Increasing product longevity

Lengthening useful product life

Description

Increasing product longevity involves designing, manufacturing, and maintaining products to extend their useful life, thereby reducing waste, resource consumption, and environmental impact. This strategy includes using durable materials, enabling repair and upgrades, providing spare parts, and supporting reuse. By addressing planned obsolescence and encouraging responsible consumption, increasing product longevity helps conserve resources, lower costs for consumers, and mitigate the negative effects of rapid product turnover on both society and the environment.

Context

The average age of a fridge or washing machine in the Netherlands has come down from some 12 years in the 1970s to some 7 years in the 1990s. This also maximizes overall energy consumption because it takes 7 years of operating a washing machine to spend as much energy as it has taken to produce the washing machine in the first place.