Carl Dalhammar

In the context of the Circular Economy, there is a lot of discussion on how policies at European Union and member state levels could provide incentives for the design of more durable products. One potential policy approach is to mandate manufacturers to provide lifetime information to consumers at the time of purchase. This could be done through a specific labeling scheme, or by including such information in the mandatory energy labeling scheme. However, the concept of lifetime is far from straightforward, and it is crucial to analyze the type of product and user patterns if such labeling is to be adopted. In this paper we outline some of the policy options and the issues that must be taken into consideration.