The European Union has introduced several laws to provide incentives for consumers to repair broken products rather than replace them. This has included obligations for manufacturers to issue spare parts, repair manuals and tools to independent repairers. Among the regulated product groups we find white goods and mobile phones.
A new paper, based on semi-structured interviews with repairers and sitevisits at repair facilities, has evaluted whether repair professionals experience the laws have been effective.
The study shows that the laws have contributed to improving product repairability. However, the impact is constrained by low regulatory ambition, uneven compliance, insufficient repair infrastructure, and market incentives that continue to favour product replacement over repairs. High spare-part costs and shortages of skilled repairers also remain significant barriers.
The paper provides some recommendations for European policymakers.
The paper was written by IIIEE researcher Carl Dalhammar, former IIIEE researcher Emil Andersson, and former IIIEE guest researcher Magdolna Molnar. The paper can be found here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666784326001063
