Apple now indicates on its French web store what repairability score its products receive. Sellers of smartphones, notebooks and other electronic devices are expected to show that score with their products as of this year in France.
Apple gives the scores to its iPhones and MacBooks. The current generation iPhone, the 12, gets a 6 on a scale of 10. The variants of the 11 get a 4.5 and a 4.6. The MacBooks get scores ranging from 5.6 to 7, sums up The Verge. If you want to look up the scores of Apple products yourself, you can visit the product pages on the French Apple site, but there is also an overview of the calculations of the scores.
The legislation was passed last year and has been in effect since January 1 this year, but France will only really start enforcing the new rules in 2022, to give all parties time to get their act together. The law is part of the larger anti-waste law for a circular economy.
The scores are based on ease of disassembly, availability of repair information and spare parts, spare part price and “product category specific criteria”, such as smartphone software updates. The producers may calculate their scores themselves, but are obliged to note how they arrived at that score. The French government has already determined how heavily the individual aspects of reparability weigh in the total score.
The repairability index now applies to smartphones, laptops, televisions, washing machines and lawn mowers. However, Radio France Internationale writes that the government wants to expand this to other product categories and that there should also be a sustainability index in 2024, which indicates how long a product should function.
The new legislation is not only useful for the French. Any information that manufacturers make available is equally useful to consumers outside that country. In particular, repair manuals will help repair consumers and professionals worldwide. Le Monde reports that Samsung has already published a repair guide for the Galaxy S21 Plus 5G.
The parties involved in the system tell Radio France Internationale that they hope that Europe will follow the example of the French in order to have a greater influence on the policies of companies like Apple.
Update, 12:35 PM: the article mentioned that a vpn connection to france is required to see the scores, but this turns out to be incorrect.