Response to Public Consultation on Right-to-Repair
'Sustainable consumption of goods – promoting repair and reuse'
Repair is at the core of the engine that will power reuse and resource efficiency while contributing to dramatically decrease waste generation. It is known that a large number of items placed in waste bins and civic amenity sites hold the potential to be repaired or refurbished and thus reused. However, once inside the waste collection systems these items and valuable raw materials usually end up in the least preferable waste treatments or, in the best case, follow recycling streams. Action is needed to boost preparation-for-reuse and reuse in the EU.
MWE welcomes the Commission's efforts on waste prevention, as foreseen in view of the next revision of the Waste Framework Directive. However, more attention needs to be paid upstream in product design and producer responsibility. The EU must undertake more efforts to ensure that Sustainable Products are actually the norm; to ensure that producers only put on the market resource-efficient, durable, repairable, easy-to-maintain, upgradeable, recyclable and non-toxic products. Alternatively, the EU will not succeed in creating a Circular Economy, in achieving the goals in the Zero Pollution Plan and climate policies.
In the Circular Economy Action Plan 2.0, published in March 2020, the European Commission announced that it would work to develop a new 'Right to Repair'. MWE welcomed this announcement and the policy options posed in the Call for Evidence document under consultation. However, we would like to draw attention to the following considerations:
Responsibility for repair: the guarantee period
MWE calls on the Commission to extend the legal guarantee period for new (durable) products in the EU to a minimum of 10 years. This measure would incentivise design for durability and reparability which includes dismantlability, as producers would make more effort to avoid the cost of having to repair their products while ensuring that they can if necessary. Current legal guarantee periods are only two years as the minimum period in the Sales of Goods Directive1. This is too short to encourage production for durability. Significant change must be supported by the Ecodesign Directive, which should promote durability and reparability requirements for different product groups.
Furthermore, producers and retailers should have the obligation to provide repair services, repair manuals and spare parts beyond the legal guarantee period for a reasonable price.
Promotion of leasing to replace purchasing
The Commission proposal makes no mention of introducing or promoting a leasing economy whereby rather than purchasing a: computer, phone, fridge, washing machine, blender, vehicle, the consumer will lease it. Leasing arrangements would need a legal basis and a legal framework harmonised at EU level which includes the basis of the leasing arrangement, i.e. monthly rent, maintenance schedule including the replacement of parts when necessary, complaints methodology, upgrade agreement, exit arrangement.
Facilitating information - Consumers, repairers & preparing-for-reuse operators
In addition to the extension of the legal guarantee periods for new products, producers should be obliged to inform clearly of the guaranteed longevity/lifespan on the label for all product categories. This should be included in the consumer-related legislation. The Commission could also explore the feasibility and usefulness of developing an EU repair index in order to help consumers in their purchase choices.
But EU citizens will definitely exercise their Right-to-Repair only when information is fully accessible and complete:
Producers and retailers should be obliged to facilitate information about durability and reparability aspects to customers. This obligation would cover information such as where to find repair services, time deadline to receive the repaired product back under the guarantee period, if a temporary replacement is provided or not, if removability and replaceability of battery are possible or not, where and how to find spare parts and for how long, information on software functionality updates, etc.
Last but not least, manufacturers should be obliged to provide the necessary information, easily accessible, to independent repairers, preparing-for-reuse and reuse operators. This is of paramount importance, as these operators have an essential role in the successful implementation of the waste hierarchy while contributing, in many cases, with a social added value. This is especially significant in terms of preparation-for-reuse of WEEE. Manufacturers' repair manuals, maintenance manuals and diagnostic codes should be accessible for the operators.
Repair: The Most Convenient Option
Extending the legal guarantee period will not be enough to build a Repair & Reuse Culture in our society. Consumers always look for the most convenient option, in terms of economy, time and distance. For this reason, repair services need to be accessible, affordable and of good quality. To enable this, Commission's proposal should boost convenience by taking action on the following:
1.The guarantee period: easy, accessible & reliable
Unfortunately, even when a defective product is still within the guarantee period, consumers are often discouraged to exercise their guarantee right. Contacting the retailer or producer, making the formal request, sending the product back for repair and other legal proceedings are often a set of exhausting obstacles and highly time-consuming steps. Even having the right, consumer may 'surrender' and take the easiest option: purchase a new product. This issue must be solved in the relevant legislation.
An obligation to carry out the repair within a fixed deadline could be also build consumers' confidence in the guarantee right. The current provision under Art. 14 (b) of the Sales of Goods Directive says: Repairs or replacements shall be carried out within a reasonable period of time from the moment the seller has been informed by the consumer about the lack of conformity. We believe that 'reasonable' is vague and both consumers and producers have no robust legal basis as this regard. We suggest a response time for an appointment to repair the faulty product of maximum 2 days followed by repair to full functionality or replacement of the product within 5 working days.
