Resources, Conservation and Recycling 79 (2013) 21–29

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Resources, Conservation and Recycling

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resconrec

Consumer understanding of product lifetimes

Jayne Cox ∗ , Sarah Griffith 1,2 , Sara Giorgi 1 , Geoff King 1
Brook Lyndhurst, Cambridge House, Cambridge Grove, London W6 0LE, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Throwing products away before they fail or are broken is at the heart of consumer behaviour in devel-
Received 5 October 2012 oped economies such as the UK. Products are often discarded for reasons of fashion, or to keep up with
Received in revised form 2 May 2013 technological advances, rather than because they have reached the end of their functional life. Such
Accepted 7 May 2013
behaviours contribute to resource depletion, greenhouse gas emissions, and physical waste which needs
to be managed. Extending the length of time that products are kept in use (whether by their original or
Keywords:
subsequent owners) can contribute to greater resource efficiency, with significant potential to reduce
Product lifetime
greenhouse gas emissions. This research was undertaken to support the development of evidence-based
Product durability
Consumer behaviour
policy in the UK on the role of longer product lifetimes in achieving sustainable consumption and waste
Resource efficiency prevention. Twelve qualitative discussion groups, involving 115 consumers, were carried out to explore
Sustainable consumption consumer influences on product lifetimes including: which factors influence purchase decisions; the care
Consumption lifecycle of products in use; and disposal decisions. A new typology was developed to describe how products meet
consumers’ various needs for ‘workhorses’, ‘investment’ and ‘up-to-date’ products; and how lifetime is
an outcome of the ‘nature’ of a product (functional life) and its ‘nurture’ (lifetime in use) by consumers.
The results demonstrate that consumers have come to expect constant and rapid up-dating of products.
In particular, having the latest versions of products is strongly associated with personal identity and
feelings of success in life. There is little evidence of concern about the environmental consequences of
a ‘throwaway society’. The low cost of new products, which enables rapid updating for reasons of fash-
ion, is a key barrier to encouraging consumers to keep products in use for longer. Some opportunities
were identified however for certain ‘workhorse’ and ‘investment’ products that are valued more for their
functionality than fashion.
© 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V.

1. Introduction
The growth of post-war affluence (Galbraith, 1999) in the USA,
Europe and now many newly developing countries has been char-
acterised by the evolution of a ‘throw-away’ society, a term that
was first popularised in the 1960s (Packard, 1963, cited in Park,
2010). A commonplace feature of modern economies, now almost
taken for granted, is the widespread disposal of products before
they break. Through market mechanisms this has also led to a
decline in the lifespan for which products are designed to last (Park,
2010). As a result, increasing numbers of previously long-life prod-
ucts have become ‘semi-disposable’, such as toasters and mobile
phones that cannot easily be repaired or upgraded, or clothing
and footwear that is not intended to be worn beyond a particular
season (Cooper, 2008b; Fisher et al., 2008). Examples of the pre-
mature discard of products abound: a third of appliances are still
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 020 8741 7702.
E-mail address: jayne.cox@brooklyndhurst.co.uk (J. Cox).
1
Tel.: +44 020 8741 7702; fax: +44 203441 1371.
2
Independent author. Formerly at Brook Lyndhurst.
in working order when they are thrown away (Cooper, 2004); two
million personal computers are dumped in landfill sites each year
(Waste Watch, 2012, cited in Park, 2010); 23% of discarded items
of electrical and electronic equipment are economically viable for
resale, either in their current condition or with minor or moder-
ate repair, including nearly half (49%) of large appliances (WRAP,
2011).
Decisions made at the point of purchase can also influence prod-
uct lifetime. Rising incomes, combined with a long term decline in
the real price of many consumer products, has meant that products
are much more easily replaceable than they once were. As a result,
consumers may not evaluate what they already own and are sus-
ceptible to impulse purchasing. In one survey for example (Evans
and Cooper, 2010), 51% of respondents bought footwear on impulse,
20% chairs and 10% appliances. Such spontaneous behaviours may
preclude evaluation of product durability at the point of purchase;
and even if consumers do try to evaluate durability, they may lack
the information necessary to make good judgements (Christer and
Cooper, 2004; CSC, 2008) and have to rely on poor proxies instead
(Cooper, 2005).
Only a small proportion of discarded household goods and
clothes is captured for second-hand use (Brook Lyndhurst, 2009;

