Product DURABILITY: How can products be made more durable?

In the last years, the environmental paradigm in electrical and el Europe and, possibly, it will be even more in the coming years. At the end of the 90s, it was generally thought that a long life in this type of products was not environmentally good because the use stage caused the biggest environmental impact, so to keep produ with high energy consumption for many years when the sector co improve very quickly and signi?cantly the consumption paramet was not the best strategy.

The impact of manufacturing a new more e?cient product was compensated in less than ?ve years and that explained the kindness, from an environmental point of view, with short durability.

However, this life cycle is coming to an end, and without an important technological step, it does not seem likely that consumption can be reduced even more in such a signi?cant way. If we add to this the raw material
scarcity the result is that durability and the extension of the useful life of this
kind of products is becoming a hot topic in legislative and political debates.

The debate has already reached the European parliament. Under the framework of the next action plan review on sustainable production and consumption, Europe wants to encourage the development of products with increased durability. Durability and its e?ects is on the political agenda.

In order to discuss all these topics, the ?rst Basque Ecodesign Center thematic round table was held at Fagor Electrodomésticos, S. Coop. on 19 July 2013, focusing on the concept of durability in home appliances.

With the presence of the company's Environment, Quality and Innovation managers, among others, aspects such as the new tendencies in legislation to increase the durability of products, the increasing worry about planned obsolescence perceived in products, the consumer-user role, ecological organisations and social movements were analysed.

From there, possible future scenarios were designed and for each of them the possible implications that the business model could have on Fagor Electrodomésticos S.Coop. were identi?ed.