 So, to start with the presentation, just to give you an idea of the agenda, it will be me at the beginning talking about the European Right to Repair campaign. And then we will have two members that will present two interesting national policies that are happening at national level, respectively it's the French Reparability Index and the Repair Bouter which is happening in Austria. So to start about the European Right to Repair campaign, the European Right to Repair campaign was launched in 2019 during Fixfest in Berlin and at the beginning it was made of just five core steering group members who had already campaigned for in favour of Reparability. During Fixfest it was the real launch of the campaign and that's where most members were recruited. Today we are over 100 members from 21 countries and we're trying to push institutions for Right to Repair. And if you listened to the previous presentation that was done by Matthew, he was talking about his Repair project that he's giving in refugee camps in Uganda. We had someone online commenting that it's really unfair how anti-repair practices that are pushed by companies to enable or to push people that do have a lot of resources and money to buy more and more and more, they really suck for people that do not have resources and do not have money and do not have access to this obscene over consumption either. So in a way I really hope that our efforts as Right to Repair campaign in Europe will be able to also help all the people that struggle with short lived devices all over the world actually. I know it's a huge ambition but we try to be ambitious. So to give you an idea of the members of the campaign because I know that some organisations that are attending Fixfest are a bit interested in the campaign and maybe in joining the campaign. We are a very diverse group of organisation. We have some environmental organisations. We have several charities that are pushing reparability in different countries such as Rundatisch Reparatur in Germany, the Restart project that you heard about before in the UK and also Repair and Share in Belgium. We also have several companies such as Backmarket. It's an online market of refurbished products and I Fixit which is a company that sells spare parts and provides free, wiki-like repair manuals. And yesterday it was brought to my attention that we're even more diverse than that and we even have trade unions. So we're a very diverse group of organisation. The starting point is that everyone wants repair. In Europe we have the possibility to measure that with the Eurobarometer which is a survey that has shown again and again that a vast majority of people do want repair. So what's happening at EU level on paper, lots of things are happening because repair is supposed to be part of the European plan to achieve circular economy by 2050 which is part of the bigger European Green Deal. But as we know it's very very often too little too late and not enough resources are put into the development of these policies and there is industry pushback. So one example that I like to talk about is the Universal Charger that was very celebrated as a great win for repair. By autumn 2024, USB Type C will be the common charging port for all mobile phones, tablets and cameras in the EU and this will celebrate it in the media and everywhere and rightfully so in a way. But is it such a big win? If you think that the first memorandum of understanding about this was in 2009. So 13 years ago we have been talking about this for 13 years and for laptops we will have to wait even more because it will not be 2024, we will have to wait for 40 additional months. This is an example that shows you that things are evolving very slowly and there is great industry pushback. So what do we actually want? What is the right to repair campaign advocating for? Three pillars mainly. Good design, fair access and informed consumers. When it comes to good design, anyone who has tried to repair something knows that it's very important that things are easy to disassemble, that they are even possible to disassemble them and there are not hidden security screws that things are not glued together or soldered together. And how we are trying to tackle this in EU legislation is basically with eco design legislation which is supposed to regulate many things and among these also the repairability aspect of design. Eco design legislation is evolving but it is evolving extremely slowly and if you look at the scope what products are currently covered, there are very little products that are covered. So this is evolving very, very slowly and we have many examples of this. For instance this year we have been waiting for the smartphones and tablets proposal for many, many months. It was delayed, delayed, delayed and when it finally came out the ambition of the eco design proposal for smartphone and tablets was really not up to scratch and not even aligned with European climate targets. If you are interested in that, I have put up some apologies for the online participants. I have put up some posters there where you can, it's their infographics but you can also find them online of course on our website, our reaction to this proposal for instance. The second pillar is fair access which means in order for repair to become mainstream everyone needs to have fair access to repair information and spare parts and this is definitely not the case today. And what we can see at EU level is that EU legislation is evolving in this sense but it is also creating very differentiated categories of users that have different types of access to repair information and spare parts. For instance if you are a professional repairer it makes a difference whether you are authorized or not authorized by manufacturers. If you are an end user or a little bit of an informal repairer you have less access to things and we really don't think this makes any sense because we want repair to be mainstream and to be very accessible and we are trying to push for that. When it comes to informed consumer, informed consumers on repairability one very useful instrument could be the Repairability Index which is something that we will talk about extensively because we have a speaker that will talk about the French Repairability Index