Our press releases
European Refurbishment Association
EUREFAS Commends Agreement on Right to Repair Legislation
Brussels – Monday February 05, 2024
EUREFAS (European Repair and Refurbishment Association) welcomes the momentous achievement as negotiators from the European Parliament, the EU Council, and the European Commission reached a provisional political agreement on the so-called Right to Repair Directive (“Common rules promotion the repair of consumer goods” Directive) end of last week. This significant breakthrough is poised to reshape the landscape of consumer rights, sustainability, and the repair industry across the European Union.
The agreed-upon measures underscore a collective commitment to fostering a more sustainable and consumer-friendly environment. EUREFAS acknowledges the importance of empowering consumers to extend the life cycle of products through choosing repair by the repair provider of their choice and at affordable prices . With this agreement, the EU is one step closer to making repair first :
- New repair obligation beyond egal protection coverage : The agreement mandates a repair obligation for a list of 9 “common products,” including smartphones even if the defect is not covered by warranty. This new provision is a true game changer for consumers as they given wider options to seek common repairs (such as battery or screen replacement, which represent the vast majority of repairs in our sector) from the provider of their choice.
- Opening up European Repair Market: EUREFAS is extremely pleased to see the Directive formally ban software practices that limit or prevent third party repair. This will encourage consumers to choose repair from the provider of their choice and foster more competition between service providers. Repair will also be facilitated by forcing original equipment manufacturers to make original parts available at a reasonable price and allowing service providers to use compatible, third party and second-hand parts in their operations. We are hopeful that those groundbreaking provisions will have a long-lasting effect on market dynamics and promote more competition.
- Promoting Affordable Repair: EUREFAS supports the introduction of measures by member states to promote repair, ranging from repair vouchers and funds to information campaigns. Aligning with existing tax rules or reducing the VAT rate on repair services further incentivizes sustainable choices.
“EUREFAS expresses gratitude to the negotiators, stakeholders, and organisations involved in shaping this landmark legislation. The association remains steadfast in its commitment to advocating for further advancements in right-to-repair legislation, fostering innovation, and promoting sustainable practices across the European Union” declares Augustin Becquet, Chairman of EUREFAS.
This historic agreement aligns with EUREFAS’s core mission to advance the repair and refurbishment industry, reduce electronic waste, and promote a circular economy. To ensure the effective realisation of these measures, our association pledges to actively engage in the implementation process, working collaboratively with stakeholders and Member States to promote repair.
EUREFAS welcomes the recognition of a “universal right to repair” by the EU Parliament’s Environment Committee
Brussels, October 12th, 2023
The European Refurbishment Association (EUREFAS) welcomes the overwhelming adoption of MEP Glavak’s report on Common Rules Promoting Repair by the Environment Committee and salutes the addition of a new article referencing “consumers’ universal right to repair”.
Since its publication in early 2022, EUREFAS has supported this proposal as it promotes refurbishment and repair by reinforcing consumer’s ability to prolong the life of their devices by seeking quality and affordable repair, as 77% of Europeans would prefer to repair their devices instead of buying a new one 1 . In order to boost the refurbishment and repair sector, EUREFAS outlines that this “right to repair” should be universal to provide consumers’ free choice to choose their repair provider, which will also mean a more even playing field in the repair market. It means that consumers should be entirely free to:
● Decide the repair provider of their choice among different professionals – including independent repairers outside the OEM network: he repair market is still locked-in by manufacturers – whether by gatekeeping prices and availability of spare parts, or by refusing a repair if the product has been serviced by an independent operator – which is not enabling a competitive and open market and subsequently attractive repairs.
● Seek repair at a reasonable and non discriminatory price: If the majority of consumers are likely to seek repair, the price of it can be highly discouraging. According to studies, the cost of repair must not exceed ⅓ of new product prices for consumers to choose repair 2 . It is crucial that these prices should be fair and non discriminatory, or any attempt to nudge consumers towards repair would be vain. By doing so, the repair market will also be more competitive and attractive and repaired products will hopefully soar.
