Framing the environmental risks of plastics in times of crisis. The role of industry in the EU’s Circular Economy policy

Plastic is a commonly used material in our everyday life and is diversely applied across almost every industrial sector. Despite plastics’ multidimensional capabilities, the extent of its use creates environmental risks for society related to greenhouse gas emissions (climate change) and environmental pollution (chemical exposure, microplastics). The plastics industry is exposed to risks as well. The overwhelming share of fossil feedstock in the production process means a risk of resource scarcity in the event of significant suppliers dropping out. Also, the industry faces economic risks of stranded fossil assets due to potential future demand disruptions for plastic packaging or the growing supply of alternative materials. The European Union (EU) is attempting to address these risks under the Circular Economy (CE) umbrella. At the same time, the European plastics industry is constantly investing resources to influence this policy process. The literature has discussed that the EU’s CE discourse and policy are in a state of lock-in. In this lock-in, CE is primarily seen as a means to achieve “green” economic growth, potentially to the advantage of industry. Recently, the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine caused oil price fluctuations and disrupted supply chains leading to severe material shortages. We know from existing research that exogenous shocks such as Chernobyl or Fukushima have a disruptive potential. This workshop contribution questions whether we see a continued lock-in of the EU’s Circular Economy agenda, or whether recent crises have triggered change, also in terms of risk perceptions. To that end, the paper will study how environmental risks are framed in the policy documents issued by the European Commission and the public communication of two major industry associations between 2014 and 2022, drawing on computer-assisted qualitative text analysis. Moreover, the analytical framework of frame congruence is applied to capture the degree to which the European Commission’s policy frames correspond to the frames of the industry associations. The frame congruence of the pre-crises years 2014 to 2019 will be used as a baseline for the comparison with the crises years 2020, 2021, and 2022.