Step 7: Institutionalise and Sustain the System

2.8 Step 7: Institutionalise and Sustain the System

2.8.1 Purpose

1A national plastics data system only lasts if it has real institutional backing and the resources to match. Step 7 ensures that the provisional arrangements from Step 1 are turned into something durable, with a proper mandate, a functioning team, and agreed coordination across the institutions responsible for different end uses of the Inventory, as well as embedded technical capacity to keep the data system reliable, accurate and improving over time.

2.8.2 Key Actions

1Secure a durable institutional mandate and resources, now backed by a demonstrated working Inventory.
2Establish or confirm implementation capacity, including the technical team and supporting infrastructure needed to sustain the work.
3Agree a coordination mechanism across the institutions responsible for different end uses of the Inventory.
4Embed the work in legislation and policy commitments; sustain the stakeholder engagement mechanism from Step 5; keep investing in capacity development and digitalisation; and set a regular update cycle.

2.8.3 Outputs

1A durably mandated, adequately resourced plastics data system, with agreed cross-ministry coordination, producing statistics on a regular cycle, and positioned to develop a Plastics Account aligned with the SEEA.

2.8.4 Detail and supporting guidance

Securing a mandate and resources

1Without a clear mandate, an agency has no real authority to compel data provision or enforce reporting. Without a designated lead, coordination becomes fragmented. Without adequate, durable funding, even a well-designed system will not survive beyond its first pilot phase. Funding constraints are one of the most common reasons national data systems stall after an initial period of activity, and this point should be given serious attention rather than treated as a minor detail. Securing all three before expanding stakeholder engagement builds credibility with data providers and gives the system the stability it needs to last.

2Identify existing mandates and authorities — check which agencies already have legal authority to collect plastics-related data, and whether gaps can be closed through minor legislative amendments or administrative arrangements.
3Clarify lead-agency responsibilities — decide which agency is best placed to coordinate plastics data collection across the value chain, typically the Ministry of Environment, the National Statistics Office, or a waste management authority, depending on the country’s own institutional structure.
4Map current agency roles — document who already collects relevant data (customs for imports, industry ministries for production, municipalities for waste) and look for ways to coordinate within existing structures rather than building a parallel system.
5Assess data-sharing mechanisms — review how agencies currently exchange data, and agree standard formats, timelines, quality checks and contact points where this is not yet working well.
6Secure financing — fund not only the initial system build but its ongoing operation, including a dedicated budget line for regular reporting; a system that depends on one-off project funding is not sustainable.
7Evaluate institutional capacity and readiness — check whether current staffing, technical systems and coordination arrangements are enough for comprehensive plastics data work, as a diagnostic for where to invest, not as a case for restructuring the institution itself.

Box 2.8: Institutional readiness checklist

Before scaling up a national plastics data system, it is worth checking readiness across the following areas:

8Is there a clear mandate or legal authority to collect and manage plastics data?

9Is adequate budget allocated for data collection, system development, and ongoing maintenance?

10Are data-sharing agreements or authority in place across the relevant agencies?

11Is the necessary IT infrastructure available to support a data management system?

12Are partnerships established with key stakeholders, including the informal sector?

13Is staff with the relevant technical capacity available or accessible?

14Are there existing data systems that can be built on or integrated with, rather than duplicated?

Countries that identify gaps in any of these areas are encouraged to address them as part of implementation planning, rather than proceeding without resolving them.

Establishing implementation capacity

1A dedicated team, with clear roles and appropriate skills in data management, stakeholder facilitation and plastics value-chain knowledge, is what turns a mandate into working practice. The team’s size and structure should match the country’s own resources and the complexity of its plastics sector. Investing in this capacity early has a direct, positive effect on how well Step 5’s stakeholder engagement and Step 6’s data collection are carried out.

Coordinating across multiple end uses

1Basel Convention Reporting, EPR schemes and national policy commitments rarely sit with the same institution. Basel Convention Reporting is usually coordinated through the national Basel Convention focal point (commonly the Ministry of Environment); EPR schemes are usually administered by the environment or trade/industry ministry, or a dedicated producer-responsibility organisation; and national policy commitments — including the INC process, SDG reporting and national reduction targets — usually require coordination across several ministries rather than a single owner.

