Business leaders are pressing the UK government to release its long-delayed Circular Economy Growth Plan, according to a report from BusinessGreen.

The plan — a strategy document intended to set out how the government will support circular business models, secondary material markets and resource efficiency across the British economy — has slipped past its expected publication timetable. Companies that have aligned investment decisions, product design cycles and corporate sustainability commitments to the anticipated framework now face continued uncertainty over the policy signals that will shape those bets.

The delay matters for the recycling and secondary materials sector because the plan is expected to address the market conditions that determine whether reprocessed commodities can compete against virgin feedstocks. Producers, reprocessors and manufacturers have repeatedly argued that without clear government direction — on targets, incentives and potential regulatory obligations — capital allocation toward circular infrastructure stalls. Announced projects and board-level circularity pledges remain commitments with deadlines, not built capacity, until the policy backdrop firms up.

BusinessGreen reports that the calls for publication come from senior figures across UK industry, who argue the government's own growth agenda is undermined by the absence of the strategy. A circular economy plan that unlocks investment in remanufacturing, repair and materials recovery sits squarely within that agenda, they contend — the delay leaves companies unable to plan, and leaves the government's resource-security and decarbonisation objectives without an implementing instrument.

For the waste and recycling industry specifically, the hold-up compounds an already crowded regulatory docket. Producers and processors are simultaneously tracking extended producer responsibility reforms, deposit return schemes and consistency-in-collection requirements, each with its own compliance deadlines and cost implications. The Circular Economy Growth Plan was expected to knit these strands into a coherent industrial strategy for secondary materials; its absence leaves operators planning against a patchwork rather than a framework.

The business community's intervention puts the onus on ministers to commit to a publication date. Until the plan lands, the sector's next milestone remains the government's own decision on when — and in what form — the strategy finally emerges, and whether the commitments it contains arrive with the deadlines and enforcement mechanisms that industry says it needs to convert pledges into plant, throughput and tonnage.