that you might have heard of that is already in place in France. What's happening at EU level? This week me and my colleagues have been going a bit crazy because we were responding to the commission who has published a proposal for Repairability Index for smartphones and tablets. Are we happy about it? Very mixed feelings because we are happy that Repairability Index is even being discussed but does it make sense to have Repairability Index if we are not considering spare parts prices as a criterion within the Repairability Index? We know that the price of repair is a very important factor in the decision whether consumers are going to repair their device or replace it. So we really really need to take this into consideration and this is not the case today. But we will hear more about that later. So I'm just going to give you a takeaway. Regulation at EU level is really too slow. It's evolving but it's evolving too too slow and e-waste is growing very fast as we know. It is anticipated to double by 2050 which is very very problematic and we would like to stress that when we talk about e-waste we don't mean the discarded phones and tablets that we might have in our drawers. We mean especially the enormous amounts of waste that are produced during the manufacturing phase of these devices that the consumer don't see. So this is what we mean. I will be around all weekend. So if you have any questions about the Right to Repair Campaign feel very free to come to me. If you're interested in joining, if you're if you know of organizations that are interested in joining, I would be very very happy to have a conversation. There are speakers over there in case you're interested. And we will now hear from Markus Piringa from Austria who is going to tell us about repair vouchers that have been developed in Austria. Thank you. Hi everybody. I'm very happy to be here and to share some information and some insights about the repair funding in Austria or the repair subsidy in Austria. To start, maybe you know we have a national funding system now, but it is not before that there have been several federal states who already implemented funding or subsidies in Austria. This we in Austria, we have all in all nine federal states. So six of them have had a program before and also the city of Graz, which is which is not a federal state, also had implemented a funding system. And they all stopped at 2022 because a national voucher system got in place. I will talk a little bit about three different systems because they are different in a way. The first example is one of a federal state. I would call it the first generation of repair funding. I took up Austria as an example because there is a little bit of data how it worked. So the system worked that repair of large and small household electrical appliances are funded up to 50% of the repair costs and up to a maximum of 100 euros of each repair. So if your repair bill is 100 euro, you get 50 euro. If it's 200 euro, you get 100 euro. But if it's 500 euro, you also just get 100 euro. The repair must be carried out by an authorized business licensed listed in the upper Austrian repair guide. So we have in different federal states, we have repair guides there to get into this repair guide. It is checked if you have the allowance or if you are allowed to repair the stuff which is funded. And in this model the customer in first place has to pay the full price of the bill and gets the funding afterwards. So after having paid the price, the customer has to submit a completed application form in the time of four weeks after the repair has been carried out to get the funding. And the information is checked by the authority and then after approval, the customer gets the money back. So it is possible that not all criteria are met. And in this case, the customer doesn't get the money back. And in upper Austria it was about 9% of the cases that the customers applied for the money but they didn't get it because they didn't meet the criteria. As I said in the beginning, there are some numbers. So there was a bachelor's thesis on the upper Austrian system. And so some of the findings is that the average funding amount was 96 euros. 40% of the customers stated that they would not have had the repair carried out without receiving the subsidy. So it really makes a difference. So there are more repairs carried out. And the next number indicates this, that 38% of the companies surveyed noticed an increase of the numbers of repairs and 42 noticed a slight increase. So the number of repairs went up. And the question is, what happens when the subsidies stop? In this case, 26 of the companies have noticed a drop of repairs after the subsidies stop. So this indicates that it is a decrease afterwards but it makes a difference before and after because people are maybe, they repaired for the first time and so they got into the mood of repairing more. This is just about what kinds of repairs have been carried out, what appliances. So the big blue one is smartphones, then coffee machines, 18% washing machines and dishwashers. So these were the products which were repaired most often with the subsidy. The next example is an example of Vienna. This started in 2020 and in blue, there are the differences to the uphouse gym system. So in Vienna, all kinds of devices were repaired, which were covered by the repair network in Vienna. The repair network, which I'm also coordinating, is a platform of about 250 repair companies and they repair almost everything, so also furniture, textiles, whatsoever. And so the voucher system in Vienna was not only focused on electronic goods or electric devices. The same was that up to 50% of the costs were covered and it's up to 100 euros. In the difference to the upper Austrian system, also cost estimates were covered up to 45 euro because it's also a barrier for people to get things repaired, just to pay money, just to get to know if the thing is repairable or not. And so this was in the Vienna system, also the cost estimates were covered. And another difference is after the repair has been completed, a new repair voucher can be requested and the other system in upper Austria is just once in a year that you can get the funding. And the repair must be carried out by an authorized