0921-3449/$ – see front matter © 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2013.05.003
22 J. Cox et al. / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 79 (2013) 21–29
Curran et al., 2007) even though there is widespread sentiment
among the public that they would like to help others by pass-
ing things on (Brook Lyndhurst, 2009, 2011b). Even fewer people
buy goods second-hand than donate products for reuse (Brook
Lyndhurst, 2009, 2011b) often deterred because of an associa-
tion of second-hand goods with failure in life, concerns about
hygiene (Fisher et al., 2008) and generally desiring new (Watson,
2008).
The environmental consequences of society’s collective con-
sumption behaviours have started to drive policy interest in
sustainable production and consumption in recent years. In the
UK, this is recognised in actions such as the Sustainable Cloth-
ing Action Plan (run on behalf of UK government by the Waste
and Resources Action Programme, WRAP), the UK Department
of Environment Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra, 2008, 2010) work
on sustainable products and consumers, and the UK Government
Review of Waste Policy in England (Defra, 2011a,b). Policy develop-
ment within the European Union (EU) has similarly paid increasing
attention to sustainable consumption during recent years. Sustain-
able consumption is just one component of policy developments
to encourage greater resource efficiency of economies and soci-
eties (for example, the Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe
(European Commission, 2011)).
Recent policy-related research in the UK (Brook Lyndhurst,
2007; WRAP, 2009, 2010) has highlighted the significance of opti-
mising product lifetime as a strategy to improve the resource
efficiency and security of the economy and to contribute to global
reductions in carbon dioxide and ecological footprints. In partic-
ular, the research highlights the significant role that changes to
the purchase and use of products on the consumption side of the
economy could play in improving product lifetime and resource
efficiency (material, water and energy), as compared to more mod-
est gains from the production side (for example through changes
in product design). While the WRAP research established aggre-
gate benefits for the UK economy as a whole, it is recognised that
prolonging product lifetime will not always be the optimum strat-
egy for every product – for older, energy inefficient appliances for
example. The net benefits of longer lifetime for specific products
can be revealed through a life-cycle analysis for that product (for
example, in research by ERM (2011) which was conducted in par-
allel to the consumer research reported here).
The purpose of the research reported here was to develop insight
into the role that consumers play in determining product lifetimes
and to reveal opportunities for influencing consumer behaviour
through policy or market actions. Technical aspects were not within
the scope of this work. Specifically, the research set out to explore
how consumers understand the idea of ‘product lifetime’,3 whether
it influences their purchasing decisions and what actions, if any,
they take to extend product lifetimes through care and repair or at
the disposal stage.
The research focused on consumer behaviour within the con-
text of existing product offerings and market structures to identify
where improvements might result in longer product lifetimes. It
was recognised that more transformative approaches to extend-
ing product lifetime need to be considered but they were largely
excluded from the present research to avoid the scope being too
wide. They include approaches such as modular product design to
enable partial and piecemeal updating (van Nes, 2010), or design for
emotional attachment (Schifferstein et al., 2004; Chapman, 2010),
and ‘new business models’ to change the way products are offered
to consumers, for example through product-service-systems,
3 4
