Abstract

Reducing the rapid consumption of consumer goods by using products for longer periods of time is a key strategy for an ecological transformation in order to achieve the decoupling of the unchanged increase in economic output worldwide from resource consumption and its negative environmental impacts, which is necessary with a view to a green economy. With this in mind, this roadmap shows new approaches and solutions for a change of path. In the short to medium term, the aim is to strengthen the product responsibility of manufacturers and distributors of consumer products. This involves creating legal framework conditions to ensure a minimum service life for products and reparability. In addition, consumer rights must be strengthened. This would require changes to warranty law, as well as the introduction of declaration and information obligations for companies with regard to lifespan and reparability. In the long term, economic incentives must be set that bring competitive advantages for long-lasting and repair-friendly products and services. One approach is the introduction of a reduced VAT rate for repair services. More profound would be raw material levies or taxes that are also based on the durability of the products. Since the extension of product use is not market-driven, but rather the dominant market logics slow down, if not prevent, a path change, politics has a special role to play for a path change. Extending the useful life requires not only new market offers, but also changes in consumer behaviour. Markets for long-life products can only be developed with a corresponding change in consumption styles and value assessments. The implementation of strategies for longer product lifetimes is therefore dependent on a synchronisation of supply-side and demand-side change. Pioneers, NGOs and networks play an important role in the transformation process. What is needed in the long term is a fundamental change in consumption that focuses on the appreciation of products. The special achievement of these actors is that they create a sounding board on which new social practices unfold that provide important impulses for a path change.

Authors

Fields of research

Resources, economies and resilience, Technology Assessment and Participation