● With any tools and parts available that comply with EU standards, safety and environmental regulations: Producers have been increasingly using hardware and software techniques to limit independant repair, preventing the widespread of repair and refurbishment. Consumers should be free of choosing original, compatible and second-hand spare parts as long as they comply with applicable regulations, as the use of compatible parts allows most of the time a repair operation at a fair and lower price.
EUREFAS truly relies on this regulation to create a universal right to repair that will hopefully open the after sales market, create healthy competition in repair offers, drive prices down and quality up, with less devices thrown in landfills and less new products manufactured as a consequence.
EUREFAS - The European Refurbishment Association statement on the Directive on common rules promoting the repair of goods.
Brussels, 24 March 2023
The European Refurbishment Association (EUREFAS) welcomes yesterday’s publication of the Directive on common rules promoting the repair of goods. Our 18 members are all committed to promoting sustainable choices for consumer electronics. In order to support that, consumer legislation needs to not only recognise but promote refurbishment and repair to foster more consumer trust. The proposal is a step in the right direction as it will allow consumers to have more confidence in the repair sector, and nudge them to make more sustainable choices.
Our Association is committed to helping make the “European Repair Information Form” and national “Online platforms for repair and goods subject to refurbishment” easily usable by second-hand economic actors.
EUREFAS encourages EU policy makers to go further in regards to:
- The creation of a universal right to repair to ensure that every consumer can get their devices repaired wherever they want, at any point in time during its use.
- Ensure the European product policy framework prohibits producers from restricting independent repairs through limiting practices such as component serialisation and software pairing. Such a ban would have tremendous effects on consumers’ ability to seek repair from the provider of their choice.
- Ensuring a level playing field between independent refurbishers or repairers with manufacturers. For example, refusing to perform a repair on a product that has previously been repaired in another professional network shall be made illegal to strengthen consumer’s confidence in the repair and refurbishment market.
It is essential to incentivise producers to design their products with repairability in mind, however making repair the primary recourse may not always be the solution. For second-hand or refurbished products, repair is not always economically viable nor is it possible (for example because spare parts are no longer available). In such cases, it would be disproportionate and unrealistic to require the refurbisher to repair.
“To meet consumer demand for more sustainable options, we need to ensure devices are more repairable in the first place. The growing success of the refurbishment sector in Europe shows consumer appetite for quality second-hand devices. In fact, a refurbished smartphone saves up to 50kg of CO2! But to foster our virtuous activity, all stakeholders’ contribution is needed, including manufacturers’, for consumers to be able to understand not only the impact of their choices when it comes to sustainability and electronics, but to be rightfully nudged into making green choices. We need to ensure consumers get access to affordable repairs beyond the legal warranty period and that manufacturers are barred from deploying techniques that prevent refurbishment and repairs by independent service providers”, says Augustin Becquet, President of EUREFAS.
As EUREFAS members committed to promote high quality and reliable products to consumers in their 2022 Pledge (link), this goal will be only feasible if the legislator undertakes the same commitment by allowing the repair and refurbishment of consumer electronics to properly develop in accordance with the Green Deal objectives. Only by fostering a competitive and strong European repair and refurbishment industry can we participate in achieving a true and universal right to repair for all consumers.
Press statement : EUREFAS calls on the Member States to abstain on Ecodesign for phones and tablets
Brussels, November 15th 2022
EUREFAS, the European refurbishment and repair sector, calls on Member States to abstain from voting on 17 November 2022 on the European Commission’s proposal for new ecodesign requirements for mobile phones, cordless phones and slate tablets, until further technical work and amendment can be provided. In its current wording, the text will seriously affect the ability to repair phones and tablets in the future. The European authorities should take more time to address the concerns above and reconcile the proposal with its objectives for more reparable and durable devices.