The duration of the life of a product from acquisition to replacement (van Nes,
2003).
leasing, long-term repair contracts, community sharing and others
(Gottberg and Cook, 2008; Brook Lyndhurst, 2009).4
2. Approach and method
In order to explore consumer influences in depth, a qualitative
research approach was selected comprising twelve facilitated dis-
cussion groups with members of the public. So that the coverage
and content of the discussion groups built on existing knowledge
on consumers and product lifetimes, the groups were preceded
by a brief literature review of sixty sources and qualitative tele-
phone interviews with six key respondents working on sustainable
product policy. The interview respondents were suggested by the
project steering group and came from WRAP, Defra and Waste
Aware Scotland.
A key starting point for the research design was the significant
body of work by Cooper and various co-authors which had devel-
oped over the previous ten years, including the UK Network on
Product Life-spans (Cooper, 2003, 2010, 2008a, 2008b; Park, 2003).
It also built on research from other disciplines, such as the litera-
ture on waste and resources, which provided relevant insight on
re-use behaviours at the end of a product’s (first) lifetime (Brook
Lyndhurst, 2009; Curran et al., 2007; Curran, 2010; Gregson and
Crewe, 2003). The research aimed to build a deeper understanding
of consumer influences on product lifetimes, including the pri-
macy of a ‘throw-away’ culture over demand for durable products;
expectations about product lifetimes and consumer satisfaction
with how long products last (building on Cooper and Mayers,
2000); the relationship between obsolescence and product, societal
and individual influences (Watson, 2008; Park, 2010); replacement
behaviours (van Nes, 2010); and opportunities for marketing dura-
bility (Cooper and Christer, 2010).
Other central themes included the lack of information avail-
able to consumers about product lifetime and their reliance on
proxy measures at the point of purchase (Christer and Cooper,
2004; Cooper, 2005; CSC, 2008); and significant barriers to prod-
uct repair (Cooper, 2004). Evans’ (2005, cited in Evans and Cooper,
2010) observations that consumers do not undertake lifetime opti-
mising behaviours consistently throughout the different stages of
a product’s lifetime provided a useful framework for organising
the discussion guide, which was divided into sections that covered
consumer behaviour at the point of purchase, during use, and at
the point of disposal. Those stages were consistent with the ‘life-
cycle’ approach being taken by Defra to sustainable consumption
and production, waste, and resources (Brook Lyndhurst, 2009).
In addition to the literature review on product lifetimes, the
research design took into account the theoretical evidence base on
influencing behaviours, especially as applied to pro-environmental
behaviour (for example: Aarts et al., 1998; Brook Lyndhurst, 2006;
Chatterton, 2011; Darnton, 2008; Jackson, 2005; Dolan et al.,
2010; Shove, as described in Darnton et al., 2011; Schwartz, 1992;
Verplanken and Orbell, 2003) and Defra’s framework for influenc-
ing behaviours (Defra, 2008, 2011a,b; Eppel, 2013).
Discussion groups are a means of revealing more about par-
ticipants’ underlying feelings and frames of reference about a
topic than would be elicited in an individual interview. The group
dynamic encourages reflection on what others are saying and more
considered responses (Ritchie and Lewis, 2009). Groups can also be
useful for revealing participants’ understanding of ‘expert’ concepts
(e.g. product lifetime) and the language that they would ordinar-
ily use with respect to those concepts. Stimulus materials and
deliberative exercises can be used in the group setting to access
Further practice-focused research on product lifetimes is being taken forward
by the Waste and Resources Action Programme.
 J. Cox et al. / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 79 (2013) 21–29 23

