Fixfest 2022 launch-event: European Right to Repair still loading
Friday 30 September 2022
9h30 to 12h30, Maison des Associations Internationales, Brussels
Lunch 12h30 – 13h30
Everyday, short-lived electronic devices are sold on the EU market, wasting EU citizens’ money and depleting the world of finite resources. The stream of e-waste reached 50 million tonnes in 20181 and is expected to double by 2050, reaching 120 million tonnes annually2.
This growing consumption of electronics has significant environmental impacts due to energy and material intensive activities such as resource extraction, manufacturing and end of life treatment. When these products are discarded, only a small portion can be effectively recovered through recycling. Keeping products in use for as long as possible reduces the need to make more!
“Extending the lifetime of all washing machines, notebooks, vacuum cleaners and smartphones in the EU by just one year would save around 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually by 2030, the equivalent of taking over 2 million cars off the roads for one year”3
More than half of EU consumers have environmental impact in mind when shopping4 and 8 out of 10 are in favour of making repairs easier5. Furthermore, making repairs more accessible would boost quality jobs and turnover among repairers, manufacturers, dealers of spare parts and sellers of used products in all EU Member States6. Repairs are labour-intensive activities which are difficult to move abroad while the effective production of consumer goods often takes place outside Europe.
In the past few months, the right to repair has been hitting the news as policy-makers and manufacturers worldwide have started to look into this issue. At EU level, things are moving but repair is still far from being easy, cheap and accessible for everyone.
Join us on Friday 30th of September at Maison des Associations Internationales (MAI) Brussels to hear from professional and community repairers, innovative tech start-ups and environmental NGOs on how EU policies can be instrumental in overcoming remaining barriers to repair. We will also dive into the environmental savings and socio-economic opportunities that transitioning out of the throw-away economy of electronics could bring to Europe.
You can also sign-up below to live-stream the event
Agenda
9:30 – 10:20 Introduction to the campaign & remaining barriers to repair, moderated by Narmine Abou Bakari, Digital Rights Campaigner, Greens/EFA
- The pillars of Right to Repair: Cristina Ganapini, Campaigner, European Right to Repair Campaign
- Environmental NGOs: Mathieu Rama, ECOS – Environmental Coalition on Standards
- The repair community: Ugo Vallauri, The Restart Project
- The business perspective: Thomas Opsomer, iFixit – The Free Repair Manual
- Q&A (20 min)
10:25 – 11:15 First panel: The ecological potential of repair, moderated by Jean-Pierre Schweitzer, EEB
- Yoko Dams, Researcher at Vito
- Alberto Vasquez Ruiz, Project Coordinator at Catapa
- Simona Staikova -Van Bommel, Team leader of the Contract law Unit, DG for Justice and Consumers, European Commission
- Q&A (20 min)
11:15 – 11:30 Coffee break
11:30 – 12:20 Second panel: Repair as a socio-economic opportunity for Europe, moderated by Cristina Ganapini, Campaigner, European Right to Repair Campaign
- Alexandre Tanay, Public Affairs at Backmarket
- Giorgos Verdi, Policy Officer at European Digital SME Alliance
- Sara Matthieu, Member of the European Parliament, Greens/EFA
- Q&A (20 min)
12:20 – 12:30 Wrap-up and invitation to Fixfest 2022
You can also sign-up below to live-stream the event