Box 2.9: A national body to govern plastics data

The strongest long-term arrangement is a single, formally mandated and legally recognised national body to govern plastics data across ministries and agencies. Because plastics material flows cut across environment, industry, trade, customs, statistics, municipal, and sometimes health and fisheries institutions, a body with legal standing is what makes cross-sectoral participation and long-term continuity possible, rather than dependent on any one individual or political cycle. Such a body would typically be responsible for:

2oversight of plastics data collection, validation, and reporting;

3coordinating data flows across ministries and agencies;

4setting national data standards, definitions, and methodologies;

5managing digital reporting platforms and data-sharing agreements;

6ensuring continuity beyond changes in government; and

7serving as the national focal point for regional and global reporting — for example, under the UN Global Plastics Treaty process.

Where a country is not yet ready to establish a body with this full remit, the coordination mechanism agreed in this step should still name a lead convenor and a clear escalation path, so that cross-ministry issues have somewhere to go rather than stalling.

2.8.5 Ongoing plastics data collection and reporting

1By working through this Handbook, a country will have improved plastics data for at least some categories. Continuing to build data across the full life cycle — from production through to disposal and leakage into the environment — is what turns those improvements into a Plastics Data Inventory. Where data categories can be reproduced periodically using an agreed, repeatable methodology, it becomes part of a Plastics Account. An ongoing, effective system for this rests on four elements.

1. Legislation and commitments

1Plastics data collection holds up best when it is anchored in legislation, covering:

2Responsibility — clear legal mandates for data collection, with specified obligations for different agencies (for example, defined reporting duties for producers, importers, and waste handlers).
3Reporting rules — thresholds, frequencies and deadlines aligned with policy needs.
4Verification — procedures with proportionate penalties for non-compliance.
5Commercial protection — protecting commercial sensitivity while still enabling public access to aggregate statistics.
6International alignment — consistency with international commitments such as the forthcoming Global Plastics Treaty.

7Countries with mature systems typically embed plastics data reporting in broader producer-responsibility legislation, waste management regulation, or a dedicated plastics monitoring law.

8International examples: the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive requires member states to report detailed packaging waste data by material, reinforced by the 2019 Single-Use Plastics Directive. South Korea’s 2003 Act on the Promotion of Saving and Recycling of Resources established a comprehensive EPR system with mandatory producer and importer reporting, producing one of the world’s most detailed plastics datasets. Canada’s 2022 federal plastics registry requires detailed reporting from manufacturers, importers and users above set thresholds, now the basis for national reduction targets.

2. Ongoing stakeholder engagement

1Successful monitoring systems keep talking to their data providers and users, through advisory committees overseeing methodology and reporting formats; industry working groups on sector-specific measurement challenges; feedback mechanisms that let data providers shape reporting improvements; user forums that keep statistics relevant to policymakers, businesses and researchers; and international knowledge-exchange networks. Sustained engagement of this kind is what keeps reporting quality up and builds ownership of the system beyond the statistics agency itself. It is the same engagement mechanism built in Step 5, kept running rather than wound down.

2International examples: the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation (APCO) runs a collaborative model where industry, government and civil society jointly develop packaging data regulation. The UK Plastics Pact brings together over 200 stakeholders across the value chain on shared metrics and reporting, including working groups on specific measurement challenges such as plastic in composite materials.

3. Capacity development

1Ongoing data collection needs continued investment in people: training on data collection methods, validation and statistical analysis; technical support for reporting entities; standard operating procedures and methodological guidance; knowledge transfer between experienced and new staff; international exchange with other countries’ statistical offices; and research partnerships with academic institutions. Good capacity development develops both technical statistical skills and domain knowledge of plastics materials, products and waste systems — neither is sufficient on its own.

2International example: Eurostat’s European Statistical Training Programme (ESTP) runs specialised courses on waste statistics, including modules on plastic waste characterisation and material flow accounting.

4. Digitalisation

1Modern systems use digital tools to simplify reporting and gain more value from the data collected: secure online reporting platforms in place of paper submissions; automated validation checks and APIs for direct data transfer from company systems; integration with other databases such as customs data or business registries, to reduce reporting burden; and, increasingly, machine learning for pattern detection, dashboards for accessible data visualisation, blockchain for supply-chain traceability, and mobile applications for field data collection.

2Digitalisation should be pursued for data quality and accessibility, not efficiency alone. Countries can fund this through environmental fees on plastic products, a share of waste management budgets, or international funding directed at plastic pollution reduction and circular-economy initiatives.

3International example: Germany’s LUCID packaging register lets producers register and report packaging data digitally, with automated validation and visualisation tools for reporters and regulators alike.