Table 1
Summary sample design for the qualitative discussion groups – number of groups for each filter.

Lifestage
Living with parents No/pre-family Family Empty nester
1 3 4 4

Home ownership
Living with parents Home owners Renters Mixed group
1 6 1 4

Incomea
Mixed higher and lower Higher Lower
2 5 5

Age
18–25 41–65 and working Over 50 and retired Over 25 (spread 26–65)
2 2 2 6
a
‘Lower’ and ‘higher’ income filters were set according to household incomes for different age bands on the basis of national statistics.

Table 2
Consensus of expected product lifetimes for products included in the research.

0–2 years 3–4 years 5–6 years 7–10 years 10+ years

Electric tooth-brush Kettle Camera TV Boiler

Mobile phone MP3 player Landline-phone Fridge/freezer Kitchen units
Jeans Toaster Lamp Cooker Wardrobe
Jumper Computer Power tools Sofa
Coat Cushions Vacuum-cleaner Carpet
Shirt Suit Washing-machine Bed
Shoes Microwave
Curtains

influences that may not be immediately apparent to respondents
(that is, not ‘salient’) and which may not be elicited in the kind of
direct questioning used in questionnaire surveys. While only a few
of the sources in the literature review (Brook Lyndhurst, 2011a)
provided comprehensive explorations of consumer attitudes and
behaviour they highlighted that ‘product lifetime’ is not a stable
concept either across products, across stages of consumption and
disposal (Evans and Cooper, 2010) or between different individuals.
Qualitative discussion groups were therefore selected as the most
appropriate means to access the multi-faceted nature of consumer
understanding of product lifetime. While this approach generates
deep insight, its principal limitation is that results cannot be scaled
up or generalised to the population as a whole.
In order to provide sufficient coverage of a range of socio-
demographic groups and to be able to explore a range of different
product types, twelve groups were recruited by a market research
recruitment agency5 according to a sample design devised by the
research team. Two groups were recruited in each of six towns and
cities spread across England. Other selection filters were set for
likely influences on product lifetime behaviours: lifestage (living
with parents, pre-family, family or ‘empty-nester’); home owner-
ship or renting; income; and age. All groups were mixed gender,
with 60 women and 55 men taking part. The total number of par-
ticipants was 115. A summary of the sample design is shown in
Table 1.
Findings from the literature review suggested that asking par-
ticipants directly about product lifetimes would be unlikely to
reveal the true decision-making processes which ultimately control
product lifetimes. Participants were therefore asked to complete
a pre-task before attending the groups. This task was designed to
frame participants’ thinking around certain product types by giving
them a self-completion booklet and asking them to record spe-
cific instances of purchase and disposal of different product types.
Discussion of the booklets was used as an ‘ice breaker’ at the start
of the groups.
A topic guide was used to facilitate the group discussions
together with stimulus material and deliberative exercises. The
discussions were structured around the three key stages of the
consumption lifecycle: purchase, use, and disposal (Evans and
Cooper, 2010). The deliberative exercises involved participants
sorting and discussing pre-printed cards, first to explore purchase
motivations and then to locate different products on a timeline
to represent expected product lifetimes. For the second exercise,
two sets of 15 product categories were used, one set in half of the
groups and one set in the other half, covering 30 products in total
(Table 2).
Each group lasted one and a half hours. Discussions were
recorded electronically and transcribed by a professional tran-
scriber. The research team extracted data from the transcripts
according to a thematic framework (Ritchie and Lewis, 2009) and
moderated findings in structured team discussion sessions.
3. Results and discussion
As expected from the literature review, the group discussions
revealed a great deal of complexity with respect to consumers’
understanding of product lifetimes. There were very marked vari-
ations in attitudes and behaviours across product types, across
stages of the consumption lifecycle and between individuals.
To provide coherence to the results, some general findings are
presented first, followed by findings for different stages of the
consumption lifecycle for each of three broad product categories,
organised according to a typology that was developed from the
findings.
3.1. General findings

