Press “More efficient products can save 65 million barrels of oil annually”

In an interview with O Jornal Económico, EPP MEP Graça Carvalho spoke about planned obsolescence in products, and why the culture of “what is broken is thrown away; buy a new one” must be changed. The MEP said that fighting planned obsolescence is a priority for the European Commission because the practice is based on “cheating costumers”, and the culture of buying new, instead of fixing, is polluting the environment.

The Commission intends to define principles for a new industrial strategy in order to fight planned obsolescence, said the MEP.

One of the initiatives is to support more efficient products. MEP Carvalho further stated that the new rules are not restrictive for companies, being quite the opposite: the new Green Deal aims at growth and regaining a global industrial leadership.

The MEP also spoke about the need of having the environmental directives of the EU transposed into the member states’ legislations, something that is not happening at the desired speed.