The proposed legislation should be careful to not imply restraining measures to our activity and thus acknowledge that :
- The ability to repair a device should not be dependent on a participation to the original manufacturer (OEM) authorised-networks. EUREFAS strongly recommends that only a national register, managed by Member States authorities is a valid proof of the “technical competence” required to have access to repair and maintenance information;
- Part-pairing practices should be explicitly banned. This practice is increasingly used by OEMs to restrict the ability of independent professionals to refurbish and repair devices outside of their control. In practice the new part will not be recognised by the device and some key functionalities (like the battery health) will be turned down if the OEM does not remotely authorise the part through software. The repair and refurbishment operator should instead be given clear justifications with explicit evidence by OEMs if there is a reason to believe that part replacement can lead to data hacking risks, justifying a remote OEM authorisation that should remain the exception.
- EUREFAS is strongly opposed to parts being sold or distributed in bundles or assemblies. This does not make economic nor ecological sense and artificially increases the number of parts that need to be replaced, even if they do not need to be. We urge the Committee to favour the distribution of individual parts instead.
- The decision to provide updates or not has been delegated to the manufacturer and is therefore voluntary and arbitrary. This is clearly an inappropriate approach for an ecodesign regulation. For a product’s lifespan extension, it is essential to ensure that software is compatible with its hardware for as long as possible, making sure that all conformity updates are provided during 7 years after the last placing on the market of a model.
About EUREFAS:
The European Refurbishment Association (EUREFAS) aims to represent the IT refurbishment sector, in particular smartphones, including high-profile companies operating on technology, buyback, refurbishment and sale of second-hand high-tech devices. The association’s main mission is to build a circular economy and to advocate and promote the interests of the sector across the European Union. Eurefas is driven by sustainability values and aims to play a significant role in shaping a greener world. Find out more at www.eurefas.com.
Eurefas has signed the transparency register of the European institutions under the number: 332404341982-26 and is thus committed to fully comply with its code of conduct while engaging vis à vis the EU officials.
Media relations : press@eurefas.com
Eurefas - The European Refurbishment Association announces the publication of the Pledge towards a qualitative electronic device refurbishment sector
Brussels, June 16th 2022
EUREFAS, which currently counts 17 members, gathered in Brussels in May 2022 for its second annual General Assembly. Here, the Pledge was discussed, and the members were able to interact with key EU stakeholders from the European Commission. Main topics included the Sustainable Product regulation and the Right to Repair movement, aiming to shape the industry and encourage consumers to change consumer habits towards greener products.
The main purpose of the Pledge is to structure the Refurbishment industry and the quality of the products. This initiative aims at saving consumers’ interests and promoting virtuous and qualitative products through Eurefas members voluntary commitments. Eurefas targets providing a new quality Label by 2023 with the help of its internal members as well as seasoned external experts.
Augustin Becquet, President and Founding Member of EUREFAS, declared : “EUREFAS is not only an association to promote and defend the circular economy and its interests. It also seeks to set up challenges in the market to live in a greener world and to lift up our sector by creating and implementing quality standards to share and spread good practices. As the refurbished electronic devices market is still in a grey zone, this Pledge signed by all EUREFAS members, represents a major step of commitment for our industry in order to become more reliable, as well as to comfort consumers into buying more responsible products that enables a Circular Economy. It is a big commitment from Eurefas members to show the way towards responsible refurbishment and consumption in Europe”.
All EUREFAS members signed the Pledge following the aforementioned General Assembly, committing to upholding the industry standards within the refurbishment industry. The current scope of represented countries within the association currently covers now 9 countries and 17 members since its creation in early 2021, namely: Recommerce, ReWare, Tech2Com, Foxway, Olinn, Omocom, Refurbed, Panzerglass, Asgoodasnew, Backmarket, ReBuy, ITC (ReCall First Hand), Swappie, AfB Group, Enjoy Recondizionati/Prestige Group, FixFirst and Remarketed.