business listened in the repair network Vienna. The repair network Vienna is a bit different to the repair guides we have in other federal states because it also has a quality management and I can talk about this more in the session tomorrow at two o'clock when we talk about repair networks. So this was the first voucher system. The first in upper Austria or in other federal states was no voucher system because the person had to apply after already paying. And so in this case, the repair shop had to sign a contract to the city of Vienna to be able to receive the vouchers. And the customer, for the customer it's easier because he just has to get the voucher, he goes to the repair shop and immediately when he pays the costs, the voucher is subtracted. So he pays less money from the beginning. And then the business, the repair business has to hand out or submit the voucher to the authority and then gets the money from the authority. So the money goes not to the customer, the money goes to the repair business. And in Vienna it was possible to get the payment within two weeks because this is a big thing. If this is a subsidy and the company has to wait long to get it back, it's a problem for the liquidity so that he can still pay his bills because he's waiting for a lot of money. And here's just also some numbers. The average funding was close to the one in upper Austria, it was 70 euros. And the biggest part was the repair of mobile phones, computers, printers, etc. And the second was electrical household appliances. And then we have also the non-electrical goods like bicycles, furnitures, windows, interior design, plumbing and electrical installations and other repair services such as shoes, textiles, bags and so on. Now I switch to the Austrian wide repair bonus, which started in April. It's very much based on the Viennese system, it's also a voucher system, but it has differences. So it's only focused on the repair of electrical appliances again. So also e-bikes and so are covered, but for example no normal bikes without e-bikes because it's just electrical systems. It's again 50% of the costs which are funded and this time it's up to a maximum of 200 euros. And the cost estimates are also covered but only up to 50% and up to 30 euro. And also the same as the Viennese system, a new voucher can be downloaded after the first repair is completed. And also the repair business must be listed and this time at the list of the national repair bonus. So the big thing about the national voucher system is there is a lot of money in it. So we have 130 million euros, which is out of the, it's EU money actually, it's coming from the COVID Resurrection I think fund, it's called Recovery, the COVID Recovery Fund and up to date, so this is the number from the 26th of April, 143,000 vouchers have been redeemed and there are up to 2,500 companies taking part in the system and 9 million euros were paid out. I think I skipped the next one because it's also about how many products are repaired, but it's also, smartphones is a very big issue in repairing. I didn't make a slide about the conclusions, I just want to talk about them briefly. So far as we have data, we can say that a subsidy or a voucher system for repair is working, that you have more repair and it's overcoming the barrier of the price because everybody knows as repair is quite expensive compared to new products, it's a big barrier and it's very good method to lower this barrier. Also what I heard from the repair companies I'm in contact with is that the consumers tend to have higher quality repair, so if you have more expensive spare parts or less expensive spare parts with the subsidy, people tend to have a higher quality repair. So it's a good tool to foster the repair of after warranty repairs by professional businesses. But to really get into a repair society or repair economy, we need a lot of measures, so then a lot of screws have to be driven, this is EU policy, this is the cost factor, but it is also like training and education and so we also need a much informal education and therefore it's also very important to have initiatives like repair initiatives and all together with all these tools together I think we can change the system. Thank you. Thank you very much Marcus. I think we were all eager to know more about the Austrian system. I wonder whether at this stage there are already some questions for the Austrian system. I saw a few here, I wonder whether I should repeat them in the mic for the live streamers. So you mentioned that in order to qualify for the system, repairers had to demonstrate that they were competent to repair electrical goods, you did not mention that they had to also prove that they had liability insurance to do so. I'm asking this question because in the eco design requirements for household appliances and also the ones upcoming for smartphones, there's a second requirement that repairers should also demonstrate that they have liability insurance. So I was wondering if you could comment on that and if you find that a relevant requirement. I have to admit that I'm not sure what liability insurance is about. So the repairer has to demonstrate that he has contracted insurance that would pay the customer in case any damage would ensue from a faulty repair. As far as I can say, I believe that all the companies which have the legal permission to repair in Austria also have this kind of insurance because they are also listed at the Chamber of Commerce. Yes, thank you very much. Do you think there's an appetite to extend these vouchers to self-repair kits? This is a thing that manufacturers are now providing a lot more access to, user repair. We'd love to see that included, but do you think that there's political will for that being included? So the question is if it is possible to expand it to self-repair. So it would mean that it's funding the spare part costs because you don't have costs of the repair as such. For me, it's not easy to answer this question. I think it could be challenging to make sure that it is not misused because maybe I just buy a spare part and then I get the funding and then I resell the spare part again. So this would be quite challenging, I think. Thank you. Just to come back to your question, Thomas, because it's