Step 5: Engage Stakeholders to Close Priority Gaps

2.6 Step 5: Engage Stakeholders to Close Priority Gaps

2.6.1 Purpose

1Plastics data is scattered across sectors and organisations in a way that no single agency will ever hold on its own — government departments, industry, waste management operators, the informal sector, research institutions, and civil society each hold a piece of the picture. Step 5 is where the lead agency goes out and engages the stakeholders who hold the missing pieces, using the priority list from Step 4 as a specific ask, rather than a general request for information. This is the step where stakeholder engagement is a dedicated effort in its own right, distinct from the light stakeholder scan already carried out alongside data identification in Step 1.

2.6.2 Key Actions

1. 1Translate the priority gap list from Step 4 into a specific data request for each relevant stakeholder.
2. 2Carry out full stakeholder mapping and analysis for the relevant sectors, building on the initial list from Step 1: desktop research, initial consultations, and snowball identification to find less visible data-holders, including in the informal sector.
3. 3Establish or activate structured engagement mechanisms, such as bilateral requests, sector working groups, or a multi-stakeholder forum, to request and receive the missing data.
4. 4Record what is received, from whom, and under what data-sharing terms, and note which stakeholders should also review the improved Inventory in Step 6.
5. 5Conduct several rounds of contact with the same stakeholder before a firm data-sharing commitment is reached; treat the priority list from Step 4 as the start of a relationship to be built over multiple engagements, not a single request-and-response exchange.

2.6.3 Outputs

1Data or firm commitments to provide data against the priority gaps, including a documented, lasting stakeholder engagement mechanism that continues beyond this one round. This feeds directly into Step 6.

2.6.4 Detail and supporting guidance

1A stakeholder, for the purposes of this Handbook, is any individual, institution or organisation that holds plastics-related data, needs it, or is otherwise affected by how it is collected and used. Many stakeholders do both at once. A municipal waste department, for instance, generates its own collection data and also relies on national statistics to plan its services. Therefore, this Handbook does not draw a hard line between “producers” and “users” of data. What matters in practice is mapping the different interests, capacities and constraints each stakeholder brings, not which side of an artificial line they sit on.

Box 2.5: Grounding Stakeholder Engagement in the Literature

The stakeholder engagement approach set out in this Handbook draws on established thinking in environmental governance.

Reed (2008) frames stakeholder participation as varying in depth and intensity — from one-way information-sharing through to full collaboration in decision-making — and argues that effective engagement starts with systematic identification of stakeholders and a clear understanding of their differing interests, capacities and power, rather than a single uniform activity applied to everyone.

This power/interest-based approach to mapping has been applied directly in national plastics value chains. Gerassimidou et al. (2025) use structured stakeholder mapping to identify and prioritise external actors across Indonesia’s plastics system, distinguishing stakeholders by influence and interest so that engagement effort is targeted where it is most needed.

Stakeholder analysis can also be used further upstream, to shape engagement itself. Scrich et al. (2024) show how it can inform the framing of collaborative governance arenas, helping identify who should be brought together and around what shared problem before a forum is convened.

Once stakeholders are at the table, Emerson, Nabatchi and Balogh’s (2012) integrative framework for collaborative governance describes how engagement becomes durable joint action through cycles of principled engagement, shared motivation and shared capacity beyond a single data-request round.

2.6.5 Mapping stakeholders systematically

1Table 2.16 sets out a suggested three-phase process for a thorough stakeholder mapping exercise, building on the light scan already carried out in Step 1.

2Table 2.16. A three-phase stakeholder mapping process.

Phase	Activities	Key outputs
Phase 1: Desktop research	Identify relevant government agencies. Analyse import/export databases. Review business registries for plastics-related enterprises. Map waste management service providers. List active NGOs and research institutions.	Initial stakeholder database. Sector mapping. Preliminary contact list. Gap identification.
Phase 2: Initial consultations	Interview key government agencies. Meet with industry associations. Consult municipal waste departments. Engage civil society networks.	Validated stakeholder list. Key contact persons. Initial relationship-building. Refined understanding of the value chain.
Phase 3: Snowball identification	Ask each stakeholder to identify others. Map informal-sector networks. Identify less visible actors in the value chain. Verify and validate the stakeholder list.	Comprehensive stakeholder map. Informal-sector contacts. Complete value-chain coverage. Final stakeholder database.

