In 2021, the European Union published a set of regulations requiring manufacturers of certain electronic appliances to make spare parts available for up to ten years after a product’s release. It was, in the context of European legislative history, a modest measure. In the context of fifty years of consumer electronics manufacturing, it was close to revolutionary. The regulations acknowledged, in the language of law, something that a vocal and rapidly growing movement of consumers, engineers, and environmental advocates had been arguing for years: the assumption that broken means discarded is not a natural law. It is a design choice. And design choices can be changed.
How Electronics Became Unrepairable by Default
The trajectory toward planned obsolescence in consumer electronics was not the result of a single decision. It emerged gradually from a convergence of engineering priorities, business model incentives, and manufacturing economics that individually seemed reasonable and collectively produced a system deeply hostile to repair.
Miniaturisation played a significant role. As devices became thinner and lighter, their components became more integrated. Screws were replaced by adhesive. Modular parts were consolidated into single assemblies. The repairability that was once an incidental feature of electronics — a television from 1975 was, by necessity, something a technician could open and work on — was engineered out of products whose primary selling point was their thinness. The device that fits in a pocket is frequently the device that cannot be opened without destroying it.
Business model logic compounded the engineering trend. A manufacturer whose revenue depends on selling new devices has a structural incentive to ensure that the previous generation of devices does not remain in service indefinitely. Repair manuals were withheld. Proprietary screws were introduced that required tools unavailable to consumers. Software locks prevented third-party replacement components from functioning correctly. None of this was illegal. Much of it was profitable.
The Environmental Arithmetic
The Right to Repair movement gained its most durable traction not through consumer frustration — though that was considerable — but through environmental argument. The carbon footprint of a smartphone is concentrated overwhelmingly in its manufacture, not its operation. The rare earth metals, the energy-intensive fabrication processes, the global supply chains required to produce a modern device — these costs are incurred once, at the beginning of the product’s life. A device that remains in service for five years rather than two does not merely save its owner the cost of a replacement. It represents a significant reduction in the environmental burden of that initial manufacturing investment.
This arithmetic is not complicated, but it had been largely absent from mainstream consumer discourse until researchers and advocacy organisations began presenting it in accessible terms. The conclusion is straightforward: the most environmentally responsible consumer electronic device is the one already in a person’s possession, kept functional through maintenance and repair. The second-most responsible is a refurbished device. The brand-new device purchased because the previous one broke and repair was impractical sits considerably further down the list.
Replaceable Components as Ecological Design
The logic of repairability has practical implications that extend beyond laptops and smartphones. Devices built around replaceable components — where a worn or failed element can be substituted without discarding the entire unit — represent a meaningful alignment between product design and environmental responsibility. Segments that have quietly operated this way for years are finding their approach newly legible within the broader repair discourse.
Personal devices as coils offer a straightforward illustration of this principle in practice. Rather than disposing of an entire device when a single component reaches the end of its functional life, the user substitutes only the part that has failed. The environmental arithmetic is the same as it is for a laptop with a replaceable battery or a washing machine with a serviceable motor: the manufacturing investment in the durable components is preserved; only the consumable element is renewed. Whether the product category in question carries other considerations is a separate discussion — the design principle itself is consistent with what the Right to Repair movement has been advocating across every category it has engaged with.
The Regulatory Horizon and What It Means
The EU regulations of 2021 were a beginning, not a conclusion. Subsequent legislation has extended repairability requirements to smartphones and tablets, mandated the availability of repair information to independent technicians, and introduced scoring systems that allow consumers to assess a product’s repairability before purchase. France implemented a repairability index for consumer electronics in 2021; several other member states are moving toward similar frameworks. The direction of travel is clear, even if the pace remains contested.
“Manufacturers who have built business models around device replacement rather than device longevity face a structural challenge: adapt product design and supply chains to accommodate repair, or face regulatory pressure that makes the alternative increasingly costly” – as points out Doctorvape.eu.
For consumers, the shift offers a prospect that has been largely absent from the electronics market for decades — the possibility that buying well, once, might again be a viable strategy rather than an exercise in optimism. The broken device as the beginning of a repair process, rather than the end of a product’s life, is not a nostalgic fantasy. It is, increasingly, a policy objective with legal teeth.
