“Fixing the world? Investigating repair and reparability pathways as an enabler towards sustainability” Product Lifetimes
摘要截稿:
全文截稿: 2020-03-30
影响因子: 7.246
期刊难度:
CCF分类: 无
中科院JCR分区:
• 大类 : 环境科学与生态学 - 1区
• 小类 : 工程:环境 - 1区
• 小类 : 环境科学 - 1区
• 小类 : 绿色可持续发展技术 - 1区
Overview
Recent years have seen a growing interest in repair and reparability as a way to increase the sustainability of current systems of consumption and production by policymakers, academics and the media. The Right-to-Repair movement, national and international Consumer Protection Agencies, as well as numerous NGOs in the environmental sector have formed a strong lobby to acknowledge the reparability of products as a consumer right and an important way to decrease a product’s ecological footprint. The recent revisions of the EU Ecodesign Directive[1]can be seen as a move towards strengthening the “right to repair” by increasing the producer’s attention to the reparability of their products.
The growth in political awareness was partly driven by an increased public and academic attention to the issue of repair. Media attention for fixing and making initiatives (such as in Repair Cafés, Makerspaces, as well as virtual communities e.g. iFixit) has intensified over the last few years. The growing numbers of these grassroots initiatives have frequently been accompanied by a more general revival of DIY activities within people’s daily life. For instance, DIY TV shows and DIY communities, where consumers explain and share with other consumers on how to repair and mend, had a surge in popularity. These societal and political developments led to academics across several disciplines starting to investigate repair. A growing number of publications have looked at production and design requirements for repair and/or consumer practices of repairing and mending.
This intensified interest has helped to raise some novel questions about repair and reparability but also draws attention to some of the challenges when researching these activities in relation to pathways towards sustainable systems of consumption and production, in particular, when investigating the notion of product lifetimes. First and foremost, there is a call for clear evidence on the ecological, social, political and economic sustainability of reparability and repair. Under what circumstances is designing products for repair sustainable (considering social, ecological and political issues)? What are the social and socio-cultural requirements to increase the rate of repair? Other questions remain on how to tackle the practical implications of changing production processes, business models and producer-consumer relationships. What systemic changes are needed to overcome current design and production practices in product design, for example, miniaturisation, modularisation, disassembly of consumer electronics and/or use low quality materials? What kind of services need to accompany the introduction of highly reparable products? How do new interactions between producers and consumers emerge? What collaborations between producers, component suppliers, traders and repair services - need to change in order to provide the necessary systems of provision to encourage repair?
We invite contributors from different disciplines to critically reflect on and discuss the multiple meanings, prerequisites, practicalities and impacts of repairing and mending as a way to foster sustainable production and consumption.
The special issue will comprise extended papers from the PLATE2019 conference (Product Lifetimes and the Environment), September 2019 in Berlin, Germany. The contributors to the PLATE conference have examined product lifetimes in the context of sustainability. Authors who have not participated in the conference are also invited to submit papers.
Examples of possible topics include, but are not limited to the following:
Meanings of repairing and/or mending in different societal contexts
Repairing and mending as everyday practices
Spaces of repairing and mending i.e. repairing together: Repair Cafes, Makerspaces, Knitting Clubs, Men’s Sheds, etc.
Historical perspectives on repairing and precursors of the maker movement
Role of policy and regulation in relation to repairing and mending, now and in the future
Critical investigations of repairing and mending as paving pathways for sustainable consumption and production practices
Types of repair: repair services, amateur repair, guerrilla repair…. their characteristics and potentials
The role of repair in the Global South
The relevance of reparability and the right to repair for design and production practices and processes
Technological evolutions and trends (e.g. miniaturization, modularisation) and their impact on reparability of products
Business models for repair and service-centered models re-establishing repair
Life cycle assessments of repairable products and repair processes