Today we’re throwing our hat in the ring and joining the Right to Repair European Campaign as part of its steering committee. Working alongside committee members iFixit, ECOS, EEB, Restart, Runder Tisch Reparatur and Repair and Share, we’re pretty psyched to continue advocating for pro-repair and pro-environment regulations at a larger scale, across Europe.
Electronics have a large environmental impact, most of which is produced at the time of manufacture and then again at the time of disposal. This impact can be massively reduced by prolonging the lives of our electronic devices through repair and refurbishment.
To do this effectively, we need manufacturers to cooperate — manufacturers that are, unfortunately, incentivized to do just the opposite in order to make more sales. The numbers speak for themselves: in Europe almost 7 new smartphones are sold every second, and although 77% of Europeans would prefer to repair their electronics instead of replacing them, only 11% end up doing so because of the high cost or lack of availability of repairs.
As a coalition of over 80 members across 18 European nations, the Right to Repair European Campaign is bringing this critical issue in front of decision makers and the broader public. Today, we are working to make electronics repair part of the European Green Deal. Support our efforts more concretely by supporting our 10 year smartphone project.
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