The paradigm of the green economy has contributed to raising the attention paid to developing sustainability-oriented strategies for supply chain (SC) management. The responsibility of producers to extend and reverse SCs is a critical and timely topic that captures increasing concerns over the way firms can adapt their business models to interlinking technical, socio-economic and environmental frameworks. This is particularly true when producers are not also reuse/recycle actors. By performing a critical review of the scientific literature on this field, this article develops nine elemental factors that can be considered for assessing the impacts of collaborative strategies as a means to implement extended producer responsibility (EPR) in open-loop SCs. The resulting conceptual framework provides EPR implementation guidance under different market conditions. Inter-organizational relationships are found to present both opportunities and threats that can be profitably managed under a systemic perspective. Implications for management and needs for further research are discussed.