The notion of ‘product lifetime’ is not fixed and usage of

5
Criteria Fieldwork Ltd, London. the term may depend on the setting in which it is being used.
24 J. Cox et al. / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 79 (2013) 21–29
Fig. 1. Model of the formulation of consumer product lifetime preferences.
Designers, for example, may be principally concerned with the
functional lifetime of a product before it fails or breaks. Since
the research reported here was concerned with more than func-
tional durability it is important to be clear how the idea was
presented to discussion group participants. They were asked to
consider product lifetime as the amount of time for which they
themselves expected to keep a product, from purchase to disposal,
regardless of the reason they chose to get rid of it or how it was
discarded.
The concept of a product lifetime on this basis was fluid for each
individual participant and was typically formulated on a case by
case basis for different products. It comprised a mix of how long
consumers expected something would last before it broke; and how
long they wanted it to last before they updated it. These two dimen-
sions can be characterised as product nature and product nurture
(or ‘willingness to keep’). ‘Nature’ is controlled by functional prod-
uct durability; ‘nurture’ reflects an interrelated set of influences
on attitudes and behaviours which consequently affect a products’
lifetime in the consumption phase.
‘Nurture’ appeared to fall broadly into influences that are sit-
uated with individuals and those that are situated in the wider
market and societal environment (Park, 2010). At the individual
level, the role that products play in meeting personal needs was
critically important, in terms of the functional utility provided by
a product, emotional attachment to belongings (Schifferstein et al.,
2004), and strong feelings related to personal identity and a sense
of belonging in society. In the wider environment, important influ-
ences were price, information, product quality and availability.
In its simplest form, ‘willingness to keep’ was intimately bound
up with participants’ perception of value, which derived from
the interplay of various individual and wider influences, as well
as the actual nature of the product. These various influences on
consumers’ formulation of a product lifetime preference are summ-
arised in Fig. 1.
In the group discussions, it was apparent that consumers want
products to last (i.e. not break) for just as long as they want them
to last, but not necessarily any longer than that. There was a differ-
ence in the way consumers valued durability (a product designed
to last a long time) and functional reliability (a product perform-
ing reliably without breaking down regardless of how long it is
built to last). Functional reliability was crucial for all products (even
ones expected to be kept for a short time) but durability was only
of value to participants for products they expected to keep for
more than a few years. Policies that encourage greater product
durability are therefore only part of solution to extending product
lifetimes.
The group exercise to place different products on a timeline of
expected product lifetime (as defined above) revealed participants’
expectations about different products. For the thirty products asked
about in the groups there was a clear gradient in expected life-
times. The consensus lifetime for most clothing items was two years
or less, and was under five years for most consumer electronics
and small appliances. Expectations for beds, sofas, carpets, cur-
tains, TVs, washing machines and cookers were most often between
five and ten years. Only kitchen units, wardrobes and boilers had a
consensus expectation of a lifespan of more than ten years. Subse-
quent discussion showed that expectations are strongly influenced
by recent experiences, including product break-down where this
happens. Comparing these results to earlier research by Cooper and
Mayers (2000) suggests that consumers’ expectations and experi-
ence of product lifetimes have reduced, at least for electronic and
electrical items.
In every discussion group, at least one or two people had product
lifetime expectations much longer or much shorter than the con-
sensus (shown in Table 2). There appeared to be some differences
by gender and age. Women typically had shorter product lifetime
expectations than men, especially for clothing and home furnish-
ings, while older participants generally expected products to last
longer than did younger participants. Previous research has shown
conflicting evidence on the influences of age and gender (Evans and
Cooper, 2010) and further quantitative research is required to test
this aspect further.
Overall, the group discussions confirmed that consumers feel
they are under immense social pressure to keep updating products.
Participants reported that many products are updated frequently
to achieve a certain look, or so that they can have the latest technol-
ogy. Updating happens at least in part so that people can keep up
with their peers and family. Being able to own the latest products
