A Methodological Proposal for Determining Priority Product Categories Towards the Development of a Reparability Score in the European Union

A key strategy towards the transition to a circular economy is to increase the lifetime of products, contributing to the reduction of material throughout in the economy. The increase of product lifetimes is typically achieved through better product design, repair and re-use. Among these product-life extension strategies, repair constitutes a key pillar of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) proposed by the European Commission. A way of expressing the reparability of products, with the aim of stimulating design change and guiding consumers' purchasing decisions, is by defining a reparability score. Given the wide range of product groups that fall under the scope of the ESPR, it is important to determine an effective and structured process of prioritizing products for which the ‘reparability scoring’ concept is most relevant and applicable. This systematic prioritization merits the development of a distinct method by itself. The aim of this study is to develop such a methodology by employing qualitative and semi-quantitative criteria to determine the relevance of a product group both in relation to reparability in general and specifically to a reparability score/index. The selected criteria reflect characteristics related to a product's expected use and user behavior (e.g. frequent and variable failures, value, lifetime as expected by the user), or to its design sophistication (distinct components, use of software etc.). Finally, a pilot application of the assessment criteria is performed and the results are presented in this article.