something I've heard when I was working at 3Us that in Austria there was an agreement between insurance company and repair cafes there so that they could benefit from liability insurance. And I wanted to know if you had more details on that or at least just as a point of information that there exist systems where it's possible for liability insurance or for repair cafes to benefit from liability insurance. And I think it was based on the fact that actually they are not commercial repairers. So the status is not really the same as for commercial repairers where actually you need liability because you are leaving out of repairing stuff. But if you do that voluntarily, you shouldn't be required to pay the same amount as a commercial repair which makes sense. But if you have more details on that, that would be interesting. Yes, there is insurance for repair cafes in Austria and so far it's for free. As we know that there is very little damage really noticed from repair cafes, I don't know if it will stay this way. So this is just like a prototyping. It just exists for one year, the insurance system. If this is possible because of this insurance to be part of a funding system or to be part of a national register or so, it has to be discussed. I don't know. Thank you. I was curious about your process in setting the exact amount of the subsidy in the sense of you had these experiences in the city of Vienna and other cities. Did you base, for example, this final amount of 250% of the price, did you base it on a certain research? How did you connect it eventually and would you see a relationship between the prices you've set of the subsidy and the type of repairs which were eventually happening in the most smart ones in this country? I was not part of the process when the first subsidy started with the 100 euro and then I think people sorted out, okay, it's working with 100 euro and that's what I believe. So I don't think that there is like scientific basis of the numbers. Yeah, I thought that was a very interesting question whether that price guides the repair. I wonder about the risk of the system being abused. I saw in the early slide that nearly one in ten got rejected and I wonder if that was just they didn't do the process right or there were suspicions that they were abusing it and I got second part. I can imagine if 50% of some repairs, subsidized somebody might double the charge of the repair and is that a risk that happened or how do you mitigate that? These are all good questions which I can't answer, especially the ones if the prices go up or so. We probably have the data, we are collecting the data now and it can be looked at but so far as the national system is just starting in April, we don't have the evaluation data but the data is here, also the data of the Vinnie system is here so I think maybe in one or two years we can answer a lot of those questions. The abuse is a problem but as far as I can see the Austrian government is very good looking at it because afterwards the EU will control the system so as it's EU money and I don't know if you ever had an EU project and you handed in your calculations in the end or they are really looking at it and so Austria is really very looking at it that there is no misuse but it's not easy, so the administration needs a lot of resources also from the administration. Also the first system, I mean you have a funding of 100 euro and you need a person to really look of the receipts and if everything is correct so it's a rather low amount of funding and a rather high administrative burden. Thank you for your presentation, I just had two questions, one about do you know if there's any kind of similar program being rolled out in any other EU countries? And second question is about is there a requirement for a warranty or guarantee of repaid products after they've been repaid by their professional apparatus? With the first question as far as I know in Germany there is a federal state who started with, I don't know which one do you know, Thüringen, thank you, yeah so in Thüringen and Germany there is a similar system that has started, I don't know of any other region in Sweden, so just for the one who streams they say that Munich and other cities in Germany also start and France is starting, yeah but it's so it hasn't started already, yeah discussions I think are going on in several countries but yeah they didn't start so far. And the second question was about guarantees, it's just the same as every repair, so I think there is a guarantee for one year if you repair something for the repaired parts and for the repair, so if something else breaks from the same product it's not covered but as far as I know it's not different if it's funded or not. Okay and probably this is going to be the last question, I was wondering you presented two kind of different schemes, one that had more of an active role from the repairer and the other one from the consumer and in terms of how widely adapted there were or how efficient or fluent in their kind of introduction, which one would you consider to be kind of more reliable or better, if that's... It's a difficult question because I don't have really the data, so it's just a feeling. From my point of view for the consumer, if you want to have the best effect it's the voucher system because it's much easier for the consumer, but the burden of the administration of the voucher system is more on the business also, so you have to have a really good administration so that the business doesn't have a bad effect because of this system and yeah I think it very much depends on how you design it and it's also at the VINI system and at the Austrian system you need in the first weeks and maybe in the first months you are still learning, so it's... Okay, thank you very much Markus, thank you for all the questions. I see we have more questions, but I also really would like to hear from the French repair index and I invite and encourage everyone to go and talk to Markus Piringa, they are both called Markus, that's why I'm specifying, the Austrian Markus because this conversation is super important, so over lunch let's talk more about these schemes and let's now welcome Markus Bergmann who is going to talk about the French Repairability Index. Everybody, yeah