As industrial design engineers, we have been taught to consider technological, business and people aspects when creating products and services. Unfortunately, the people side of the endeavour has largely been put in the background in the circular economy transition.

By Flora Poppelaars

Interestingly, next to its recent proposals for technological and business improvements making sustainable products the norm, the EU seeks to bring people aspects to the foreground. Indeed, the European Commission recently published a proposal for a directive to empower consumers for the green transition through better protection against unfair practices and better information. According to the proposal, ‘integrating the consumer perspective into the circular economy is key’.

What is proposed?

The main objective of the proposal is to support the welfare of European consumers and the EU economy by making relations between businesses and consumers fair and transparent. To this end, it proposes to enhance consumer rights with the amendment of two existing directives: the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC and the Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU.

In short, the Commission wants to empower consumers to take environmental-friendly purchase decisions and enable more sustainable and circular consumption behaviours. The proposed interventions aim at (1) procuring reliable information to consumers on durability and repairability, and (2) ending unfair commercial practices preventing sustainable purchases. These proposed interventions are summarized below:

How you can prepare

Prepare by evaluating the current sustainability and circularity performance of your products and services (including durability and repairability) and how sustainability information is provided to your customers.

As independent sustainable innovation consultancy, Partners for Innovation can help you determine the sustainability and circularity performance of your products, services, and systems. Our consultants can also support you in the development of more sustainable and circular strategies and designs to empower consumers.

We are excited about these regulatory developments integrating the consumer perspective at the centre of a circular economy.

We will keep you posted!

Find the other three Green Deal proposals (i.e., making sustainable products the norm, sustainable and circular textiles and construction products of tomorrow) published by the European Commission on the 30^th of March 2022 here.

Read more about Circular Electronics or User behaviour and acceptance in a circular economy.