Stakeholder categories

1Table 2.17 summarises stakeholder groups with particular data relevance across the plastics life cycle (Figure 2.4). Engagement approaches should be tailored to the specific circumstances and challenges of each group, rather than applied uniformly.

2Table 2.17. Stakeholder categories, the data they hold, and what to expect when engaging them.

Category	Typical entities	Data they can provide	Engagement considerations
Production and import	Primary producers — polymer manufacturers and pre-production pellet producers (including upstream petrochemical or gas-to-plastics feedstock suppliers, where relevant). Product manufacturers — packaging, consumer goods, and construction material producers. Importers — raw material and finished-goods importers, traders.	Production volumes by polymer type; domestic sales and export volumes. Product output by category; plastic content percentages; distribution patterns. Import volumes by HS code; country of origin; end-use sector.	Commercial confidentiality is a common barrier. Sector representation and data systems vary widely between companies. Informal importers and traders are harder to capture through formal channels.
Distribution and retail	Distributors and wholesalers — the intermediaries between producers and retailers. Retailers — supermarkets, markets, specialty stores, and online/cross-border e-commerce sellers.	Sales volumes; geographic distribution; customer types. Sales data by product; packaging volumes; consumer behaviour, including whether goods are sourced through local markets or online/international channels.	Record-keeping is often limited, and some distributors are reluctant to disclose sales data. The informal retail sector and high transaction volumes make full coverage difficult.
Consumption and waste generation	Households (by income level and rural/urban location). Commercial — hotels, restaurants, offices, shopping centres, and tourism-related consumption (including short-term rental platforms and festivals, which can be significant contributors). Institutional — government buildings, schools, hospitals.	Consumption patterns; waste generation rates; disposal practices. Procurement data; waste volumes; current practices. Procurement records; specialised waste streams; disposal contracts.	Achieving genuinely representative sampling — across income groups, geography and season — is the goal; the risk to guard against is biased or unrepresentative sampling, not sampling itself. Tenant and staff turnover in commercial settings, and multiple departments in institutional settings, can disrupt consistent reporting.
Collection and recovery	Formal collectors — municipal services, licensed contractors. Informal collectors — waste pickers, itinerant buyers, cooperatives.	Collection volumes; route coverage; material recovery. Material flows; recovery rates; price information.	Incomplete weighing and mixed waste streams affect formal-sector data quality. Informal-sector engagement requires trust-building and should also account for open burning as well as open dumping, which remain common in some areas, including as a fuel source (Wilson et al., 2006).
Processing and disposal	Recyclers — mechanical and chemical recyclers, exporters of recovered material. Disposal facilities — landfills, incinerators, dumpsites.	Input volumes; output products; technology capacity. Receipt volumes; waste composition; leakage estimates.	Informal processing operations and variable quality data are common. Record-keeping at disposal sites is often poor, and confidentiality concerns can affect willingness to share data.

3A note on units: when comparing data across stakeholder groups, check whether figures are reported by weight or by volume before combining them. The two are not interchangeable and mixing them without conversion is a common source of error.

2.6.7 Data-sharing agreements and confidentiality

Box 2.6: Securing data that stakeholders are reluctant to share

Commercial confidentiality is one of the most consistent barriers raised by industry stakeholders and is not a minor administrative detail. It often requires legal and technical work to resolve properly.