was a strong signifier of personal success for many participants.
Many in the groups felt powerless to behave any differently or to
 J. Cox et al. / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 79 (2013) 21–29
exert pressure on producers even if they wanted to. They reported
they often feel locked into frequent upgrades because of the speed
of new technologies coming onto the market, combined with not
wanting to be seen as ‘old fashioned’. There is also a widespread
perception that product lifetimes have declined in recent years
and that manufacturers often build in obsolescence as part of their
business model.6
Few participants expressed any guilt around the volume of
resource consumption this model implies and almost none had
thought about the environmental impacts. Even when prompted,
many participants struggled to see the connection between con-
sumption and environmental problems. A small number of people
in some groups were clearly different in their views on the
environment but they tended to be sidelined by the other partici-
pants. Where lifetime optimising behaviours were reported (such
as maintenance and repair), these were not typically driven by
environmental concern (also noted by Evans and Cooper, 2010).
However, when talking about disposal specifically, many par-
ticipants reported an abstract sense that ‘waste is bad’, some
suggesting that these feelings had been inherited from parents
and grand-parents. This feeling rarely prevented replacement deci-
sions and was most often expressed as wanting to know that
discarded products went to ‘a good home’, without any sense
of irony that other people should want products that were now
unfashionable.
There are some products that participants do want to keep for
a reasonable amount of time and will generally only discard these
when they are deemed to have “had a good innings”. The role such
products play in consumers’ lives tends to be one of functional
service (washing machines and large kitchen appliances, for exam-
ple). Here the influence of ‘look’ or fashion may only play out when
a new product is needed because the last one broke, rather than
being a means of creating, re-inventing and displaying a particular
self-identity.
There are also some instances where participants reported a
willingness to invest a little more of their time, attention and
money, both in terms of what they buy and how they look after
products in use. This applied both to some products valued mainly
for their function but also to others where ‘look’ or fashion was
more important. The origins of this mindset appear to revolve
around products or purchases that are seen as ‘special’ in some way.
This could have been because participants had waited a long time
for a particular product, it was a stretch financially, provided extra
value in terms of status or identity, or had emotional attachments.
3.2. A product typology based on product lifetime preferences
The thematic analysis of the group discussions allowed three
broad classes of product to be identified according to consumer
perceptions and influence (rather than the intrinsic nature of the
products themselves). For each, the factors that constitute con-
sumer value (which was seen in Fig. 1 to influence ‘willingness to
keep’) were distinctive. Examining decision-making around pur-
chase, use and disposal (or reuse) for these three product classes
enabled the research team to identify opportunities that could be
considered by policy, industry or others for extending product life-
times.
The three classes of product so defined were ‘up-to-date’,
‘workhorse’, and ‘investment’ products.
Up-to-date products are those which are particularly suscepti-
ble to being updated for their looks or changes in technology.
6
Park (2010) rehearses the history of ‘planned obsolescence’ by producers in his
paper on “Defying Obsolesence” in Cooper (2010) Longer Lasting Products.
25
They perform an important role for individuals in terms of
self- and social-identity (Jackson, 2005) and are often replaced
for reasons of fashion or impulse purchase (van Nes, 2010).
Clothes, mobile phones, some small appliances and household
furnishings (cushions, curtains, lamps, etc.) are generally in this
class.
Workhorse products are at the other end of the consumer product
lifetime spectrum. They are valued principally for the service util-
ity they provide, typically over a long lifespan. They are expected to
be reliable while in use and are most often discarded when broken.
Large, and sometimes small, appliances are in this class, together
with large items of furniture.
Investment products are those which are perceived as ‘special’ in
some way and therefore worth investing in. Investment is mani-
fested in considered purchase and care during ownership. They are
generally expensive products (where the notion of ‘expensive’ is
personal to each consumer) but are also those which have an emo-
tional dimension, including gifts or delayed purchases that people
have had to wait or save for. Products include ‘quality’ electronics,
large furniture and major appliances.
While there was some consistency in which products fell clearly
into one of the classes (for example, fridges were almost always
