In recent years, European brands have reshaped their design practices in response to the EU’s sustainability agenda. Two 2024 laws matter most: the EU’s Right to Repair Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/1799) and the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which replaced the 2009 Ecodesign Directive. Together, they push products made and sold in Europe to be more energy-efficient, durable, and repairable, a priority made clear by the fact that buildings account for roughly 40% of the EU’s energy consumption.
From recycled materials to solar-powered factories, the international design community is redefining what it means to place sustainability at the center of their craft, both in ethos and in practice. With throwaway culture now a relic of the not-so-distant past, we set our sights on an eco-friendly future that values a positive environmental impact just as much as it values good design.
What the EU's Right to Repair Law Actually Requires
The Right to Repair Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/1799) places new duties on manufacturers of covered goods. They must offer repairs even after the legal guarantee expires, supply spare parts at reasonable prices, and stop using techniques that block independent repair. Consumers who choose repair over replacement during the guarantee period earn a 12-month extension of that guarantee.
The ESPR works on a wider scale, setting a framework for durable, repairable, and recyclable products, and replacing the 2009 Ecodesign Directive. The Directive’s repair obligations, by contrast, cover specific product groups: large household appliances, electronics, and batteries.
Lighting follows its own path. The EU’s ecodesign rules for light sources, in force since September 2021, require the light source within a fixture to be replaceable. A failed LED module no longer means discarding the whole luminaire.
- Sept 2021 — EU ecodesign rules require replaceable light sources
- July 2024 — ESPR and the Right to Repair Directive enter into force
- 31 July 2026 — EU member states must apply the Right to Repair Directive in national law
Circular Culture: Replace, Recycle, Reuse
This latest wave of regulation is three-fold. First, the product must be designed in a way that allows dismantling without malfunction. Second, each part must be replaceable, and manufacturers must keep spare parts available for a set period that varies by product type—up to ten years for larger appliances such as washing machines. Third, and perhaps most importantly: Once disassembled, each component of the product should be properly recycled, where their lifecycle can begin again as secondary raw materials.
The effect? With more conscientious production and consumption, fewer appliances will end up in landfills. The EU’s 2019 package of ecodesign measures—spanning appliances and lighting alike—was projected to reduce emissions by more than 46 million tons of CO2 per year. In addition to combating the climate crisis, these measures also have the power to affect design culture at large while reducing the globe’s reliance on a waste-based economy.
Beyond the Trend: Sustainable Design is Timeless Design
Under “Right to Repair,” products must be, quite literally, sustainable by design. Across the EU, brands like DESIGNHEURE and Petite Friture have revised their design process to account for the entire lifecycle of a product—including its reassembly, repairability and recyclable potential—all without sacrificing functionality or style.
What might be interpreted as an obstacle to production can equally be viewed as a creative restriction that inspires an eco-friendly, environmentally conscious wave of design. Amelie du Passage of Petite Friture remarks that her brand is “very conscious of the way we build our products,” which can be seen in the latest edition of the Vertigo Nova collection by Constance Guisset. Petite Friture has long been invested in sustainability as a tenet of the brand, and the requirements of “Right to Repair” finds the founder and designers comfortably at home in their ethos which encourages a design practice that embraces notions of “circularity, repairability and replaceability.”
In Vertigo Nova, a built-in, dimmable LED light source extends the fixture’s lifespan and spare parts are available should the carefully designed pendant break, while other Petite Friture designs incorporate eco-conscious materials like stainless steel and aluminum. Designer of the Vertigo series, Guisset has said that not only does sustainability affect the materials used in a given product, but the design of the object itself must go “beyond the trend” in order to stand the test of time.
Across the Pond: Sustainability for Stateside Designers
While France has made it illegal to destroy unsold clothing and textiles, and the EU has phased out energy-hungry incandescent—and, more recently, fluorescent and halogen—lamps, the United States has moved more slowly, and without a single federal law. Even so, the picture has shifted. Five states have now enacted consumer-electronics right-to-repair laws: New York (effective December 2023), California and Minnesota (both effective July 2024), Oregon (effective January 2025), and Colorado (effective January 2026). Massachusetts’ earlier, well-known right-to-repair law focused on automotive repair. Absent uniform federal regulation, much of the momentum in the US still falls to the brands themselves, the makers who build repairability and longevity into their work from the outset.
Born from the challenge to create a truly sustainable lighting system, New York City-based Stickbulb is an innovative pioneer of lighting fixtures that rely on reusable and locally sourced materials that tell a story. Using reclaimed wood from decommissioned New York City water towers and building teardowns, Stickbulb’s customizable, energy-efficient LED fixtures are constructed from as few components as possible which can all be completely broken down and recycled when the time comes.
“If sustainability is built into the DNA of a company from day one,” said Cerno’s Bret Englander, “it doesn’t have to be that big of a challenge.” Known for modern, California-made lighting and furniture designs, Cerno uses high-end, high-quality parts that provide their products a long life. While sustainability is built into the core of materials and production for many brands, Englander also said that “packaging can become one of the largest obstacles.”
Ordering the most sustainable product that’s locally made from ethically sourced, recyclable components is only half the battle if the product arrives full of plastic packaging with Styrofoam packing peanuts. Robert Sonneman of SONNEMAN Lighting says that while his brand is motivated to create its products in a more responsible way, he is equally committed to removing all plastic foam from packaging, instead pivoting toward the use of paper and other recyclable materials. ANDLight‘s Matt Davis has made a similar pledge, committing to remove all single-use plastics—including vendor materials received at the ANDLight factories.
For brands to participate in the EU’s economy, the “Right to Repair” requires they take seriously their commitment to sustainability. Creating products that are designed with reassembly and repairability in mind is a small but mighty way to transform our relationships with production and consumption while combating throwaway culture and the costly depletion of natural resources. From Stickbulb’s principled use of recyclable materials to Petite Friture’s embrace of a product’s circularity, consciously designing a future that prioritizes sustainability affects us all.
