The Need for a Durability Index Framework for Electrical and Electronic Equipment to Support a Circular Economy

Enabling a circular economy aims to reduce the amount of global waste generated from electrical and electronic equipment, mitigate the associated risk to the ecosystem and human health, and address concerns over limited material resources. Durability is a critical concern because keeping products in use for a longer time should reduce resource consumption and waste. Assessing the durability of products and sharing these assessments with the public form a strategy that not only encourages and enables consumers to purchase more durable products but also gives manufacturers an incentive to compete and improve the durability of their products. Although there are some recent initiatives for indexing product durability, there is not yet a standard method for measuring and indexing durability. This extended abstract discusses how indexing product durability can support the shift to a circular economy and overviews the most relevant efforts regarding measuring and indexing durability and relevant product attributes.

Keywords: Durability, Circular economy, Reliability, Repairability, Sustainability.

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