Stichting OPEN misses opportunities to accelerate circular transition with AVV application

A Binding General Agreement (AVV) is a far-reaching instrument: it grants a single producer responsibility organisation (PRO) a statutory monopoly position in the implementation of extended producer responsibility (EPR). In the Netherlands, several EPR systems have an active AVV, including Verpact for packaging and Stichting OPEN for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). Stichting OPEN has been the sole party implementing the EPR for WEEE since 2021; the first AVV was granted in that year for a period of five years and expires on 31 December 2025. For this reason, Stichting OPEN submitted a new Request for AVV in April 2025. At the same time, the Stichting OPEN system has not met the statutory collection targets for years.

With this article, we respond to Stichting OPEN's new Request for AVV and to the draft decision of the State Secretary for Infrastructure and Water Management. Our response focuses on four key points: (1) governance within Stichting OPEN, (2) the circularity ambition of the Action Plan 2025–2030, (3) the functioning of the current AVV instrument, and (4) the consultation procedure and the extent to which stakeholders can actually influence the draft decision currently on the table.

1 - Governance structure Stichting OPEN

Increasing attention is being drawn to the lack of inclusive decision-making within PROs. For example, municipalities have an unclear role, many service providers are dependent on the PROs, and it is difficult for the government to enforce. Therefore, there have been calls for some time for inclusive governance, where a broader group of chain actors is represented in the board of PROs. In order to assess Stichting Open's application, the governance structure is one of the elements we looked at.

The AVV Monitoring Report 2024 shows that Stichting OPEN is structured with a board, an advisory council, a purchasing B.V., and an alliance that serves as a chain cooperation partnership. The division of tasks is as follows. The board determines the rates and the budget and consists mainly of representatives of

producer trade organisations, including Stichting Lightrec, APPLIA Nederland Stichting E-waste Circulair (ANStEC), Stichting Zonne-energie Recycling Nederland (now merged into Holland Solar), and Stichting Metalelektrorecycling. The Advisory Council consists of representatives from social and academic organisations, such as ROVA, FNV, the Consumentenbond, Capgemini, and provides non-binding, strategic advice. The execution of purchasing and contracting is accommodated in Afvalbeheerstructuur AEEA B.V., managed by the purchasing manager at Stichting OPEN.

Although this structure is broadly set up on paper, there are a number of points in practice that warrant attention. Firstly, voting weights in the board are based on the number of products placed on the market represented by the parties, which means that larger producers have directly more influence on decision-making. Other chain parties, such as municipalities and repairers, have no formal decision-making power, even though they play an important role in achieving the statutory targets. This distribution of votes raises the question of whose interests are primarily being represented. Finally, the interests of a party like Miele or Bosch are indeed different from those of a party like Fairphone.

While Stichting OPEN does involve a broad group of stakeholders in projects and thematic developments through the Advisory Council and the Alliance, these consultative groups have no role in strategic decision-making. Involving a broader group of stakeholders in actual decisions ensures an appropriate balance of interests and offers significant opportunities to better utilise the opinions and expertise from within the chain.

In addition, there are signals of insufficient transparency in the tariff and cost structure within Stichting OPEN, which was indicated during the producers' council of ANStEC. The transparency of a PRO, especially one in a monopoly position, is essential to guarantee the availability of reliable information, clear financial agreements, and the possibility of enforcement.

The governance of Stichting OPEN is therefore formally broad in setup, but in practice dominated by producers, with limited transparency and insufficient participation of chain partners. There are still opportunities for improvement here, which are not being seized in the new AVV application.

2 - The Action Plan 2025-2030

Stichting OPEN has drafted an Action Plan 2025-2030 with fifteen priority actions, with which they expect to achieve the collection target of 85% discarded WEEE from Directive 2012/19 in 2028. This action plan has been added as an important component of the AVV request, as it forms part of the substantiation of effectiveness. Although the State Secretary already indicates in the draft decision that this action plan would be in line with the NPCE goals for life extension and high-quality recycling of, among other things, critical raw materials, in practice the plan focuses almost exclusively on collection, recycling, and takes minimal preparation for reuse into account.