• 1Use a memorandum of understanding (MoU) or similar agreement to set out what data will be shared, how it will be used, and how confidentiality will be protected.
• 2Anonymise or aggregate commercially sensitive figures (for example, reporting sector totals rather than company-level figures) where individual disclosure is not achievable (UN Statistical Commission, 1994/2014).
• 3Where the country has legislative levers available, such as reporting obligations under environmental, waste, or producer-responsibility law, these can give the lead agency clear authority to request data, rather than relying solely on voluntary cooperation. Where no such legislation exists yet, this should be noted as an input to Step 7.
• 4Reputational risk is a distinct barrier from commercial confidentiality: a research partner or civil-society monitor holding sensitive findings (for example, data that names or implicates specific companies) may withhold or delay sharing them for fear of backlash, even where the data itself is not commercially confidential. Where this applies, the lead agency may need to offer an institutional publication channel or other legal cover before the data will be shared or released (Delmas & Burbano, 2011; Break Free From Plastic, 2023; Cowger et al., 2024).

This process takes time. Allow sufficient time in the engagement plan for legal review and negotiation, rather than expecting data-sharing agreements to be finalised in a single meeting.

2.6.8 Multi-stakeholder forums

1In practice, bilateral consultation is usually the most effective starting mechanism, since it allows the lead agency to understand each stakeholder’s specific position before bringing multiple parties together. Sector working groups and multi-stakeholder forums tend to work best once relationships and enough of a shared picture have been established, and are typically convened at specific milestones to agree standards, resolve a cross-cutting issue, or validate findings across stakeholders, rather than as a default first point of contact.

2A multi-stakeholder forum brings data producers and users together — including government agencies, industry associations, research institutions, civil society, waste management authorities, and the informal sector — in a neutral, inclusive space to:

• 3agree data standards, protocols, and quality-assurance mechanisms;
• 4develop mechanisms for data sharing and integration across sectors; and
• 5work through coordination challenges and institutional silos that no single agency can resolve alone (Ansell & Gash, 2008).

6Following these discussions, some form of agreement should be reached on who is responsible for what — which stakeholder collects, manages, shares, or reports on which data, how often, and through what channel.

7A well-designed engagement process mobilises a broad range of expertise and data, encourages investment in data infrastructure and capacity, and — through sharing methodologies and lessons learned — strengthens both the national data system and the wider international knowledge base on plastics monitoring (Reed, 2008). In practical terms, it improves the evidence base for policymaking, supports industry compliance and due diligence, and strengthens accountability across the plastics value chain.

8Figure 2.4. The plastics life cycle and its stakeholders, from petrochemical extraction through design and production, distribution and consumption to end of life. Source: GRID-Arendal, 2023.

9[Figure file not yet in the repository — GRID-Arendal, 2023..]

Common challenges

1Engaging a diverse set of stakeholders and building durable data-governance arrangements requires sustained effort. The following challenges should be acknowledged directly rather than overlooked.

2Table 2.18. Common challenges in stakeholder engagement and data governance.

Challenge category	Specific challenges
Institutional and coordination	Data silos between institutions and sectors that limit information-sharing (Dawes, 1996). Sustaining stakeholder engagement over time, not just for an initial round. Unclear or overlapping roles and mandates across agencies. Balancing data confidentiality with transparency and accessibility. Unclear data ownership and chain of custody, such that data collected by one organisation does not reliably reach the decision-makers who need it (Khatri & Brown, 2010).
Capacity and technical	Limited technical capacity to collect, manage, analyse and share data. Shortage of expertise to interpret and communicate complex data appropriately. Interoperability gaps between different data systems. Keeping systems functional as institutional arrangements change. The most granular, valuable data often sits with the least-resourced stakeholders (for example, civil society or youth-led groups), who may need dedicated support to sustain collection rather than being treated as a lower priority for engagement (Dias, 2016).
Political and economic	Commercial confidentiality and competitive sensitivity. Political sensitivity around some data (for example, illegal dumping). Securing sustainable, long-term funding rather than one-off project funding. Political and public acceptance of enforcement measures.
Engagement and communication	Inconsistent public engagement and messaging. Lack of standardised definitions and methodologies, nationally and internationally (UNEP, 2024). Communicating effectively across stakeholder groups with very different technical backgrounds.