2022 brought far-reaching new rules to reduce the environmental impact of everyday devices such as smartphones and printers. ECOS worked behind the scenes for years to make this happen. In this story, we proudly walk you through the highlights of new ecodesign rules for phones and tablets, a common charger, and the upcoming mandatory rules for printers. 

Electronics, so important for us and society, come at a significant environmental cost. Their production requires extracting resources, carbon-intensive manufacturing processes, and they bring about tonnes of waste.

The consumption and usage of electronic products and services trigger conflicts, human rights abuses, chemical pollution, and environmental degradation. The tonnes of rare resources needed to produce our electronics create dependencies on a global level, impacting international geostrategic relations, and bringing the ‘resource curse’.

To make matters worse, discarded electronics are the fastest-growing waste stream in the world, while global recycling rates are extremely low, amounting to a mere 17.4%.

This is not unavoidable: estimations by the European Commission indicate that a market with more environmentally friendly products could have tangible effects on alleviating some of the environmental impact. For example, extending the average lifetime of phones by approximately 1 year could reduce their climate impact by 25%. 

In 2022 the EU finally heard what we had been saying for years: regulation is key. As a result, new legislation was developed, with the potential to significanly reduce the carbon footprint of electronic devices. Three actions led the way:

• Ecodesign and energy labelling requirements for mobile phones and tablets. The EU is about to publish them officially. Features should include a repair score as well as requirements for minimum levels of reliability and repairability.
• A common charger. By the end of 2024, small electronic devices will be required to use USB Type-C chargers.  From spring 2026, the obligation will extend to laptops. Jump to the section
• Printer manufacturers could soon be obliged to abide by mandatory minimum requirements in order for their devices to be allowed on the market. So far, they were only invited to follow guidelines set in voluntary agreements, which they wrote themselves for 80% of the sector – not suprisingly, at the expense of our environment. Jump to the section

Smarter smartphones – made more circular and sustainable by law

In November 2022, EU governments agreed on new ecodesign rules that will apply to smartphones and tablets, possibly ending today’s trend for almost-disposable smartphones, which are typically replaced every 2 or 3 years.

Manufacturers will now need to give access to repair and maintenance information and spare parts to professional repairers and end-users for at least 7 years after retiring a product from the market, while software updates will also need to be made available for at least 5 years. Smartphones will need to survive at least 45 accidental drops before losing functionality, and retain at least 80% of a battery’s capacity after 800 charging cycles.

A new energy label for phones and tablets is also about to be approved. According to the latest draft, the label will include a repair score, a grade on energy efficiency, and information on device durability as well as battery performance: all this to guide consumers towards the most sustainable choices.

Introducing ecodesign rules and the energy label comes across as logical and natural as we face a climate emergency. But having these rules approved has taken a long time, and lots of insistence from ECOS and other environmental groups.

Throughout this process, ECOS was an essential actor, raising awareness, mobilising partners, drafting reports and position papers, shaping crucial standards which serve as a base for the repair score… and tirelessly explaining why mandatory rules were needed and how to best set and implement them.

Our efforts brought concrete outcomes: rules were made more robust thanks to our advocacy efforts. For example, following our calls, consumers will have access to spare parts for seven years instead of the initially planned five. Reliability requirements were also significantly improved: devices will have to run for at least 800 charging cycles instead of the proposed 500.

We have not achieved this alone. ECOS is a driving force in the  Right to Repair and Coolproducts campaigns, in which dozens of other organisations row in the same direction.  

One charger to fit them all

Standards rarely make it to the spotlight in political debates – but 2022 saw one of such rare cases in which they do.  

In October 2022, the EU officially chose USB Type-C as the only charging port for small devices allowed on the market. USB Type-C is a standard, and our expertise in the field was of great help to policymakers along the legislative process. As a result, by the end of 2024, the requirement will apply to dozens of small devices such as smartphones, tablets, earbuds, and e-readers. From spring 2026, the obligation will extend to laptops. 

This will cut tonnes of unnecessary waste – but hopefully the initiative will be taken up in more countries. In the US, senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Ed Markey called on the US government for a common charging standard. India is advancing towards USB-C chargers only, too.

Smartphone chargers alone generate some 11,000 to 13,000 tonnes of e-waste each year in the EU. If we add chargers for other portable products, such as laptop computers, this number triples. According to our estimations, the common charger will help decrease these numbers by about 29,000 tonnes of e-waste per year. In addition, it would also reduce the associated greenhouse gas emissions by over , roughly as much as 1 million cars being taken off our roads.

It sounds very promising but we needed to stay attentive throughout the process: the real environmental benefits rely on the initiative’s ambition. Initially, the European Commission planned on mandating a common charger only for a limited number of products. We advocated for that list to be much longer, raising awareness among officials, Members of the European Parliament and other NGOs. Throughout the years, we have published countless technical contributions on the topic, participated in expert forums, and spoken in public events.

We were successful: the common charger will be used with laptops, displays, ear pods, e-readers, digital cameras, mice, keyboards, and portable navigation systems – a list much more comprehensive than originally foreseen.

This is the end – of laugh-a-minute voluntary agreements by printer manufacturers

Printers have been on the radar of officials drafting ecodesign policies for years. However, so far manufacturers were allowed to sign voluntary agreements, where they defined their own environmental obligations. It goes without saying that these quickly proved to be highly ineffective. As a result, today some 80% of imaging devices are replaced by users within the first three to four years after purchase.

Short-lived printers and their consumables are responsible for a tremendous amount of e-waste, much of which continues to be landfilled or incinerated today. Our estimates show that out of over 650,000 tonnes of e-waste created, some 200,000 tonnes of end-of-life printers and cartridges are never properly recycled, and that just about 2% of materials are reused in new products.

Fortunately, things started to change in 2022. Following our long-standing calls, Europe(finally!) decided to look into tackling the environmental impact of printers, likely focusing on features such as repairability, durability, and energy efficiency.

Should everything go to plan, the European Union will become the first region in the world where printer manufacturers will be obliged to respect certain sustainability rules before placing their products on the market. In a few years, made-to-break printers will simply not be available on the EU’s market.

Mandatory rules for printers have been an ECOS demand for over a decade. However, for a long time, policymakers backed the voluntary approach.

We saw first signs of change in 2018, when officials launched a review process for the existing voluntary agreement. The text proposed by companies, however, was so fraught with obvious and deliberate loopholes that the Commission decided to put an end to the voluntary approach once and for all – and this might not have happened if we hadn’t been extremely vocal, rallying partners to denounce the plague of loopholes in industry agreements.

In 2021, our assessment of the situation nudged the Commission to extend mandatory ecodesign rules to printers. As a result, 2022 saw the inclusion of printers in its 2022-2024 Ecodesign Work Plan, and launched the process of a preparatory study – the first step in establishing new rules.

Small electronics are on the verge of becoming much more efficient than ever before. However, efforts towards improving their sustainability must be ramped up worldwide. As more people in emerging economies can afford to buy and use these products, their impact will increase in the upcoming decades. The EU has taken steps to help curb emissions generated by these devices – now we must encourage and help other regions and countries to follow suit. ECOS is doing just that – we are currently contributing to the drafting of an international IEC standard on sustainable management of e-waste. So more on electronics is coming – stay tuned!