Eurefas - The European Refurbishment Association announces new members and the release of its first views on the Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) at Mobile World Congress 2022
Barcelona, 3rd February 2022
The association gathers and announces at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) its enlargement and shares its views on the Green Deal and the Circular Economy Action Plan, alongside pledging for a EU label on refurbished products.
Eurefas welcomes 5 new members, namely Swappie, AfB Group, FixFirst, Rebuy and Remarketed, once again enlarging its scope of represented countries within the association.
Philipp Gattner, CEO of rebuy says: “In order to significantly reduce further exploitation of our planet, we need to rethink the consumption of our resources. Unfortunately, this is still happening far too slowly at the political level. Therefore, we are proud to announce that we are now an active member of EUREFAS to give the refurbishing industry a stronger voice at the European level.“
“More circular economy and resource conservation through IT refurbishment – those are the guiding principles of AfB social & green IT and EUREFAS. We are therefore really looking forward to being part of this network, to meet like-minded companies and to contribute our experience from 17 years of IT refurbishment in five European countries”, Daniel Büchle, Managing Director at AfB (limited non-profit company)
“70% of all emissions are associated with the manufacture and use of products – by accelerating refurbishment and the Right-to-Repair, we are laying the foundation for a Circular Economy that is essential to achieving our climate goals”, says Sebastien Daus, Cofounder and CEO of FixFirst
“Sustainability and circularity being core values of both Remarketed and EUREFAS, we’re proud to join the European Refurbishment Association. As part of this group of leading companies in refurbishment, Remarketed is looking forward to working on proposing legislative change to make Europe more sustainable, circular and environmentally friendly”, concludes Jeroen Frank Poelsma from Remarketed
The Association now covers members from 12 countries thanks to the involvement of 16 innovative companies. According to the Commission, a circular economy such as refurbishment can actually create 700 000+ jobs in Europe by 2030.
These arrivals are following the recent publication of Eurefas’ first position paper introducing how Refurbishment can support the Green Deal and the Circular Economy Action Plan. This paper presents a set of possibilities to facilitate the development of refurbishment, from Helping and supporting refurbishment processes by encouraging collection schemes and respecting waste treatment hierarchy, to Giving customers a Right to repair. Generally speaking, Eurefas aims at facilitating access to refurbishment and encouraging people to give back their used products. In this action plan, the role of public campaigns and authorities is crucial, and with its new members, Eurefas wishes to facilitate a global coordination to achieve the Green Deal and the CEAP.
Following this will to ease and facilitate the recognition and development of refurbishment at the European Level, Eurefas is currently working on a new quality label and will soon publish a Pledge whose main purpose will be to structurate the Refurbishment market and the quality of its products. This initiative aims at saving consumers’ interests and promoting virtuous products. Eurefas targets providing this new quality Label by 2023 with the help of its internal members as well as seasoned external experts.
Eurefas continues its momentum and is heading into a promising period filled with innovative projects and novelties for the refurbishment market and its members, to keep making the economy more circular in Europe.
The European Refurbishment Association (EUREFAS) gathers in Brussels and welcomes new members
Brussels, November 15th 2021 – Eurefas welcomes new members: ITC solutions and Panzerglass, enlarging the scope of the association. Eurefas now covers new countries (Italy and Denmark) and has gathered in Brussels to issue its roadmap to support refurbishment and circular economy.
EUREFAS may now count on new members to promote refurbishment industry’s interests and enlarge its position in Europe with ITC solutions an italian refurbishment start up and Panzerglass, the danish leader for generic screen protection.
In September, the association gathered in Brussels and exchanged with Davide Polverini, in charge of the smartphone dossier regarding the Ecodesign directive at the DG GROW. As the Commission is moving forward on this directive, Eurefas strongly aims at empowering consumers’ right to repair and refurbishers access to spare parts to encourage repairation.
