Planned Obsolescence—The Downfall of Durability 282 How to Design Products for sustainability 289
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nything that developers can do to extend the life of a product or service reduces its resource and environmental impact simply because it doesn’t require a replacement as soon. Quality is one way to accomplish this. (However, this can be problematic for products that respond mostly to short-term trends or where customers are unconvinced that the extra expense is worth the higher price). Another approach is to make the product easily repairable so that most of the parts (and those with the highest impact) can continue to be used. This is difficult for products whose technology is evolving rapidly, but often even these products can be designed with modular assembles that allow some parts to be upgraded while others (such as cases) continue to be used.
Anything that developers can do to extend the life of a product or service reduces its resource and environmental impact simply because it doesn’t require a replacement as soon.