One of the big obstacles to a sustainable future is the culture of disposability. For citizens of consumer societies, it is perfectly normal to ‘consume’ things. We use them, and when they are damaged or obsolete, or even if we’re just bored with them, they are thrown away. The result is mountains of discarded clothes, electronics and other items.
In a circular economy, resources are stewarded by keeping them in rotation rather than throwing them away. There are different ways to do that. One is to make things recyclable. You can also make them durable, so that they last longer in the first place. And you can make things easy to repair.
France has emerged as a leader on this latter strategy. In 2015 it introduced a law that banned ‘planned obsolescence’, which they defined as using deliberate techniques to limit the life of a product. (We’ve all experienced it – a new phone is fine for a year, and then the battery performance and speed go off a cliff, enticing you into buying a new one.)
This year France has introduced a new measure to encourage a culture of repair. New smartphones, laptops, TVs, washing machines, and lawnmowers will be assessed on how repairable they are, and the score will be displayed at the point of sale from 2022. If you’re in the market for a new device, the score out of ten will tell you how easy it will be to get it fixed.
The repairability index considers several different factors, such as the availability of repair manuals, how easy it is to take the device apart, and whether you can get spare parts. The plan is to expand on this by 2024 and include a durability rating alongside repairability.
All of this provides information to customers, so it’s a market driven initiative. People will be free to buy the shoddy throwaway versions if they want to, but at least they know what they’re getting. The biggest frustration is only finding out how repairable a product is when it goes wrong.
Hopefully, more people will begin to factor repairability into their shopping decisions, once it’s easier to do. It will also encourage the industry to up their game. Retailers that trade on quality won’t want to stock low-scoring products, and manufacturers will find them harder to sell.
Long term, companies will need to start considering durability and repairability as part of their design process. If they want a decent rating and a reputation for quality, they’ll need to provide manuals and invest in a spare parts network.
This investment in repair, across the whole country, will also create new jobs and new businesses in repair, new specialisms and training programmes.
It’s a little thing, a label on a product, but it could prove quite powerful. I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on it. It will be interesting to see if industry rolls with it or fights it, and whether consumers actually want to support repairability. I hope the British government will be following it too.
The Earthbound Report 
I wonder if an English language version will be available. After all, if the French publish such a list, we should be able to read it and apply it too.
Oh yes please! And I’ve only ever bought one new oven (electric & recently) but if I ever have to again I’ll want to know how easy it is to remove, clean and replace its three glass doors – horrendous job, worst job ever! Beware!
A welcome move that I have been asking for for years, however, it is sad that such an initiative was not included in the recent EU directive about repair-ability of appliances, which appeared to have been watered down through lobbying by mainly German manufacturers. So it is good that individual countries are moving in the right direction, but will we follow them?
I have always maintained and repaired my own stuff, and actively participate in our local Repair Café, which I helped set up back in 2014.
Just this last week I have repaired our nearly ten year old German made dishwasher. However, I had to buy a complete assembly for over £120 just because a couple of bearings had worn out, perhaps just £2 worth. The fact that I could get it apart (though not easy) to find the bearings suggest it would have been quite easy to design it to be split down to be able to change the bearings. Also another part looked to have been jammed by food particles, yet it was impossible to get at without essentially dismantling the whole machine. Fortunately it appears to have freed itself. All that was needed was a simple screw-down service cover to enable the area to be cleaned out.
We have a very long way to go.
Hopefully more countries follow suit, I’ve lost track of the amount of outdated phones that are just sat in a drawer somewhere