my name is Markus Bergmann, I'm actually a PhD student, but I was collaborating with HOP, a French association who's working against planned obsolescence and together we wrote a report about the French Repairability Index. Actually, HOP was invited but they couldn't make it today so they asked me to be here. Okay, so I would like to divide this presentation in two parts broadly, first I would like to present the index itself, what this is about and then talk a little bit about the findings of our report. So as you know there's a problem of supply and demand, consumers don't really are able to distinguish between more and less reputable products and also consumers are not really committed to produce eco-friendly products. So then the story of the Repairability Index goes back to 2018 where it was proposed as a measure in the roadmap for circular economy and the idea was we had to create a mandatory display of simple information about how reputable a product is and here this initiative is also only relating to electronic products. The idea then is to yeah at the same time reorientate the consumer towards more reputable products, so that's to change the consumer behavior and at the same time you have to increase a little bit the pressure towards the manufacturers. So this is what the Repairability Index looks like, it has to be displayed online and offline, it's a score from 1 to 10, 10 is the most reputable and you also find a small color code next to it. It's part of the French law which was introduced in February 2020 and it stipulates that the producer, so the manufacturer of the product has to calculate the score and then also transmit it to the seller and the seller on the other hand has to display the score and also provide the details or the subcategories of the index to the consumer if they ask about it. You can also see on this slide here the different product categories that are concerned, so there was a first rollout concerning five product categories, lawnmowers, smartphones, laptops, dishwashers and TVs and then it was further extended to five other categories. A little background information on how the index was actually constructed, it was quite interesting because it is a mandatory index meaning top-down approach but at the same time many different stakeholders were invited to create the methodology of the index, how to calculate it. Among others I think it was there, hello again Thomas and manufacturers were invited, NGOs, retailers, many many different stakeholders from the repair sector. This was very important for many reasons that we will talk about later. So what is the index actually? Let's take a zoom in, there are different criteria, five criteria that you can see on the left side of the slide. So the first criterion is the repair information. Do I have the manual which shows how I can disassemble and reassemble my product for instance? Is the product easy or difficult to disassemble? Do I have the spare parts, the price of the spare parts and then a fifth criterion which is product specific? So for instance this is an example of the smartphone index and there we have also software related issues. Interesting to know about the index is that there are different repair routes considered. What do I mean by that? Well you know you can repair a device either yourself, you can go to your manufacturer, you can go to a professional authorized repair or an independent repair. All those different repair routes were considered to a certain extent in the index and this is also thanks to this multi-stakeholder approach you can imagine that if there were only manufacturers sitting on the table we wouldn't have the self-repair column for instance. As it is a mandatory index there are some sanctions meaning that there will be official controls starting in 2022. The index was introduced in 2021 so the first year was kind of a transition giving more time to the manufacturers. So let me come to the second part through the actual report that I wrote with Hop together. What is it that we wanted to do? We wanted to look at the overall deployment of the index after 11 or 12 months. We wanted to look at the consumers, do they understand what the index is about, do they use it, is it useful for them and also we wanted to look into detail into some scores that have been calculated and displayed by the manufacturers to look at are they complying with all the instructions or maybe abusing. How did we do it? We collected about 2000 indices and made some statistical analysis. We did an online survey interrogating over 1200 potential consumers. We interviewed people from the repair sector and then we collaborated with Fnaktarty to actually take some products, disassemble them etc and calculate the score by ourselves. So here are the results for the first part, the statistical analysis. Two points that I want to make clear. You can see here the scores available on the market after 11 months more or less for each of the five categories. You can see that there are not many scores below five and you can see that the distribution of the scores are not homogenic. They were a little bit scoot to the right, a little bit scoot towards better scores. This raises a couple of questions. Was the index correctly constructed where the power balances equal in the construction? Is the index improvable and most importantly, is the index discriminatory of different scores? You can imagine if there are only good scores on the market, consumers can still not distinguish between more and less repairable products. Some key figures from the online survey with the potential consumers. Three points that I want to highlight. So the index is well known by the French population. They know what it's about, why we have the need for a repairable index. Then if you insist a little bit on the different criteria, how the index is actually composed, there are still some learning gaps. The second thing is that people that actually bought a new product that was concerned by the index didn't really see it oftentimes in 2021. So it wasn't that the index became mandatory in January 2021 and then already all products had an index. Only 28% of the consumers who were buying a product actually saw the index, either online or in the store. Nevertheless, a