A new EU regulation aimed at making products more sustainable has just come into force. What is it exactly and what will it change?
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00:00Planned obsolence, poor quality or simply accidents, these are just a few reasons why
00:08products break.
00:10We'd all love to fix these items or give them a second life.
00:15However, finding solutions can be tricky and sometimes it's expensive.
00:21We see many products for which the price of a spare part can even be more than the price
00:26of a completely new product.
00:28We see this for washing machines, for TVs, for garden equipment.
00:36The cost of repair is a big factor when deciding to fix a product or just replace it.
00:43If the economic business case is just not there because the repair will always be more
00:48expensive than the replacement, then the consumer is always going to opt for replacement and
00:53this will just increase waste.
00:56Waste isn't the only issue.
00:59Producing new products means extracting materials and using lots of energy.
01:05If we carry on like this, we'll need almost three planets to maintain our current lifestyle.
01:13Extending the life of products is therefore key.
01:17The longevity of a product will stem from two factors.
01:20It will stem from its durability, so how long will it last before some failure occurs and
01:26then the second part will be the ease of repair.
01:31It's often the design that defines whether a product is repairable or recyclable.
01:37Up to 80% of a product's environmental impact is decided at the design phase.
01:43How it's assembled, for example, can determine whether it's easy and cheap to repair.
01:49For a smartphone, the most typical components to break or to need replacement would be the
01:54screen and the battery, but we still have phones on the market today which are basically
01:59all built on the back of the display.
02:02So if you want to get to the display, you have to tunnel through the whole phone and
02:05remove all of the other components before you can get to it.
02:10To tackle this issue, a new EE regulation has just entered into force.
02:14They're eco-designed for sustainable products regulation or ESPR.
02:21It's a package of measures aimed at making products more sustainable by assessing design requirements.
02:28This will impact almost every product, with a few exceptions like food and medicine.
02:33We have an international manufacturer wishing to do business with the EU, also in the EU
02:39market including online sales, will need to ensure that their products are compliant.
02:46If they don't, businesses will risk penalties that will be implemented by member states.
02:51A key measure of the ESPR is the Digital Product Passport.
02:57It will provide information about a product's journey, like where materials come from and
03:02how easy it is to repair or recycle.
03:06Consumers should be empowered to have very reliable information about products, like
03:12their lifespan, the guarantee, their environmental performance, being those more durable, more
03:17repairable, more energy-efficient, free of hazardous chemicals.
03:23The ESPR is a framework legislation, meaning specific rules will be laid down progressively
03:30for different products or groups of similar products.
03:34Furniture, detergents, textile and some electronics could be addressed as a priority.
03:42The regulation will also ban the destruction of unsold textiles and footwear to large and
03:48medium-sized enterprises.
03:51Hopefully this will push indeed the most polluting goods off the market and incentivising manufacturers
03:57to prioritise the environment when they think about products.
04:01For companies, this regulation could mean adapting to a more sustainable and circular
04:07business model.
04:09For Europe, extending product lifetime could mean less dependence on certain materials
04:15and more jobs in some sectors like repair services.
04:20However, experts agree that the success of the ESPR will ultimately depend on how it's
04:27implemented and what the criteria for new products will be.
04:32More and more people want to make more sustainable choices, but the main challenge will be the
04:38need to make products affordable.
04:41This is obviously the whole challenge in a system where everything is determined by price.
04:47Our biggest problem are the externalities, it's all of the negative effects that are
04:51not included in the price, where the person who buys a product or a service has the benefit
04:57of the lower price and the whole of society will have to pay for the costs.
05:03With these new measures, the EU aims to double its use of recycled material and meet its
05:09energy targets by 2030.