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Product Stewardship Institute, Inc.
29 Stanhope Street
Boston, MA  02116www.productstewardship.us

"Product stewardship" is a principle that directs all participants involved in the life cycle of a product to take shared responsibility for the impacts to human health and the natural environment that result from the production, use, and end-of-life management of the product. The greater the ability of a party to influence the life cycle impacts of a product, the greater the degree of that party’s responsibility. The stakeholders typically include manufacturers, retailers, consumers, and government officials.

The product stewardship approach provides incentives to manufacturers to consider the entire life-cycle impacts of a product and its packaging - energy and materials consumption, air and water emissions, the amount of toxics in the product, worker safety, and waste disposal - in product design, and to take increasing responsibility for the end-of-life management of the products they produce.

The objective of product stewardship is to encourage manufacturers to redesign products with fewer toxics, and to make them more durable, reusable, and recyclable, and with recycled materials. Since waste disposal impacts and associated costs have been the basis for engaging manufacturers, attention has initially focused on waste management problems and solutions. However, the challenge of product stewardship is to move beyond disposal to facilitate a paradigm shift toward "zero waste" and “sustainable production."