being merely an environmental aspiration and will progressively become a variable of corporate compliance and management.

About the Author

Jessica Labra Granados is a Senior Associate at Del Razo & Rábago Consultores Ambientales. She is an attorney specialized in Environmental and Regulatory Law with 13 years of experience, including at PROFEPA. She designs and implements compliance strategies and risk management. She holds a law degree from UNAM and is currently pursuing a master's in Environmental Law at the University of Salamanca.

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