good thing to mention is that if they bought and saw the index, then it was useful for them. Over 3%, 4%, over 35% actually said it was useful to make their purchase decision. Last part of our report was then to zoom into certain scores. We looked into six different product scores, smartphones and some TVs, for instance. These are the findings to sum them up. From six products that we counter-exploitized, we found lower scores for five out of six products. Only for one product, this was the ASA laptop. We found basically the same score. The other scores were too high, according to us. Conclusion for us was official controls are necessary. We esteemed that some of the manufacturers overestimated the reparability of their products. Last important finding was also during this report that there is a certain weakness, according to us, according to HOP of the index, which is the compensation effect, what we call it. What do I mean by that? Well, you can find a product with a very good score, an overall score of 7.3%. For instance, here in the example, you will get a green logo. So consumer instantly thinks everything is fine. I can repair my product. But in certain key criteria, such as, for instance, the availability of spare parts, you have a very, very low score. In reality, what is going to happen, you can have access to the manual. Maybe the spare parts are also not very expensive, but they are not available. In the end, it's not repairable. So HOP and myself in the report, we proposed some measures to address this problem. Key takeaways from the Reparability Index in France for us are the Reparability Index is a very good initiative to foster repair, both on the national, but also on the supranational level. I think for the repair score on the European level, for instance, this was a very important driver to accelerate the process, was also important to show it is possible to measure repairability, which is not so straightforward as it sounds. And it's a very good initiative, which is welcomed by the consumers. Nevertheless, there are improvement points for the index. For instance, there are transparency issues. What do I mean by that? There's not one place where you can go to and find all the repairability scores. And you can imagine that when you buy a product, maybe one, two, three years later, there is a breakdown, you do not instantly find the repair score. So how do you want to hold responsible consumer afterwards? This is a problem. Also the detail of information that you have access to as a consumer can be improved according to the report. For instance, the manufacturer has to make a commitment in the repairability index for each spare part. For each spare part, for instance, they say, okay, this one will be available for seven years. This kind of detail of information you don't see as a consumer, which is also a problem if you want to hold responsible afterwards. Another point that can be improved is, as I said, the overall calculation of the final score to address this compensation effect, for instance. And in our interviews with people from the repair sector, we also learned that there are other repair barriers that are not addressed so far in the index, for instance, software issues such as the serialization of spare parts. And here the thing that I already said is controls, official controls are actually key for this repairable index to commit manufacturers and make sure that they are not abusing the initiative. So this was a brief overview of the French repairable index. Thank you very much. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Before we open the floor for questions, we just wanted to give a quick information that we will have more sessions on repairability indexes during FixFest. Thomas knows where and when. Yeah, so there will be a primarily Dutch speaking session, which will be the before last session tonight in the Hammer Room. So it will be primarily Dutch, but also open to English or French. And there will be a primarily French session tomorrow morning, but also open to Dutch and English, if you want. These sessions will be a little bit more interactive. So our ideas that you as a repair or activist can share any frustrations you have, any barriers, any problems that you encounter. And then we will reply by explaining to you whether this is dealt with in any political project or whether there's a policy tool addressing it, whether something is underway and if nothing is underway, how that is so that we sort of start from your concerns and explain what policy is doing on that level. Now to the questions for Marcus. I already see one here. Thank you. Just a question concerning the level of awareness of consumers. So you said that when they buy these products, only 27%, I think you said are aware that there is this logo. What do you think is the reason why they can't see it? Like is it too small? Is the way it's displayed or maybe they just don't care and they'll just get the price? What are the reasons you think they just ignore the majority, just ignore the label? So 28% of those who bought a product in 2021 only saw the index. This was also due to the recent introduction of the initiative. So and because there were no official controls, meaning even though the index was mandatory, there were no sanctions if manufacturers didn't display it. So this is the first main reason because there were so many products on the market without an index. As to the visibility of the score itself, it is well described in the French law how it has to be displayed next to the price. I showed you a picture here. So it has to be, the final score has to be as the same size of the price next to the price with the colored logo. So I think the visibility is there in the store and also online. Then if you want to look into further details into the subcategories, if you want to know, do I have the manual available? Do I have the spare parts? There it gets a little bit more tricky. There you have different ways, leeway for the manufacturers to display this kind of information and some ways, options that the manufacturers chose are more easily accessible than others. Thank you. I'm curious about the 27 interviews or something, the number of interviews that you did. In terms of repairers, what was