Repair rights address premature product replacement
Margherita Feleppa’s study examines how European and Australian reforms deal with early product obsolescence.
It argues that narrow definitions leave some reasons for premature replacement outside the policy response.
For consumers and repair businesses, the issue is whether goods can remain useful at a reasonable cost.
Product lifespan enters consumer policy
Recent European reforms target practices associated with early obsolescence and promote repair for specified goods.
A legal study by University of Wollongong lecturer Margherita Feleppa argues that these measures and narrower Australian initiatives address only part of the problem.
- The author’s accepted manuscript for the University of New South Wales Law Journal calls for a broader approach to product longevity as part of the transition to a circular economy.
Planned obsolescence commonly refers to practices that deliberately shorten a product’s useful life or make it out of date early.
Feleppa examines how that definition captures products that are replaced for different reasons.
- A device can lose essential software support or become too costly to repair.
- A functioning item can also be replaced because a style change makes it seem outdated.
These mechanisms raise different questions about who can prevent waste.
European and Australian approaches differ
The EU’s Empowering Consumers Directive addresses specific commercial practices, including withholding available information about an update that will impair the functioning of a product or service
- Its measures were due to apply from 27 September 2026.
- The Right to Repair Directive, for which national measures were due to apply from 31 July, places repair obligations on manufacturers for goods covered by relevant EU repairability requirements.
The wider EU ecodesign framework allows product-specific sustainability requirements.
Australia’s Productivity Commission examined repair barriers in a 2021 inquiry.
- Feleppa discusses a motor vehicle scheme that gives independent repairers access to service and repair information on commercial terms and considers wider Australian policy debates.
These examples show the difference between opening access to information in one market and tackling several barriers across product life.
- Feleppa sees scope for regulators to consider design, consumer protection and waste policy together.
Feleppa also examines the difficulty of proving intent.
- A buyer may be able to show that a component failed early or that a software update impaired performance.
Establishing why a design decision was made is a different evidentiary task.
- The study argues for a broader policy lens that can account for interacting causes.
This would allow discussion of measurable product outcomes as well as questions about specific commercial practices.
The fight for longer-lasting goods
Repair needs parts and information
A household deciding what to do with a failed washing machine may need a diagnostic code, a replacement part and a technician to install it.
Making any one of those available can help.
- If the remaining steps are expensive or impractical, the household may still buy a replacement.
- A business maintaining a fleet of devices faces a similar problem when essential security updates stop before the hardware wears out.
For African markets, the research raises questions about whether imported products, new or second-hand, can be maintained locally.
- Clear information can help buyers and repair businesses by indicating which parts are available, how long suppliers expect to provide them and which software updates keep devices safe to use.
A longer service life can defer replacement costs and reduce waste when an older product remains safe and economical to operate.
Test whether the rules extend use
Regulators and procurement teams can assess repairability using measures that consumers and technicians can observe.
- These include parts price and delivery time, access to diagnostic information, the duration of software support and the cost of a repair relative to replacement.
- Reporting those measures by product category would also show where a single rule is unlikely to solve the problem.
Feleppa’s analysis asks regulators to account for the cumulative effects of product design, commercial practices and consumer behaviour.
- A review that includes repair businesses and users can identify where barriers arise in practice.
- Tracking how long products stay in service would help assess whether reforms reduce premature replacement.
Applying these lenses reveals practical trade-offs.
- A software update may close a security vulnerability while also affecting battery performance.
- Rules and disclosures that distinguish those effects can help a buyer or technician make an informed choice.
The same distinction matters when comparing the cost of an update, a repair and a replacement.
Path Forward – Measure how long products stay useful
Consumer and environmental agencies can link durability rules to evidence about repair costs, parts access and software support.
Public buyers can use the same measures in tenders.
The policy test is whether households and businesses can keep safe, useful products working for longer and avoid the cost of early replacement.