2.8.6 Developing a Plastics Account

1A well-established plastics data inventory is a good foundation for moving on to developing a Plastics Account. Once the main flow categories are populated, the figures have been cross-checked for consistency, and the inventory is updated on a regular cycle, countries may consider taking this step. It supplies the coverage and the data quality an account depends on. Building an account before the inventory is stable can risk reproducing the same coverage gaps and inconsistencies the account is meant to resolve.

2This Handbook does not set out the technical detail needed to build a full Plastics Account. That is a substantial undertaking that lies beyond this Handbook’s scope. Countries ready to take this step could find valuable guidance in the UNITAR/UNEP Statistical Guideline for Measuring Flows of Plastic Throughout the Life Cycle — a methodology, developed jointly by UNITAR and UNEP with national statistical offices and other experts across UN Member States, that sets out how to build physical supply-use tables for plastic within the SEEA framework, covering plastic supply, use and waste accounting in turn. Waste accounts or plastics accounts already developed by a few countries, described below, offer further practical reference points.

3A Plastics Account differs from an inventory in that it applies a standardised accounting methodology to guarantee full coverage of material flows within a clearly defined boundary, closing the blind spots that individual data-collection exercises can leave behind. Once a country is ready to build one, it could draw on this Handbook, the UNITAR/UNEP Statistical Guideline, and the inventory already in place as starting points for drafting a dedicated methodology document. An account built on a standardised framework can be linked to national economic accounts, supporting analysis of how plastic flows relate to broader economic indicators.

Grounding an account in the SEEA framework

1The internationally agreed framework for this work is the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), and specifically its Central Framework for material flow accounts and physical supply-use tables. A physical supply-use table records, for a given material, three types of flow — natural inputs drawn from the environment, products moving through the economy, and residuals discarded to the environment or to waste management. These are set against columns for each industry (classified under ISIC), households, capital formation and trade. The table must balance. Total supply of the material in a given period equals total use, meaning every tonne of plastic entering the economy through domestic production or imports must be tracked through to where it leaves the economy, whether by export, by accumulation in the stock of goods still in use, or by disposal as a residual.

Examples in practice

1A small number of countries have already built material or waste accounts under SEEA that cover plastics. These show what an account can look like once assembled, and how it can be built from data systems many statistical offices already maintain in some form.

2Statistics Canada compiles a pilot physical flow account for plastic material, tracing plastic from domestic production and imports through use to its end-of-life fate — recycling, incineration, landfill or environmental leakage — broken down by resin type, product category and province. It draws on Canada’s existing supply-use tables together with industry surveys and waste-management statistics, rather than a dedicated new collection exercise.
3Statistics Denmark has compiled a complete physical supply-use table for plastics, covering raw and processed plastics, plastics embedded in composite products, and both sorted and mixed plastic waste, disaggregated by industry and household final demand. The physical supply-use table was compiled first, from Denmark’s existing material flow accounts and national accounts classifications. A plastics account and a set of circular material use rate indicators were then derived from it as a further stage.
4The Australian Bureau of Statistics produces an annual Waste Account within the SEEA Central Framework, structured as physical supply and use tables for solid waste across three sources (municipal, commercial and industrial, and construction and demolition) and five management fates (landfill, recycling, energy recovery, treatment and other disposal). It is compiled from Australia’s existing National Waste Report, a dedicated business survey of waste-intensive industries, and international trade statistics, with waste allocated to industries in proportion to their intermediate use of the relevant products, taken from existing input-output tables.

5In each case, the account was built by restructuring or extending data systems the country already maintained — supply-use tables, waste reports, business surveys, trade statistics — rather than by starting a new data collection programme. This is the same principle behind the sequencing set out at the start of this section. A well-established inventory is largely what an account needs. The remaining work is organising that same information into the SEEA’s supply-and-use structure and closing the specific gaps that structure exposes.

Next steps

1Once a country’s plastics data inventory is established and quality-assured, the next steps toward a Plastics Account are to:

2Map inventory categories to SEEA physical flow categories (natural inputs, products, residuals) and to the ISIC industry classification, identifying where existing categories need to be split or regrouped to fit.
3Identify a lead statistical or environmental agency, typically the national statistical office working jointly with the environment ministry, to hold formal responsibility for compiling and publishing the account. This can build directly on the national governance body described earlier in this chapter.
4Pilot a simplified physical supply-use table for plastics, starting with the largest flows (for example, production or imports, and end-of-life disposal) before extending it to smaller or more complex flows such as plastics embedded in composite products.
5Draft the methodology document described above, fixing definitions, responsibilities and processes before the account moves into regular production.