Fight, For The Right, To Repair
The European Parliament has last week voted overwhelmingly in support of the European Commission’s proposal to create new rules on repair rights for products. On the face of it, this seems like incredibly good news, and I think overall it is fantastic news for a move towards a more circular economy. Unfortunately for us Brits, we decided to dip out of the EU at the start of the year but, hopefully it paves the way for changes to industries as a whole, or perhaps it’ll allow for the UK to action a similar policy. This is only the next major step in the plans and there are still many elements to iron out but, it’s quite nice to have some positive movement, especially this year. This exciting new action is all part of the EU’s Circular Economy Action Plan and a commitment to be a climate neutral trading bloc by 2050.
‘Right to Repair’ is an important part of a transition towards a more circular future. Remember that time when you dropped your iPhone and arrghhh, the screen has cracked. You grab the box from that drawer of junk with all the other bits and bobs only to realise their warranty doesn’t cover it, and you turned down that Apple Care offer because “you never drop your phone”. So you race to your local repair shop, only to find they can’t really replace it as they don’t have the correct tools and Apple keep the information to themselves. You know what this means, you either get Apple to repair it themselves for an extortionate amount, or buy a new phone for probably not far off that price. Or perhaps you can handle the cracked screen for just a few months longer until that contract upgrade comes along?
Our lifestyles have shifted dramatically in the space of single generations. If you speak to grandparents of today, many will still have products that they bought 40–50 years ago, and often times they’re still working better than some new versions. This is often in the more mechanical area of products, such as lawnmowers, which may have had blades replaced and many services over the years, but think of the bang-for-your-buck you’re getting still using that lawnmower from the 60s! So why are we now so accustomed to buying expensive new technology with limited repair options, controlled heavily by the manufacturer, and feel it’s done well if it’s survived 5 years of use?
This is where a ‘Right to Repair’ comes into play, and not just phones or even just computer technology, but all of our products. Many companies today hold full control over their repairs, making the internal workings, components and even screw heads unique to their products; preventing other third-party repair shops from being able to operate efficiently. Now, I don’t want to slate Apple for this entirely, but they’re an easy example. They have a robust repair system from the customer experience point-of-view, and they want to have full control over the repairs to ensure their customers receive the high-quality experience of their brand. Though I do question if it would really impact their brand experience if users were allowed to get proper repairs from third-party stores? Surely if the repair went poorly, the negative customer experience would be tied to that repair shop, rather than Apple themselves? And if Apple provided clear repair instructions and replacement parts then those third-party repairs could be done properly anyway? From a customer experience perspective, Apple repairs are seamless. You send off your device and within days you have either a fully repaired device back in it’s sleek packaging, or a brand new replacement. The issue is that this is costly and people don’t do it. Maybe if repairs were free for longer amounts of time it would be better, but then Apple would probably bump up the upfront cost of the device to even more ridiculous levels.
Right to Repair is about normalising repair of products. In 2019, we globally generated 53.6 million metric tons of e-waste, with only 17.4% supposedly collected and properly recycled [Statista 2020]. That’s a large figure, probably impossible to visualise for us general populous. We need to do something about it, just as we need to do something about all the waste we produce every year, because it doesn’t just disappear once it’s gone into your bin. I’m generalising here but, if everyone stops buying a new phone every 2 years, and instead bought a new phone every 5 years, we’d decrease the phone waste per year by roughly 60%. All the main smartphone brands churn out new devices every year, with seemingly less innovation each time, but they entice many of us in before our last one actually needs replacing. Personally, I’ve currently got an iPhone 8 which was released in 2017, it doesn’t have FaceID nor does it have more than one camera lens, but it still works brilliantly for what I need it for. The battery doesn’t last like it used to but I shouldn’t have to get a whole new phone to fix that, if Apple just let me get a replacement battery for a reasonable cost, it’d basically be as good as new. Repair should be the norm, it should be accessible and affordable. Our technology is getting more complicated, so naturally we can’t expect people to be able to repair their own devices, though we could all certainly have more understanding. If our products were designed to be repaired, designed in a way that they can be taken apart and put back together without the need of a degree in engineering, a specialised set of tools from the manufacturer and a lawyer to dodge their regulations; maybe we would all have a better understanding of how to repair, even if we don’t know how to personally. It’s not a foreign concept either, we’ve been doing it with cars all our lives. You don’t get a puncture and have to buy a new car, so why when we get a broken screen or a damaged speaker, do we have to buy a new phone?
The EU vote has great potential to start to force manufacturers to stop being so uptight with repairs. It’s likely less profitable for companies to design entirely different versions of products just so that they can market regulation compliant versions in the EU. Which means that if they have to make them more repairable with transparent product lifetimes, a single common charger connection and tools for third-party repairs in the EU, they may just make that the global standard. These regulations are still in the works, so there’s plenty more details to come but it’s got to be positive momentum at the very least. There are still questions for manufacturers to solve with repairs though. Many devices nowadays store information such as fingerprints, facial recognition and bank details. If the manufacturers make the workings of these parts of the device public, could it undermine some levels of security? I’m not sure, but it’s down to the designers of these products to ensure that isn’t the case. Or maybe that information doesn’t need to be public, maybe they still retain repair control over those elements? Does a repair shop need to know how to recalibrate the fingerprint scanner to replace a broken camera lens? Or an old battery? Repair should be a right of consumers, if we are buying a product outright, we should have control over the upkeep of that device, not be tied into an invisible contract with some distant CEO.
