Planned obsolescence: why the concept needs rethinking – a new legal study on reforms in the EU and Australia

Planned obsolescence is a familiar phenomenon: products that break sooner than necessary, are hard to repair, or simply “go out of style”. In 2024 the European Union began explicitly banning practices linked to it, while Australia is trying to catch up through its right to repair debate. According to a preprint by Margherita Feleppa, a lecturer at the University of Wollongong, both regulatory approaches fall into the same trap: they understand too narrowly what they are trying to regulate. The study is forthcoming in the 2026 volume of the University of New South Wales Law Journal, and the author’s manuscript is already available.

In short: The concept of planned obsolescence needs rethinking because current regulation treats it too narrowly, mainly as a consumer protection issue. Feleppa argues that the phenomenon is made up of several interconnected practices, affects both the supply and the demand side, and involves intellectual property and competition law as well as consumer law. Effective action is therefore only possible within a single framework, as part of the transition to a circular economy.

What is the study about?

Building on her PhD research, the author examines how the concept should be understood in light of the rules adopted in recent years. Her starting point is simple: policymakers agree that something must be done about short-lived products, but they do not agree on what exactly the phenomenon means.

The list of open questions is long. Is it only about deliberately shortening product lifespans? If so, what proves intent? Which actions or omissions make products obsolete? And who is responsible: the manufacturer, the retailer, or the buyer as well?

The study proceeds in four steps: it traces the history of the concept and the scholarly debate around it, compares EU and Australian regulation, proposes a broader concept, and finally draws its conclusions.

Where does the concept of planned obsolescence come from?

Surprisingly, the term was born not as an environmental idea but as a crisis-management proposal. In a book published in 1932, Bernard London suggested that, after the Great Depression, the state should assign every product a predetermined “lease of life”, of which buyers would be informed. The aim was to sustain consumption and, with it, employment.

The concept took on a very different meaning with the Phoebus cartel. In the 1920s, light bulb manufacturers jointly shortened the lifespan of their products to boost sales, naturally without telling consumers. Here it was no longer a government policy but a corporate strategy. The study also cites the objection of Canadian legal scholar Pierre-Emmanuel Moyse, who argues that the Phoebus case was really an antitrust matter about market control, in which shorter lifespans were only one part of a larger pattern.

Today the phenomenon is most closely linked to the climate crisis. Part of the literature now explicitly frames durable, repairable products as a climate issue.

Programmed, premature or early? The terminology is not neutral

The uncertainty around the concept is also visible in its terminology. Moyse argues that “programmed” is the accurate word for the corporate strategy, and that “planned” should be reserved for government plans. Others treat the two as synonyms, both emphasising the responsibility of the supply side. More recent scholarship often uses neutral terms (premature or early obsolescence) that do not presume intent and only record that a product becomes unusable sooner than it should. Belgian researcher Anaïs Michel considers this approach useful because it also captures the role of consumers.

Regulation is not consistent either. EU documents use planned, premature and early obsolescence almost interchangeably, and the different language versions often translate them differently. Australia’s Productivity Commission, by contrast, drew a sharp line between deliberately shortening lifespans and products generally becoming shorter-lived.

The biggest weakness of a narrow, intent-based reading is proof. According to the study, an empirical analysis of a small claims court in Québec confirmed how hard it is to prove a deliberate strategy. In 2018 the Italian competition authority fined Apple and Samsung for pushing users to install software updates that slowed their devices down. In 2023, however, Italy’s Council of State annulled Samsung’s fine because it expected more direct evidence than consumer complaints. Individual buyers have neither the money nor the means to gather such technical evidence.

Not just the manufacturer: buyers are part of the equation too

Early literature placed the blame squarely on companies. Vance Packard’s 1960 book still argued that consumers had no choice but to produce waste because of the way products were sold to them. More recent research also looks at the demand side. Lise Magnier and Ruth Mugge define obsolescence as a consumer replacing a product when this could have been avoided through a change in the product’s design (such as repairability) or in the consumer’s own mindset.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) distinguishes two types. Absolute obsolescence is the actual failure of a product and is mainly determined by design. Relative obsolescence, by contrast, is the replacement of a still-functioning product, for example under the influence of marketing, fashion or compatibility changes. In practice the two often occur together: a buyer replaces a device partly because of advertising, while the old one genuinely becomes less usable because of newer models.

