Environmental implications of planned obsolescence and product lifetime: a literature review

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to explore the implications of planned obsolescence (PO) and the associated product lifetime on the environmental impact of products. To achieve this task, a literature review was performed to assess both the historical context and recent situation of planned obsolescence. A search in scholarly journals was performed to evaluate to what extent product lifetime and PO have been discussed in the recent literature. Based on the findings, selected cases of PO are discussed and trends in the practice of limiting product lifetime are identified. Factors considered to have a significant influence on product lifetime have been identified and discussed. The discussion of case studies made it possible to establish the links between product design, manufacturing and associated impacts of lifetime. The role of the actors along the value chain is also considered to propose a business scheme, where the influences of consumer behaviour and design choices are crucial. Finally, strategies to facilitate the definition of different scenarios are given. These strategies may serve to increase the reliability of environmental assessment throughout a product life cycle.

Keywords:

• Planned obsolescence
• product lifetime
• environmental impacts
• designer
• business models

Acknowledgements

We thank Conny Bakker at Delft University of Technology, and Anthony Hua and Kiyan Vadoudi at Troyes University of Technology for their comments and helpful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Terms product lifetime, lifespan and obsolescence are used interchangeably throughout this manuscript. They all refer to the time when a product's initial function is no longer achievable.

2. Lifetime and lifespan are used interchangeably in this manuscript to describe the expected product life.

3. Considering the whole life cycle of products and associated implications, from material mining, processing, manufacturing, use stage and end-of-life management (recovery, reuse and disposal).

4. End-of-life is the stage when the original function of the product is to some extent no longer achievable and the product exits in the use stage; the product enters a new stage for material recovery, reuse or to be in a landfill among some management options.

5. Life cycle management is a strategy to reduce the product environmental impact (Cooper 2002).

6. This situation is referred to as procurement life: the period for which the part or component was (or will be) available for procurement from its original manufacturer after purchase (Sandborn, Prabhakar, and Ahmad 2011).

7. Sustainability has three pillars: social, economic and environmental.

8. The words “designer” and “engineers” are used in this manuscript to describe the actions taken for the development of a product; these actions may be taken by one person, a group, a centralized or decentralized team.

9. Ecodesign integrates all the aspects of the life cycle into the product design and development processes with the goal of reducing the environmental impacts (ISO 14006 2011). However, one limitation of ecodesign is that it does not take into account individual consumer behaviours and other network externalities related to new products as they are too complex to predict and analyse. Network externalities refer to the value consumers attribute to a given product (Katz and Shapiro 1985).

10. Reliability refers to the performance of a product after purchase. It describes how well a product satisfies its function over consecutive use periods.

11. Factors for PSS are further discussed in: Tukker 2004, Eight types of product-service systems: eight ways to sustainability? Experiences from SUSPRONET.