14 Ecodesign and the Circular Economy: Conflicting …
195
furniture can be a good deal for the public sector as the price is much lower than
new furniture, and procuring reconditioned furniture can also save a lot of resources
compared to procuring new ones. However, procuring reconditioned furniture has
proven to be far from straightforward in practice. A first problem is that reconditioned furniture may be good for the environment, but purchasing them may mean
that other GPP criteria may have to be compromised. And why is that? It is because
the public sector has a lot of criteria that relate to e.g. chemical content and sustainable
sourcing of raw materials (e.g. FSC certified wood). These requirements can be put
on new furniture as the relevant information to prove compliance with such criteria
is usually available. This is typically not the case for older, reconditioned furniture
and thus purchasing such furniture requires that other criteria are compromised. An
alternative solution is to design a procurement process that sets two contracts: one for
new furniture and one for remanufactured furniture. This is however administratively
complex, and thus shows the importance of flexibility and innovation in procurement
processes to allow innovative solutions. The rather rigid rules on public procurement
may be a barrier for such innovative thinking, but the front-runner agencies have
shown that it is possible.
14.3.4 Promoting Product Durability: Conflicting
Environmental Aspects
Increasing product durability is one way to save resources: if a product has a longer
lifetime, fewer new products need to be produced. However, this resource saving
may be compromised by other environmental impacts that may increase instead
(Technopolis 2016).
One issue that has come under increasing scrutiny concerns the fact that if a
product is kept in use longer, and we can assume that a newer product is more
energy-efficient, then making it durable implies that the resource savings come at
the expense of energy savings (Bakker et al. 2014). However, whether this is the case
in reality relies on several factors. Here we will build on a recent study of LED lamps
(Richter et al. 2019) to exemplify some of the issues.
Between 2012 and 2017 there was a rapid development of LED lamps to serve
as replacements for incandescent bulbs which were phased out in several markets,
including the EU (Bennich et al. 2015). LED lamps offered several advantages:
improved energy efficiency, mercury-free, and long lifetimes (up to 50,000 h). A
life cycle assessment study (Richter et al. 2019) found that the long lifetimes of
LED lamps could result in trade-offs between climate and energy-related impacts
and material and toxicity-related impacts when considering that shorter life products
allow replacement products with improved energy efficiency and lighter material
designs. The study however noted that not all products on the market were in fact more
energy-efficient, making the role of minimum performance standards also salient.
Moreover, the trade-offs were minimized when considering decarbonized electricity
195
furniture can be a good deal for the public sector as the price is much lower than
new furniture, and procuring reconditioned furniture can also save a lot of resources
compared to procuring new ones. However, procuring reconditioned furniture has
proven to be far from straightforward in practice. A first problem is that reconditioned furniture may be good for the environment, but purchasing them may mean
that other GPP criteria may have to be compromised. And why is that? It is because
the public sector has a lot of criteria that relate to e.g. chemical content and sustainable
sourcing of raw materials (e.g. FSC certified wood). These requirements can be put
on new furniture as the relevant information to prove compliance with such criteria
is usually available. This is typically not the case for older, reconditioned furniture
and thus purchasing such furniture requires that other criteria are compromised. An
alternative solution is to design a procurement process that sets two contracts: one for
new furniture and one for remanufactured furniture. This is however administratively
complex, and thus shows the importance of flexibility and innovation in procurement
processes to allow innovative solutions. The rather rigid rules on public procurement
may be a barrier for such innovative thinking, but the front-runner agencies have
shown that it is possible.
14.3.4 Promoting Product Durability: Conflicting
Environmental Aspects
Increasing product durability is one way to save resources: if a product has a longer
lifetime, fewer new products need to be produced. However, this resource saving
may be compromised by other environmental impacts that may increase instead
(Technopolis 2016).
One issue that has come under increasing scrutiny concerns the fact that if a
product is kept in use longer, and we can assume that a newer product is more
energy-efficient, then making it durable implies that the resource savings come at
the expense of energy savings (Bakker et al. 2014). However, whether this is the case
in reality relies on several factors. Here we will build on a recent study of LED lamps
(Richter et al. 2019) to exemplify some of the issues.
Between 2012 and 2017 there was a rapid development of LED lamps to serve
as replacements for incandescent bulbs which were phased out in several markets,
including the EU (Bennich et al. 2015). LED lamps offered several advantages:
improved energy efficiency, mercury-free, and long lifetimes (up to 50,000 h). A
life cycle assessment study (Richter et al. 2019) found that the long lifetimes of
LED lamps could result in trade-offs between climate and energy-related impacts
and material and toxicity-related impacts when considering that shorter life products
allow replacement products with improved energy efficiency and lighter material
designs. The study however noted that not all products on the market were in fact more
energy-efficient, making the role of minimum performance standards also salient.
Moreover, the trade-offs were minimized when considering decarbonized electricity