2.Temporary substitute/replacement good
When possible, and as a part of the guarantee period, producers or retailers may provide a temporary option of the same quality for consumer, until the repair is carried out. For light means of transport such as electric scooters this may be considered as an option and as an incentive for consumers to make use of the guarantee period.
3. The Right-to-Repair: Producer's responsibility for facilitating repair
Citizens should have the right to repair the product on their own or to make use of independent repair services if desire. Producers and retailers should not have the monopoly for repair the sold products.
Design practices deliberately intended to hamper repair should be banned and penalised. Particular attention to assembly methods. Practices, such as the use of special screws that can not be removed by commonly available tools or the use of sealed/glued components together prevent devices from being opened to remove a defective battery or repair a bad electric contact, or prevent shoes from being repaired in a shoemaker's. These practices are far from facilitating reparability.
The Ecodesign Directive should be revised in accordance with the Sales of Good Directive. In other words, only once the Ecodesign Directive does integrate durability and reparability requirements, responsibility for repair and for facilitating repair will come true. To this end, MWE calls on the Commission not to only strengthen the requirements under the Ecodesign Directive but also to extend the scope beyond energy-related products by covering textiles and furniture.
Very importantly, we believe that products should be designed to have the longest lifespan as possible regardless the fashion trends or technological innovations. Reparability and durability must be both in the core of the product design, and must definitely displace programmed obsolescence. Planned obsolescence is a very harmful practice that contributes to generate waste and has no benefits for consumers. Strict sanctions to discourage this practice must be considered.
Software updates must be also considered by the legislation. Outdated software issues concerning functionalities of a smart device often lead consumers to discard the product prematurely. Problems of incompatibilities, decreasing in storage space, slowdown of the proper performance or regular updates are examples of deliberate practices that highly contribute to waste generation.
When an EPR scheme for a product category and eco-modulated fees are established, durability, reparability and preparation-for-reuse criteria must be covered. MWE calls on the Commission to address this matter in the long-awaited Commission's EPR guidelines.
As above-mentioned, producers should not have the monopoly for repair the sold products. The Ecodesign Directive, Sustainable Product Initiative and consumer legislation should set minimum requirements obliging producers to facilitate the spare parts needed to repair a product or replace a component. This must be done at a reasonable price.
Consumers and independent repair operators should have the right to access to pieces, spare parts, repair information and tools needed, available on the market during a reasonable period of time that should cover, at least, the expected lifespan of a product and continue after the last product is placed on the market.
4. The most economical option
As mentioned before concerning the spare parts, making use of independent professional repairers should not be costlier than purchasing the same or similar product as new. This would strongly discourage consumers to put second-hand and repair options first.
In this context, MWE would like to encourage the Commission to look at 'repair vouchers' initiatives, which can make the difference by offering discounts or reimbursements to consumers. As an example, in Vienna, Austria and the German state of Thuringia a publicly financed 'repair bonus' has recently been introduced to reimburse consumers part of their costs. Vienna's "repair bonus" will be implemented nationwide in Austria, as a short-term incentive. On the long perspective, the Right-ToRepair and the producer's responsibility for facilitating repair (compare point 3) must replace such incentives.
5. Proximity - Building Local Repair & Reuse Networks
Over the last decades, consumption of new products has been growing in detriment to local repair businesses. Whereas voluntary initiatives such as repair cafés, offering assistance for self-repair and refurbishment service, revealed the high interest for repair. However, repair solutions should not be limited to voluntary initiatives, do-it-yourself solutions or producer's repair services. Policymakers should definitely promote local business models, close to citizens, based on repair.
Repair services could be encouraged by tax incentives, for instance lower VAT rates for repair services. By way of example, in 2020 Austria set out a reduction of VAT (from 20 to 10%) on 'small repairs' for bikes, clothing and shoes. At the moment the Swedish government is proposing the Swedish parliament to lower VAT as of July 2022 on repairs of bikes, shoes, leather goods, clothing and household linen from 12 % to 6%.
However, the EU Tax Directive (2006/112/EC) need to be adapted to bring fiscal conditions into line with measures being taken to achieve Climate Change goals. This will enable Member States to extend reduced tax rates on repair services to, for example, furniture, toys, electrical and electronic items, small electric vehicles and prams thereby promoting reuse instead of consumption. Repair services include upholstering of furniture, painting and maintenance of goods.
