In the opinion of electronic equipment manufacturers, French sellers and consumer associations, the criteria used to calculate the score are not perfect, but the index is a good step forward.
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This is one of the key objectives of the anti-waste law of 2020: to help consumers identify easy-to-find electronic devices. repair, with a grade from 0 to 10. This grade should be displayed in stores next to smartphones, laptops, televisions, washing machines and lawn mowers.
This news The label should have appeared on January 1 st but we will have to wait before it becomes widespread. The State will not begin to verbalize the display defect until January 2022.
The Ministry of Ecological Transition has high hopes in this index of repairability which will push, he expects, manufacturers of electronic equipment to improve the design of their products, and to extend their lifespan. A scenario that will only come true if everyone, from the manufacturer to the consumer, including repairers and sellers, play the game. Going back to the history of its design, we understand that it is a real challenge.
Two years of debate
Originally, many foreign manufacturers, who only achieve a small part of their sales in France, were hampered by this incentive to fundamentally change the operation of their after-sales service and the design of their devices. The ministry has therefore adopted a flexible approach to develop this indicator, the presence of which will nevertheless be compulsory, under penalty of sanctions.
“Everything has been co-constructed”, testifies the project leader, Stéphane Hocquet, senior official at the Ministry of Ecology. Long consultation allowed the State to understand the constraints of the manufacturers, to understand what seemed realistic and not too expensive. The ministry ensured “that approved and independent repairers are present at all consultations, as well as sellers, distributors and citizen associations”.
The association Halte à obsolescence programmed ( HOP) judges, however, through the voice of its co-founder, Laetitia Vasseur, that the balance was not in favor of the latter: “The citizen associations were not present enough. We were often three people facing fifty lobbyists” , she regretted.
For Fairphone, a Dutch manufacturer of easy-to-repair mobiles, this approach is nevertheless wise: “The electronics industry is a very complex supply chain. only by talking to different actors that we arrive at a global view of what a good repairability index is “, judge Luke James, his sales manager.
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