‘workhorses’ and mobile phones ‘up-to-date’), they should not be
seen as completely discrete classes. The predominant source of con-
sumer value appears to be different on some occasions, for some
people, for some products. So, for example, the research revealed
that behaviour with respect to a laptop computer is strongly driven
by a desire for its up-to-date qualities, but workhorse consider-
ations can also be an important balancing influence on lifetime, for
example if a model or brand turns out to be particularly unreliable.
In that example, improving a laptop’s reliability would be an oppor-
tunity for extending lifetime in use, but there would be little value
(to consumers) in ensuring it stayed reliable over 20 years rather
than five. In the current market context, it is unlikely that laptops
will be anything other than up-to-date products for most people
but there may be some types of consumer who would switch pur-
chase decisions to more reliable workhorses, or pay for repairs, if
these options were made more readily available. The typology is a
starting point for considering, from a policy or industry perspec-
tive, how more durable products could meet different aspects of
consumer demand.
Additional findings for each class of product in the typology are
considered in turn.
3.3. Up-to-date products
Because these products were normally replaced before they
broke, participants’ ‘nurturing’ decisions took on far more signif-
icance for the lifetime of these products than the actual nature
of the products themselves. ‘Up-to-date products’ were generally
discarded not because they had broken down or worn out but
because participants perceived them to be ‘out of date’. Some prod-
ucts were treated as essentially disposable: one respondent, for
example, reported that he did not wash socks as it was cheap
enough to buy plenty and simply replace them when they were
dirty. Similar comments were made about T-shirts used by manual
workers.
While in use, up-to-date products are not always treated with
care; participants recounted many incidents of damage caused
by pets, children or their own carelessness (especially for mobile
phones). In fact, ‘taking care’ through simple steps such as using
protective covers, de-scaling or cleaning small kitchen appliances
or mending shoes or clothes seemed to be relatively rare. In this
context, participants themselves acknowledged that the idea of
26 J. Cox et al. / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 79 (2013) 21–29
labelling products to indicate ‘expected’ lifetime is problematic
because there is no such thing as ‘normal’ use.7
With the exception of clothes, it would appear that few prod-
ucts in this class make it into a second market, even mobile phones
for which recycling markets already exist. Some participants did
try to alleviate their guilt about wastefulness by seeking a new
home for discarded products. While charity shops are a well recog-
nised channel for donating clothes little knowledge exists about
reuse channels for electronics, electrical appliances and furniture,
or even that these products are wanted. The findings from this study
are consistent with the wider evidence on reuse knowledge and
behaviours (Brook Lyndhurst, 2009, 2011a).
3.4. Workhorse products
The lifetime of a workhorse product, on the other hand, is much
more closely related to its functional durability. Expectations about
that lifetime were often shaped by how much the product cost, with
more expensive products generally being expected to last longer.
Participants seemed to accept that cheap appliances will break
down and they are resigned to replacing these ‘semi-disposable’
products when they fail (examples cited included kettles or toast-
ers, cheap brands and items sold in supermarkets). Because these
kinds of product do not cost very much, they are straightforward to
replace if they break, and there did not appear to be much appetite
for more durable, more expensive, small appliances. Failure of more
expensive workhorses (major appliances or furniture) tends to be
more annoying.
When workhorses break, participants reported that repair deci-
sions will generally take into account how much additional life a
repair could deliver, how much a repair will cost, and how much
inconvenience will be involved in securing a repair. Participants
were often uncertain about all three aspects so that judgements
were more often a ‘feeling’ than a rational calculation of the ben-
efits and costs. A general feeling that repairs will be difficult or
expensive, combined with the relatively low cost of replacement,
tends to deter consumers from even finding out if a repair is possi-
ble. Few people felt they had the skills to repair items themselves,
although a number of younger participants reported using internet
sites that provide self-help videos or instructions for repairs.
The most risk averse participants bought extended warranties to
give them peace of mind but many others were sceptical of the addi-
tional value provided. As was the case with up-to-date products,
participants’ reported experiences of warranties was mixed. Some
participants also noted that warranties may work against longer