the repairer's impression of the score and did it, what did they feel it was reflective of the actual repairability score and did it actually affect the number of devices being repaired? Were people more likely to have a device repaired if they see after they've bought it and it breaks and they see the score, did this affect the way that they chose to repair or not? So I think the repairers, they have a very specific position as to the French repairability index. Why is this so? First of all, I think they're happy that the index exists because it raises awareness of the repair sector itself. It can motivate people to repair more devices and accelerate their business in one way. On the other hand, and also they were also invited, they were part of the stakeholders constructing the index itself. So they were very happy to be part of this process and contribute to expertise, which was also very important regarding the statistics, for instance, that they could share with the public authorities, which go beyond the warranty period. Otherwise, we would have had a lot of statistics but only within the warranty period and things change afterwards. On the other hand, repairers will face situations where there will be a customer with a high repairability index and due to the compensation effect, in reality, the device might not be repairable. So then the consumer might reproach this to the repairer itself. Maybe he thinks that's due to his skills or network or whatever. So the relationship is not that straightforward for repairers and the index itself, I would say. Yeah, a following question. You said that companies are supposed to do a self-declaration right about the index and then the authorities kind of revise and approve or decline what they declare. But then are they kind of, do they have a penalty if they just like overestimate the repairability of their devices? Like in the research that you did and you had these differences, is there some way to actually kind of, I don't know, appeal them? Yeah, I showed it on the slide. I didn't mention it to be brief. There are penalties, sanctions in the law foreseen up to 15,000 euros per model. These are the sanctions in law specifically to the repairability initiative. Then there you have other laws that could be applied, other penalties more general related to misleading commercial behavior. And their dependencies are much higher. Nevertheless, one thing to keep in mind is that public authorities have limited resources. We will have to see in what kind of way they will conduct these controls. Are they only looking at is the index present or not? Or are they actually going to recalculate the score and look into it how it was actually? Are the scores reliable or not? So this has to be seen. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I have a question about the relationship between the price and the index for the consumer, the decision making when they buy a product. I am curious if it does increase the sales at the end like the consumer aware that this one can be repaired. Do they really adopt the product to be used at their home? Yeah, does it increase the sales? So is the price affected by the index? Is this the question? Yeah, my question is actually does the in like I'm just thinking like consumer price of point of view. If you want to buy a product, maybe price is also a very important decision criteria. And when they see the index, how that like play between these two, do they at the end decide on price more than the index? Or is it how you affect the decision making? Do you see any effect on that? So if I understand the question, well, if if I'm a consumer and I have to make a decision, do I consider more the price or more repairability index? Well, we did a small experiment about the intention to purchase devices. And we tried to include this decision. We, for instance, showed a high price with a high index, low price, low index and some variations of that. And our findings were that price plays a role, but it can be mediated by a higher score. So if you have a higher score, consumers are potentially more willing to pay a more expensive product. But this was an experiment about the intentions to buy. Another story might be actually doing or observing the actual behavior of consumers. And my question has largely been asked already by this lady here. But I wanted to ask more specifically about the validation of the score and is the is the cost of undertaking the validation paid by the business or is that paid by the government? So validation, you mean the the official controls? Yeah, the official controls. Do they pay for the validation when they submit the device to be sold in the market? No, so the the index is self declared is calculated by the manufacturer, submit it to the seller, the seller displays it. Okay. In this process, there will occur some costs. It depends on the experience of the of each player, but there's an estimation of 1000 euros per model. Okay. These costs are to be borne by the seller and by the manufacturer itself. Then there are official controls and the official controls are conducted by public authorities and public authorities will pay for this this process. Thank you. Thank you for for the presentation. I had two small questions. The first one was about the level of handymanship. Is there within the definition of the index? Is there any reference or dimension concerning the the ability of the repair person? Is it or DIYers or is it more for professional repairs? And is this if not, is this considered in maybe future versions or are you putting this in your work? And the second one was about the assessment of durability. So sometimes products may be more durable, but less repairable. How does that play in your assessments? Yeah, very good questions. The first one as to the skills of the people repairing. As I mentioned, there are different columns, different players, stakeholders considered in the index. So you have, if for instance, you have spare parts available for in-house manufacturers after state services. These people are usually skilled, they are employed because of their skills. You have also considered another in another column, repairs. Repairs include both authorized, so professional repairs, but also independent