In a time where world leaders are targeting CO2 reduction and carbon neutrality goals at the COP 26, “the last chance COP” and when constructors face difficulties to find raw materials to meet consumers’ demand, the association believes that industrials have a key role to play and will continue to promote its virtuous sector interests.
“PanzerGlass is proud to become a member of the EUREFAS to promote the local and circular economy in Europe together. By protecting screens from breakage, we avoid them going into the trash with all their toxic ingredients and rare soils and metals. At the same time we also extend the lifetime of mobile devices as well as keeping a high value for a longer period which is especially important for the refurbishment industry”, says Christian Butzer, global sales manager at Panzerglass.
“For us, an innovative Italian company, an important goal has been reached: becoming a member of Eurefas. Today, more than ever, technological development has challenged the ‘reverse engineering’ of such products and the ability to generate value from their disposal. For Recall First Hand, the word ‘waste’ is meant to become added value.
We have decided to translate the word Waste into Opportunity and we do this with the RecallFirstHand brand.” says Boris Tuzza, CEO of ITC.
European refurbished high-tech players join forces in new business association: The European Refurbishment Association EUREFAS
Brussels, April 21st, 2021 – Refurbishment players fenix.eco, Foxway, Recommerce Group, Reware and Tech2com are launching Eurefas, a business association whose main mission is to advocate and promote the interests of a virtuous industry in Europe to build the sector and to share best practices. Eurefas aims to improve EU policies towards a fair and sustainable market and the building of a circular economy.
Headquartered in Brussels, Eurefas aims to accelerate the development of refurbished devices, by raising consumer awareness, enhancing collaboration between players, sharing market information, and addressing both the media and public administrations with a common voice.
Eurefas will formalize and promote the common interests, policies and positions of the refurbishment industry in Europe, making sure quality standards are met for European consumers, and that the sector increasingly contributes to making the world a greener place.
The association’s primary mission is to engage in dialogue with European institutions and governments, ensuring the industry and its positive impact are well understood and the difficulties that industry players encounter are reported, while progress is made on key industry issues such as: VAT fraud, copyright levies, European labeling and stating the place of refurbishment in the Green Deal.
“Our ambition is to represent refurbishment companies of all shapes and sizes, from every corner of Europe to build a circular economy and help the development of the industry. Our founding team is made up of seasoned entrepreneurs and leaders. Their core mission is to positively influence regulatory bodies and increase public awareness to accelerate the adoption of refurbished devices and a switch in our day-to-day consumption. Eurefas wants to inform about the positive impacts of refurbishing both for the planet and for consumers.” said Eurefas President Augustin Becquet.
The worldwide market for second-hand smartphone shipments is expected to surge from USD 27 billion in 2019 to USD 67 billion in 2023 according to IDC with 332.9 millions units shipped worldwide. In France and Germany, refurbished devices made up more than 10% of the smartphone market in 2019, with an annual growth rate of over 10%.
Grégoire Vigroux, Vice-President Communications at Eurefas, added: “We will frequently engage with the media, as we plan to promote the environmental benefits of refurbished phones over new ones. Through the Circular Economy Action Plan of the European Green Deal, the European Union is on the brink of an industrial renaissance. Eurefas intends to play a major role in this revolution.”
——-
About Eurefas:
The European Refurbishment Association (Eurefas) aims to represent the IT refurbishment sector, in particular smartphones, including high-profile companies operating on technology, buyback, refurbishment and sale of second-hand high-tech devices. The association’s main mission is to build a circular economy and to advocate and promote the interests of the sector across the European Union. Eurefas is driven by sustainability values and aims to play a significant role in shaping a greener world. Find out more at www.eurefas.com.
Eurefas has signed the transparency register of the European institutions under the number: 332404341982-26 and is thus committed to fully comply with its code of conduct while engaging vis à vis the EU officials.
Media relations:
contact@eurefas.com