The fifteen proposed measures are mainly located on the lower rungs of the R-ladder. Prevention, life extension, reuse, and circular design are not or only minimally elaborated. The actions around reuse are mainly logistical optimisations that facilitate reuse, but do not stimulate it; they barely focus on repair, refurbishment, or life extension. The vast majority of the actions are directed

at collection and recycling, which are useful for meeting the collection target, but do not contribute to achieving the higher R-strategies (prevention, life extension, reuse) in the chain. Including a mandatory reuse target for Stichting OPEN, as also proposed in the committee debate on circular economy in September 2025, could partially correct this. This could, for example, be incorporated in the announced revision of Directive 12/2019. However, the greater potential for Stichting Open lies in actively promoting circularity in the entire electronics chain, not just in the waste phase.

Concrete actions for this are therefore lacking in the action plan. This is remarkable because existing initiatives in the Netherlands, such as the Lang Leve Elektronica (LLE) coalition, demonstrate that measures in the user phase are indeed possible and effective. The LLE coalition is working on concrete solutions for better use and longer lifespan of appliances. These initiatives prove that when the chain is brought together, substantial circular gains can be made.

What is not in the Action Plan, but is mentioned in the Monitoring Report 2024, is that Stichting OPEN provides funding to Repair Café, participates in the LLE coalition, and has been involved in pilots by BKN. They are also project partners of the E-waste race, which focuses on education. These activities are valuable, but from their central position within the EPR system, a more proactive and pioneering role would be appropriate, with a first opportunity lying in the Circular Electronics Chain Taskforce set up by Stichting OPEN.

3 - The instrument of declaring binding on all parties

The key question is whether granting a monopoly position to one party with an AVV actually leads to better-performing EPR systems. So far, a clear answer to this question is lacking. In the case of Stichting Open, it appears that targets have not been met for years, while significant financial resources flow back to the producers. This completely goes against the 'polluter pays' principle.

In a letter from the State Secretary on the further development of EPR, it is acknowledged that concentration of power, as a result of an AVV, carries risks, including potential negative side effects for the market and competitive relations. The same letter also announces the EPR development process with the aim of ensuring more circularity in EPR, where Rijkswaterstaat is investigating the functioning of the AVV instrument itself in one of the five work packages. Results are expected to be sent to Parliament by the end of 2025.

Furthermore, research by Utrecht University highlights concerns about the representativeness of PROs to which producers are obliged to affiliate via an AVV. The study shows that not all producers feel well-represented in a monopoly PRO. The NVRD and its members also often have different interests than the PRO. Additionally, there are doubts about whether a monopoly PRO actually leads to better-performing EPR systems, as described in an earlier article by Fair Resource Foundation about Stichting OPEN.

Internationally, the Dutch approach is exceptional. In countries like Belgium (with Recupel for WEEE), producers can also submit an individual waste management plan, and affiliation with a single PRO is not mandatory. Although an exemption to the AVV can be requested in the Netherlands, the fact remains that an AVV is not an obvious component of EPR, but a policy choice in the Netherlands.

The assessment framework for an AVV is based on the criterion of effective waste management (Art. 15.36 of the Environmental Management Act). In practice, however, effectiveness is mainly interpreted as efficiently collected and recycled waste, while the higher rungs of the R-ladder are barely weighed. This is reflected in Stichting OPEN's Action Plan 2025–2030.

In the draft decision, the system has once again been assessed as effective because the Action Plan would make it plausible that the targets will be achieved in 2028 and because the AVV offers financial stability. However, this assessment is identical to the one in the previous AVV application, while the targets at that time were not met. This demonstrates that the effectiveness criterion is not applied sharply enough in practice, especially since the highest steps of the R-ladder are not included and there are few consequences when Stichting OPEN structurally fails to meet the targets. In the assessment, a critical look should therefore be taken at the objective and the lack of objectives before the label 'effective' can be granted.