This duality is well illustrated by this year’s WEEE Forum survey, which we covered in our article on the fast tech phenomenon: buyers know that cheap gadgets break quickly, yet they accept the bargain. Feleppa’s conclusion is that the solution must also be two-sided, regulating products and supporting consumer choices at the same time.

One problem, many practices and several areas of law

One of the study’s key claims is that short product lifespans rarely stem from a single decision. They typically result from a combination of practices:

• poor durability: cheaper, less resistant materials and components;
• designing out repairability: glued-together parts, discontinued spare parts and maintenance;
• making replacement easier: trade-in offers, expensive repairs, obstacles to non-original parts;
• controlling repair markets: manuals and parts available only to authorised service networks;
• continuous product development: just enough innovation to prompt replacement, plus new connectors and lost compatibility;
• lack of transparency: for example updates whose effects the manufacturer does not disclose.

These practices do not concern consumer law alone. Withholding repair information is an intellectual property issue: manufacturers use copyright claims, or the threat of them, to deter independent repairers. The study recalls the case of Australian blogger Tim Hicks, who in 2012 had to remove Toshiba laptop repair manuals from his website after the company threatened legal action, because he could not afford to go to court. Excluding independent repairers is a competition law problem that hits farmers especially hard, since agricultural machinery can often only be repaired within the manufacturer’s network. In the United States, farmers reached a voluntary agreement with John Deere in 2023, but in Australia the voluntary route has not worked.

What has the EU done so far?

In 2020, as part of its new Circular Economy Action Plan, the EU pledged to make sustainable products the norm. This led to three complementary pieces of legislation in 2024.

The Empowering Consumers Directive ((EU) 2024/825) blacklists seven practices associated with planned obsolescence as unfair in all circumstances. Examples include inducing consumers to replace consumables earlier than technically necessary, or presenting a software update as necessary when it only enhances functionality. For these practices there is no need to assess whether they distort the average consumer’s decision, which makes enforcement considerably easier. The directive also added durability and repairability to the elements on which traders must not mislead consumers and to the material information that must not be omitted.

The Right to Repair Directive ((EU) 2024/1799) rewards consumers who choose repair over replacement during the two-year legal guarantee with an extra twelve months of guarantee. After the guarantee expires, manufacturers must offer repair for certain product categories, provide spare parts at reasonable prices, and must not hinder repair through contractual clauses or hardware or software techniques. Nor may they refuse to repair a product merely because it was previously repaired by an independent repairer. Member States had until 31 July 2026 to transpose the rules; for how far legislation alone changes repair habits, see our article on the reality of the right to repair, based on a German study.

The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR, (EU) 2024/1781) intervenes at the design stage: products placed on the EU market must be durable and repairable, made traceable through the Digital Product Passport. The regulation also restricts the destruction of unsold consumer goods; we reported earlier on its first concrete measure, the ban on the destruction of unsold clothes and shoes. For how this framework is reshaping industrial thinking, see our article on the circular economy in industry.

Feleppa calls this an unprecedented step forward but identifies two weak points. First, the obligation to repair beyond the guarantee only covers the product categories listed in the annex. Second, the ban on techniques that impede repair does not affect the protection of intellectual property, so on its wording copyright can override the right to repair. Overall, the EU package remains focused on consumer law and barely touches intellectual property or competition law. The author sees the ESPR’s market-wide approach as the right direction, but its implementing legislation is still being developed.

Australia: yes to repair, no to a general ban

Australia has only one repair law in force: the 2021 scheme requiring car manufacturers to share repair information with independent repairers. In the same year, the Productivity Commission published a report on the right to repair. It found significant and unnecessary barriers to repair for some products and recommended several useful changes, such as a guarantee for software updates and amendments to copyright law. It did not, however, recommend a general right to repair or a ban on planned obsolescence.

Citing researcher Jesse Adams Stein, Feleppa argues that the report used the complexity of the concept and its contested terminology as a “smokescreen”: since there is not enough evidence of intent, and consumers share responsibility, no strong intervention is needed. In the author’s view, raising consumer responsibility would only make sense if the report had also proposed measures addressing consumer behaviour, which it did not.

