The German environment agency has released the results of a study showing that the upgrade cycle is a growing problem in the consumer electronics sector.
The Umweltbundesamt, or UBA, asked researchers at the
Öko-Institut to look at the reasons why consumers replace their electronics, with the goal of establishing whether or not manufacturers intentionally shorten the lives of products to boost sales -- often referred to as built-in obsolescence.
They found no conclusive proof of individual companies behaving in this way, but the results showed that the proportion of large household appliances that needed to be replaced within five years of purchase due to a defect grew from 3.5 percent in 2004 to 8.3 percent in 2012. The agency described that rise as "remarkable".
Alongside these findings, the agency noted another concerning trend. A third of all replacement purchases for household appliances were motivated simply by desire for a better unit while the old one still worked fine. That proportion rose to 60 percent when it came to televisions.
There was one exception, however. The desire to upgrade a laptop that's working fine seems to have dropped within Germany between 2004 and 2012, suggesting perhaps that the pace of technological change has dropped. A quarter of replacements are now due to defects instead.
The study, which didn't take into account reselling of appliances and electronics, is part of a wider enquiry into ways to increase product lifespans. The UBA hopes that it will eventually be able to publish a set of recommendations for manufacturers, consumers and regulators.
The EU, too, has taken an interest in regulating the inefficient use of resources in products, particularly with the Ecodesign Directive which sets mandatory standards for energy efficiency in more than 40 types of product. Future changes to the directive are expected to include standards for durability and repairability to combat the issues raised in this study.
Edited 12:52pm 4 March 2015: Corrections to some statistics
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