4 - The consultation procedure

The procedure for an AVV application, laid down in Section 3.4 of the General Administrative Law Act, contains a consultation period of six weeks on the drafted draft decision, during which stakeholders can submit views. After this phase, the final decision is established, and lodging an appeal is then no longer possible.

Although the consultation period offers space for input, questions arise in practice about the actual degree of influence stakeholders have. The inspection period only takes place after a draft decision has already been made, in which the State Secretary has essentially already assessed the AVV.

This is reflected in Stichting OPEN's current application. Stichting OPEN submitted the application on 4 April 2025. After answering the request for completion, the signed agreement was delivered on 12 September 2025. The draft decision was published in November 2025, and a 6-week inspection period was opened. In this draft decision, the State Secretary has already established that:

• a majority of producers would be represented;

• the Action Plan 2025–2030 makes it sufficiently plausible that the targets will be met;

• the criterion of "effective waste management" has been met;

• and that the application complies with the Competition Act.

Because these assessments are already made before the consultation period, the question is how much space is left for meaningful input from other stakeholders. Research from Utrecht University points to similar problems with the AVV procedure: although formally anyone can submit views, parties are not involved in an equal manner in the creation of EPR schemes. The current AVV procedure for Stichting OPEN shows the same pattern. The majority of the substantive discussion takes place between Stichting OPEN and Rijkswaterstaat, and other stakeholders can only react at the end, when a decision is practically already prepared. The example of Stichting OPEN's AVV application is used here, but these arguments also apply to other EPR systems with an AVV.

This is reinforced by questions about the basis on which the decisions were made. For instance, on the point of competition, the assessment in the draft decision appears to be based on a legal analysis brought forward by Stichting OPEN itself, without a broader consultation of market parties. In addition, the results of the 'majority of producers' analysis deserve a closer calculation. To determine the majority, the calculation was based on:

A (number of producers supporting the request) / A + B (producers not supporting the request) + C (number of free riders) x 100%.

In this calculation, Stichting OPEN set the number of free riders (C) to zero, as the number is unknown. This is despite data provided by Stichting OPEN to Rijkswaterstaat showing that there are an estimated 1,876 already identified free riders active. When this group is included, the calculated representation drops from 91% to approximately 66%. The level of support on which the AVV application is based is then considerably lower.

Conclusions and recommendations

In the AVV application, Stichting OPEN seems to have failed to meet its own ambition: going from 'cute to scalable' reuse. Although promises are made, such as strengthening repair initiatives and intensifying cooperation in the Circular Electronics Chain Taskforce, concrete, enforceable actions are lacking in the AVV application and in the Action Plan 2025-2030 to shift the focus from the back end of the chain to the front end of the chain. In addition, promises were made by Stichting OPEN about providing input during the drafting of the AVV application, though it remains unclear to what extent broad stakeholder consultation actually took place.

We therefore have our questions regarding the draft decision on the AVV. We would have liked to see the State Secretary for Infrastructure and Water Management take a critical look in this assessment at how Stichting OPEN, in contrast to the current expiring AVV, intends to commit to accelerating the circular transition. In our view, this is a missed opportunity.

Furthermore, we would like to emphasise that the decision-making process around this and future AVV applications would benefit from a more critical weighing of governance, transparency, and representativeness. It is essential that the involvement of chain partners is not limited to a consultative 'check the box' exercise at the end of the process, but is secured early and structurally in the decision-making.

We therefore see important opportunities for improvement, both in the governance model and the activities of Stichting OPEN, and in the design and application of the AVV instrument itself.

Appendices

• 002 Request for AVV waste management contribution agreement WEEE

• 007 Annex 3_Note concerning general competition aspects

• 020 20250611 Request for addition PBAAV25002 AVV WEEE

• 033 Draft decision AVV WEEE 2025

• Answering questions RWS