Over the past year, however, things have started to move. In November 2025 a mandatory repair scheme for agricultural machinery was announced, the first national circular economy framework has been published, and in January 2026 the Productivity Commission released its final report on opportunities in the circular economy. A review of the national waste and recycling legislation is also under way, possibly along the lines of the EU’s ESPR. The government’s new 2035 target, a 62–70 per cent cut in emissions below 2005 levels, further strengthens the case for reform, according to the author.

The author’s proposal: a broader concept within a circular framework

The study’s conclusion has three elements. First, action cannot be reduced to the right to repair. Repair is the most important area because it affects almost every consumer – anyone who cannot get a product repaired will buy a new one – but practices built on marketing, compatibility and durability also shorten product lives.

Second, regulation must move across several areas of law at once. Alongside consumer protection, intellectual property law (repair exceptions, access to repair information), competition law (prohibiting the exclusion of independent repairers, mandatory information sharing) and product design rules are all part of the solution.

Third, tackling planned obsolescence should be treated as part of the transition to a circular economy. The study lists legal foundations for this: commitments under the Paris Agreement, the international recognition of the right to a healthy environment, the European Court of Human Rights’ 2024 ruling in the Swiss climate case, and the International Court of Justice’s 2025 advisory opinion finding that states have obligations to protect the climate.

Why this matters for waste management

The waste sector deals with the end result of short product lifespans. According to the UN Global E-waste Monitor 2024 cited in the study, a record 62 billion kilograms of e-waste was generated in a single year, and only 22 per cent of it was documented as collected and recycled. Generation is growing almost five times faster than recycling. How much of this Europe ships beyond its borders is the subject of our article showing that Europe doesn’t recycle its e-waste but exports it.

The climate impact is at least as significant. For smartphones, the production stage accounts for 85–95 per cent of the annual lifecycle footprint, so every extra year of use counts. The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) estimates that if the EU’s smartphones, notebooks, washing machines and vacuum cleaners lasted five years longer, around 10 million tonnes of CO₂ could be saved – equivalent to taking five million cars off the road for a year.

The study’s core message is therefore clear for waste management too: even the best collection system cannot make up for products that are not built to be durable and repairable in the first place. Prevention starts where planned obsolescence does: at the design table, in legislation and at the moment of purchase.

Frequently asked questions about the concept of planned obsolescence

What does planned obsolescence mean?

Planned obsolescence refers to practices that make a product unusable or outdated sooner than necessary, so that the buyer purchases a new one. It covers poor durability, designs that are hard to repair, expensive or unavailable spare parts, updates that degrade performance, and marketing built on constant model changes that push consumers to replace still-working products.

Why does the concept of planned obsolescence need rethinking?

Because current regulation understands it too narrowly. Margherita Feleppa’s study argues that the phenomenon affects both the supply and the demand side, consists of several interconnected practices, and involves intellectual property law, competition law and product design as well as consumer protection. With a narrow concept, regulation remains fragmented and fails to address the problem holistically.

What do the new EU rules ban in relation to planned obsolescence?

Directive (EU) 2024/825 blacklists seven practices associated with planned obsolescence as unfair in all circumstances, such as inducing consumers to replace consumables earlier than technically necessary, or presenting a software update as necessary when it only enhances functionality. Traders must also not mislead consumers about durability and repairability, nor omit material information on them.

What is the difference between planned obsolescence and the right to repair?

The right to repair ensures existing products can be fixed through access to spare parts, repair information and repair services. According to the study, it is the most important part of tackling planned obsolescence but not identical to it: marketing, compatibility changes and poor durability also shorten product lifespans, so repair rules alone are not enough.

How does Australia deal with planned obsolescence?

Australia has acted piecemeal so far: there is a repair information sharing scheme for motor vehicles and a mandatory scheme has been announced for agricultural machinery, but there is no general ban. The Productivity Commission’s 2021 report treated the issue separately from the right to repair, citing insufficient evidence. A circular economy perspective is only now emerging.

🔗 Official sources and references: 👉

• Margherita Feleppa: Revisiting the Concept of Planned Obsolescence in Light of the Recent Reforms in Europe and Australia: A Necessary Step for the Circular Economy Transition – author’s preprint, University of Wollongong; forthcoming in the University of New South Wales Law Journal, vol. 49, no. 3 (2026)
• Official text of Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 (ESPR): data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1781/oj

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