Current EU State Aid rules, as recognised by the European Green Deal, can be an obstacle to creating a circular economy as they were set up to prevent distortion of EU national economies. In light of our new goals, these State Aid rules need to be relaxed so that national budgets and EU funds can be invested in technologies and techniques which will bring about a circular economy in the short number of years remaining before 2030 and 2050 Climate Change goals are upon us. To achieve this, the General Block Exemption Regulation should clearly facilitate aid measures encouraging investment in and the success of circular business models.
Municipalities, their municipal waste management companies and social enterprises are key players in raising public awareness and in building a Repair & Reuse Culture locally. In addition to the environmental benefits of promoting repair and reuse operations, cooperation with social enterprises would bring social value to these activities while contributing to the local economy.
Investment and Assistance in Repair & Reuse Centres, & Civic Amenity Sites
Repair & Reuse Centres and Civic Amenity Sites should be part of the afore-mentioned local Repair & Reuse Networks and should definitely be supported at European, national and local level. These centres are generally organised by either social enterprises or local authorities or a combination of the two; they should be designed taking into account the local reality.
In view of this, the European Commission could further assist Member States in strengthening repair and reuse activities within the national Waste Prevention Programmes. Likewise, MWE welcomes the role of Interreg Europe and TAIEX EIR Peer-to-Peer projects in disseminating knowledge across the EU.
In order to make these centres, the following points are essential to ensure their success:
Staff training for collection, preparation-for-reuse (including repair) and reuse: Staff operating the kerbside collection and in civic amenity sites must be properly skilled to avoid damages in the items collected. The same applies to repair and reuse operations, which needs qualified staff.
Accessible, appealing and convenient centres: Placing the items into preparation-for-reuse and reuse streams must be the simplest, most natural and attractive option for citizens and businesses. Otherwise, repairable and reusable items would be discarded in the residual waste.
Extended Producer Responsibility: Producer Responsibility Organisations (PROs) or producers under an EPR scheme should give priority to preparing-for-reuse activities over recycling in their strategies, as established by the waste hierarchy.
MWE would like to recall that the Waste Framework Directive sets out a mandatory 80% of cost coverage of collection and treatment by the producer or PRO when an EPR scheme is implemented in a country and for a specific product stream. This cost should include the measures needed to prevent any damage during collection, transport and storage in order to keep the potential for preparation-for-reuse and reuse of the item collected.
By way of example, WEEE can be damaged due to lack of sufficient waterproof protection. Cost of this preventive measure should be part of producers' responsibility and would prevent items from lowering down in the waste hierarchy.Guarantee for second-hand goods is possible: It is known that in not all cases the quality of second-hand goods can be guaranteed. However, we believe that they can be actually guaranteed when they have been repaired in a Repair & Reuse Centre and this centre is allowed to guarantee the repaired item. This is the case of Cooperative Sociale Insieme, a social enterprise located in Italy, which holds a repair and reuse centre offering guarantees to repaired electrical devices. Therefore, at national level it should be made possible for Repair & Reuse centres to certify their goods and give a guarantee period depending on the country and on the product category.
The Interreg Europe Policy Learning Platform shows some examples of Reuse & Repair Centres in Europe.
Take-back systems should not be a tool for over-consumption
A take-back system is one of the existing channels of waste collection, particularly established for e- waste, batteries and clothing in the EU. Take-back systems are often operationally and financially controlled by retailers and manufacturers and consist of getting the product back from the consumer at the end of the life of such a product.
Unfortunately, take-back systems may solely turn into a 'loyalty programme' offering either discount or credit vouchers to be used within the same brand that has established the system. This practice does not contribute at all to waste prevention, repair and reuse, on the contrary, it is an incentive to consume new products.
In order to engage producers and retailers in building a Repair & Reuse Culture, if they establish a take-back system with a rewarding experience for consumers, we suggest offering 'repair/refurbishment vouchers' instead. This measure would be in accordance with producer and the retailer's obligation to provide repair services beyond the legal guarantee period for a reasonable price, already mentioned in page 1 of this paper. If applied, assessing the effectiveness of this measure could be interesting, as it may lead to a lower quantity and quality of material collected and thus, a reduction in over-consumption.
Green Public Procurement
The Communication 'Making Public Procurement Work in and for Europe', published by the European Commission in 2017, states that 55% of procurement procedures still use the lowest price as the only award criterion. The public procurement directives leave public buyers entirely free to opt for purchases based on cost-effectiveness, quality-based criteria. Yet, most economically advantageous tenders on the basis of a cost effectiveness approach which may include social, environmental, innovative, accessibility or other qualitative criteria are still underused.
This is a missed opportunity. Public authorities should lead by example by integrating environmental and social criteria in their tenders and promoting purchasing products with high reparability, durability and reusability standards as well as making use of second-hand goods and repair services.