“Enabling Circular Electronics: Skills for Cities, Businesses and Consumers” – Watch the Discussion Now! @CEStakeholderEU#EUCircularTalks Each year, more electronic internet-connected devices are produced than there are humans on Earth*. Resource-wise this is a dead end. In March 2022, we discussed with stakeholders from businesses, civil society organisations (CSOs) and the research community at the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Conference how we can make circular electronics a reality. Digital networking is a great advantage, but the large number of electronic devices also poses serious ecological risks, especially in terms of resource consumption. This is why as part of the New Circular Economy Action Plan, the European Commission has announced a Circular Electronics Initiative, calling for longer lifespans of electronics. This can be achieved through various Circular Economy strategies, such as reuse and repair. For these strategies to work, they must be implemented along the whole lifecycle of the products – from design to manufacturing, retail, consumption and use, and end of life. In March, we invited representatives of different stakeholder groups to discuss how we can collaborate to enable Circular Electronics. CSCP’ Imke Schmidt kicked-off the discussion with a keynote on the work of the Circular Electronics Club as part of the Consumer Insight Action Panel. She brought insights into the difficulties that consumers face when it comes to changing habits and, for example, returning or repairing older electronic devices. Quite importantly, she laid out ideas on how this could be made easier for them through targeted interventions. “The key aspect is the collaboration of all actors along the supply chain and the reassurance for consumers that their data is safe. Findings on the Repairability Index in France show that consumers are quite willing to pay more money for more repairable devices and would even change their favourite brand under certain circumstances. I think these are powerful signals that the consumers are ready and just need the right incentives to make change happen”, noted Schmidt. Did you miss the event? Watch the recording below! CE Talk Video By loading the video, you agree to YouTube's privacy policy.Learn more Load video Always unblock YouTube Evolena de Wilde d’Estmael, founder of Faircado, emphasised that repairing and reusing must become more attractive – buying new is still more atractive, not only because of the high repair prices. Michal Len, director of Rreuse and Ioannis Bakas, expert at EEA, pointed out that too little value is currently placed on used and repaired devices. The still-dominating view is that only new things are of high quality and value. Simina Lakatos, President of the Institute for Research in Circular Economy and Environment Ernest Lupan added a new perspective by emphasising the hurdles faced in countries like Romania, where a circular infrastructure has hardly been established yet. The stakeholders agreed that incentive structures and pathways have to be set by policy frameworks in order to accelerate change. Regarding the necessary up- and re-skilling of different stakeholders, it was agreed that valuable knowledge is already out there – there is just an urgent need to find and focus on the right collaboration formats to disseminate it. The event followed our webinar at the Circular Europe Days, Expo Dubai in January 2022 – watch the recording here. For further questions, please contact Imke Schmidt. *WEF, 2019 Photo by Kilian Seiler on Unsplash