Planned Obsolescence: In Search of a Refined Legal Framework

Our today‘s society is often called a “throwaway society” based on a linear “take-make-use-dispose” economy. Many studies point out that median lifespans of certain consumer products are in decline. One of the main sources of this problem is the phenomenon of “premature obsolescence”, covering all practices that reduce product lifetime so that the product does not reach its optimal lifetime (from an environmental point of view), without it being the result of normal wear and tear. Various types of premature obsolescence are omnipresent in our daily life. Premature obsolescence has huge drawbacks, for consumers as well for the environment, and, arguably, its potential positive side effects do not outweigh these drawbacks.

The willingness to shift towards more sustainable products has led to major legal developments and proposals over the past years. However, these emerging rules tackling planned obsolescence are highly fragmented, across different legislators, legal branches and types of rules. This incurs risks of overlaps, conflicts and gaps among applicable legal norms.

This research aims at: (i) clearly defining the concept of premature obsolescence; (ii) identifying and exploring the panoply of legal rules adopted by the EU, the selected Member States (Belgium, France and Germany) and the self-regulatory organisations, to trigger product sustainability; and (iii) evaluating the current legal rules with the help of selected criteria and, if necessary, proposing policy recommendations.