The PRO Landscape: How Circular Action Alliance Is Shaping EPR

In most regulated industries, compliance infrastructure is fragmented — multiple service providers, competing platforms, jurisdictional specialists. In U.S. packaging EPR, one organization has emerged as the de facto national compliance backbone: the Circular Action Alliance (CAA). Understanding CAA's role, reach, and the structural incentives that produced its dominance is essential for any company building an EPR strategy.

CAA's Footprint Across Six States

CAA is a nonprofit, producer-led organization that serves as the approved Producer Responsibility Organization for packaging EPR in California, Colorado, Oregon, Minnesota, and Maryland — five of the seven states with enacted EPR laws. In Oregon, CAA was the only prospective PRO to submit a program plan to the state Department of Environmental Quality on April 1, 2024. CAA was approved for Colorado in May 2023, for California in January 2024, and confirmed by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in February 2025. In Maryland, CAA was selected in October 2023 to serve on the State Producer Responsibility Advisory Council. Most recently, CAA has been announced as the PRO in Washington, the seventh EPR state, bringing its coverage to six of seven enacted programs. Only Maine's Stewardship Organization selection remains outstanding, and CAA has indicated its intent to respond to Maine's RFP.

Why One PRO Dominates

The emergence of a single dominant PRO is not accidental — it reflects the structural economics of EPR compliance. Building the data systems, reporting infrastructure, and state-by-state regulatory relationships required to operate as a PRO involves substantial fixed costs. Producers, meanwhile, overwhelmingly prefer dealing with a single organization across multiple states rather than managing separate PRO relationships in each jurisdiction. This creates a network effect: as CAA gains approval in more states, it becomes more attractive to producers seeking harmonized compliance, which in turn strengthens CAA's position when applying for PRO status in additional states. The result is a self-reinforcing dynamic that favors consolidation.

Mandatory PRO Membership in Oregon and Minnesota

Two states — Oregon and Minnesota — have eliminated the individual compliance option entirely, making PRO membership mandatory for all covered producers. In Oregon under SB 582 and in Minnesota under HF 3911, producers cannot submit individual compliance plans; they must join a registered PRO. Since CAA is the sole registered PRO in both states, this effectively means CAA membership is a legal prerequisite for market access. In other states, producers theoretically have the option to submit individual compliance plans, but the practical complexity and cost of doing so make PRO membership the default path for all but the largest companies with dedicated regulatory teams.

The Antitrust Question

CAA's dominance has not gone unexamined. Mayer Brown, in its February 2026 analysis "EPR Packaging Laws Moving from Concept to Compliance," raised antitrust concerns about PRO coordination of recycling practices. The core question is whether conferring substantial regulatory authority on a private, producer-led organization — one that effectively sets fee schedules, determines material recyclability classifications, and coordinates industry-wide compliance — creates competition concerns. When a single PRO negotiates with recyclers, municipalities, and material recovery facilities on behalf of virtually all covered producers in a state, it wields significant market power. Companies and industry groups may need to carefully evaluate the governance structures of PROs and engage during rulemaking to ensure that fee-setting and operational decisions remain transparent and subject to regulatory oversight.

Maryland's Multi-PRO Experiment

Maryland's SB 901, signed May 13, 2025, introduced a deliberate counterpoint to single-PRO dominance by allowing multiple PROs to operate within the state. While CAA has been selected for the State Producer Responsibility Advisory Council, the multi-PRO framework means additional organizations could emerge to compete for producer participation. If Maryland's model proves operationally viable, it could influence future states to adopt similar structures, introducing price competition and service differentiation into what has otherwise been a monopoly market in each state. Whether multi-PRO systems create genuine competition or simply administrative complexity is one of the most important open questions in EPR implementation.

What This Means for Producers

For most producers, CAA membership is now or will soon be a compliance necessity in five to six states. The strategic questions are less about whether to join CAA and more about how to optimize within the system: understanding fee structures, engaging in eco-modulation opportunities to reduce per-unit costs, participating in rulemaking processes that shape PRO governance, and building the internal data infrastructure to generate accurate supply reports across all covered states. Producers with packaging in hard-to-recycle formats should pay particular attention to eco-modulation provisions, which can significantly affect fee levels based on material recyclability.

The Harmonization Opportunity

CAA's multi-state presence creates a potential path toward compliance harmonization that doesn't require federal legislation. If CAA can standardize reporting formats, fee calculation methodologies, and data submission platforms across its states, producers gain the functional equivalent of a national EPR framework through private-sector coordination rather than Congressional action. Whether this harmonization materializes depends on CAA's governance, the degree of state regulatory flexibility, and whether producers actively push for standardized processes. Emerger Strategies has observed that smart brands are already treating EPR as a data and risk management challenge rather than merely a sustainability initiative — and data management becomes substantially simpler when the reporting counterparty is the same organization across multiple jurisdictions.

Sources: CAA website; Proskauer (Oct 2025); Mayer Brown (Feb 2026); Holland & Knight (Jan 2026)

Constellation Insights, a division of Trash Club Ventures, provides strategic regulatory intelligence for brands, investors, and operators navigating the circular economy.