Sustainability Lunchtime Seminars: Where Environmental Law Meets Economic Law
Speaker
Prof. Denis Philippe, Attorney at Law, Professor at the Catholic University of Louvain, Visiting professor at the University of Paris X
Anaïs Michel, PhD candidate at the KU Leuven
Abstract
Planned obsolescence is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life or a purposely frail design, so that it becomes obsolete after a certain pre-determined period of time upon which it decreases its functions or suddenly ceases to function, or might be perceived as unfashionable.
This practice jeopardizes the rights of the consumer and the environment.
The remedies offered currently by the civil law are not sufficient enough to protect these rights.
France has already issued a law making of planned obsolescence a criminal offence.
The European Union has on March 30, 2022, proposed to update the EU consumer rules to empower consumers for the green transition. The updated rules will ensure that consumers can take informed and environment-friendly choices when buying their products. Consumers will have a right to know how long a product is designed to last for and how, if at all, it can be repaired.
The seminar will explain the content of these new rules and put them into perspective.
Registration
Please click here to register.
Click here to find out more about the Sustainability Lunchtime Seminar Series.