ones. And then you have another column for self repair for the consumers itself. So you have different levels of skills considered in the index, but it's not that to get a high score, you need more skills or anything like that. And the second part of the second question regarding the durability and how to measure that, this is an ongoing work in France. The French Repairability Index will transform into a durability index in 2024. It will integrate further dimensions. Repairability is one of them. To others, upgradability and the reliability. So how often do breakdowns occur? And updatability is, can I extend the functions of the device, either we are software or material extensions? But as to how exactly this is going to be measured, I don't know yet because it's not, it hasn't been decided yet. I would just like to add one comment to that question, because you mentioned specifically skills. And I think it's fair to say that the index at this point considers the support that is extended to certain types of repairs, but it does not actually consider the skills, which was your question, I think. More specifically, it addresses the design and the ease of this assembly only by the number of steps. So the score is determined by the number of steps required to change a certain component, but it does not evaluate the difficulty of any of these steps, which I think relates to your question. So if the index were further developed to better take into account skills, there would have to be a differentiation in scores, whether for instance you have to desolder a component or you just unscrew it or you snap it, but this is not in place at this point. I think yesterday there was brief mention of effects of the policy in terms of reaction of the companies as in publishing repair manuals in order to get a higher score. And I was just wondering if you have any more examples of companies anticipating legislative change and adapting their products or if you expect these kind of reactions from companies or what the situation is with that? So as I said, in this construction process of the index, many, many different stakeholders were involved and among them also manufacturers. So this shows that the index is affecting them in one way or another. They are interested in the initiative for lobbying reasons or also for learning reasons, right? As to the impact of the index itself, it's a little bit early, I would say to evaluate this. Nevertheless, some first indications are there. For instance, yeah, you mentioned the availability of manuals and we have seen that, for instance, among very big manufacturers, key players that this has improved for certain product categories such as smartphones. The index is also well communicated by those manufacturers on their websites dedicated websites have been created. Access has been made very easy for the consumers. But for instance, as to this design, I think this will take a little bit more time to to evaluate actually. My question concerns more the policy side or the campaigning side of this project. So now we're installing the national score in Belgium also gradually. We'll have the French example, we have other countries following this example. I'm expecting there is a little bit of difference between these legislations and I'm also wondering how this will interfere with the European initiative. So will we get different type of scores or how will they integrate? This is one of the key questions for the manufacturers always ask at every stakeholder meeting. General rule is that if there's something on a European level, this will supersede the national level. So if there is a repair score at the European level for smartphones, then there will be no more score on the national level. French repairability score for smartphones will soon disappear. Nevertheless, there is a durability score to be displayed in 2024 in France. The durability score contains the repairability score. Now is the question which repairability score will be contained? The European one or the French one? If so, is it be displayed in one final score or in two different scores? These are questions that are not answered so far. Yeah, to this point, maybe just a point of frustration from the European right to repair campaign. When we see industry pushback, it's a bit at the U level, it's a bit ridiculous because on one side they're going, they're complaining that the repairability indexes are going to be different in every country, but then they're making the EU index very, very weak. So it's a challenge and of course it would make more sense to have a repairability index that is more or less uniform, but then it needs to be strong and it cannot be the weak thingy that was proposed for smartphone and tablets, I would say. Any more questions? I think people are getting hungry. Maybe the last word. Do manufacturers get training in how to analyse repairability? Sorry, I didn't catch that. Do manufacturers get a training in how to implement the index and analyse their products? There are no official workshops from the public authorities. Nevertheless, there are workshops from independent private actors. So if you want, you can participate in something like that, but you have to pay for it. The index will be presented, that will be shown how to calculate it, some step forward. But then for everybody for free, there are some manual, an official manual explaining more in detail how to calculate each score, very extensive manual. Public authorities are also available, make themselves available for all the manufacturers, retailers that have questions. Exchanges are quite intense. So if you have questions, as an actor, you can reach out to different stakeholders. Then I would say thank you very much for both Marcus's and the participants. If you have any more questions, because these are key topics, so anything about the Rytweaver campaign, you know where to find me, I know that the Austrian Marcus will stay on for the rest of Fixfest, for the Austrian vouchers. And with regards to the other Marcus, will you stay on a little bit? Okay, so we have until tonight to go to him and ask him plenty of questions about the French repair index. Thank you very much for joining us, and I think we have to go get lunch before it's gone. Thank you.