The “Pro-long Electronics“ Campaign Inspires Consumers to Give Devices Longer Lives

Electronic devices have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. With increasingly shorter innovation cycles, replacements to such devices can be a quick first choice. The “Pro-long Electronics” campaign informed consumers on the financial and ecological benefits of giving older devices a second or pro-longed life and gathered far-reaching traction.

Going through your home (physically or mentally), how many electronic devices can you count? More importantly, how many such devices do you have that you deemed outdated and are not using anymore? Updates, upgrades, and short innovation cycles spur ever shorter replacement cycles and as a result it happens all too often that devices that are still functional or apt to be refurbished end up unused. This marks a common habit that translates into lost resources. The simple solution can sometimes be to prolong the lifetime of your device.

The campaign: numbers and results

With this goal in mind, the “Pro-long Electronics” campaign aimed at informing consumers about the benefits of giving electronic devices a longer or second life – benefits that play out for consumers and the environment at the same time. The campaign that ran for two weeks raised awareness on the topic and engaged consumers by offering one 500€ and two 250€ repair vouchers to participants who posted photos of their oldest still functional electronic devices. A video as well as a variety of infographics were shared via different social media channels reaching over half a million views across platforms. The campaign recorded a total of over 15,000 interactions and mustered interest among an array of organisations and actors active in the sector, such as Circle Economy, ECSP Business School, Societe Generale, PACE, and SITRA. The campaign was featured by the WEF alongside comments by the Ellen MacArthur and the Environment Minister of the Netherlands, Steven van Weyenburg.

Why is it important?

The benefits for consumers when it comes to prolonging the lifetime of older devices are threefold. Besides saving money and reducing waste, it helps to cut down carbon emissions as well as emissions from the energy it takes to make new products.  A study of the European Environmental Bureau found that extending the life of consumers’ smartphones, washing machines, laptops and TVs in the EU by just one year could generate roughly 4 million tonnes of CO2 savings (EEB, 2019).

Would you like to engage on a discussion how to empower consumers to pro-long the lifetime of electronics? Reach out to Arlind Xhelili and start the conversation now!