products lifetimes by offering a replacement instead of repair.
Whether in relation to repair or to initial purchase, decisions
made about workhorse products almost always involve some cal-
culation of value. What matters most is the use value delivered by
the product over an expected lifetime, set against price. The prob-
lem for consumers is that purchase decisions have to be made on
the basis of imperfect information about how long something is
going to last, to the extent that some participants felt the outcome
was just a matter of luck rather than judgement. Brand featured
prominently in the proxies used to judge lifetime for workhorses
but is reported not to be foolproof.
Once in use, participants reported they often take good care of
workhorses although having an ethic of care (Watson, 2008) var-
7
Product lifetime labelling has been considered by Christer and Cooper (2010)
who found there are few current examples but identified ways in which it might
be done. The authors of this paper considered durability labelling to be a complex
topic, for which there is a much wider academic and policy evidence base in its own
right, and it was therefore not considered any further in this research. Suggestions
for further research are made in the conclusions.
ied from person to person. The most responsible owners regularly
clean their carpets, furniture and ovens, use de-scalar in water-
using appliances, and refer to instruction manuals or internet help
sites to keep products working. A few participants recognised that
behavioural norms in their homes undermine product lifetime but
they are generally not interested in changing.
Since workhorses are most often discarded when broken
(according to participants in the groups) most of them go imme-
diately into the waste stream, with the exception of large items
of furniture which will sometimes be passed on through per-
sonal networks or, less often, through reuse channels. Furniture
workhorses may be replaced before they are broken if they begin to
look shabby or worn but few participants reported reconditioning
their furniture (through re-upholstery, for example).
3.5. Investment products
When consumers treat products as investments it helps to pro-
long product lifetime, through the care taken in selecting products
in the first place, in treating them well in use and, sometimes, in
wanting to find a ‘good home’ for them at point of disposal.
At the point of purchase, participants reported researching
product performance, buying ‘in the flesh’ from a high street retailer
and relying on brand to judge lifetime. These behaviours appeared
to take on greater significance for investments than for other pur-
chases. The risk of disappointment from making a poor judgement
about functional lifetime is undoubtedly greater where consumers
feel they are making a financial and/or emotional investment.
As was the case for many workhorses, an extended guarantee
or warranty offered by the manufacturer was interpreted by many
participants as a show of faith in the product, and therefore a rea-
son for buying it, as long as it is for the ‘right’ product. In one group,
for example, participants discussed a particular car manufacturer
which offers warranties much longer than the industry average.
While this was generally favoured, many participants in the group
said it would not be attractive because of the brand in question.
For investment purchases the ‘right’ product for participants was
typically a premium brand or top of a particular range. A longer
guarantee seemed unlikely to tempt them to choose what they
thought were sub-optimal alternatives.
The investment mindset applies not only to the point of pur-
chase but also to treatment in use. Some investment purchases
appeared to be chosen with care in mind, for example the facility
to clean or repair products. Some participants in the groups who do
not ordinarily do so had purchased extended warranties to protect
products they had ‘invested’ in. Others had paid for repair of invest-
ment purchases because the initial investment of time or money
made the value of repair more apparent.
There was some evidence that early investment (of money, time
or emotion) was implicated in a virtuous, lifelong nurturing of
products. Arguably, anything which could be done to encourage
consumers to see value in ‘investing’ in their purchases could con-
tribute to extending product lifetimes.
4. Conclusions
A qualitative research approach enabled a detailed explo-
ration of consumers’ understanding of product lifetimes, bringing
together various themes which had been identified by other
authors (Cooper, 2010). Framed around a ‘consumption lifecycle’
– comprising purchase, use and disposal behaviours – the research
was able to identify how expectations and desires about prod-
uct lifetime are formed by the research participants, as well as
the links or inconsistencies between behaviours at different stages
(Evans, 2005 cited in Evans and Cooper, 2010). The research
 J. Cox et al. / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 79 (2013) 21–29
confirmed that products are frequently thrown away before they
are broken (Cooper and Mayers, 2000; Cooper, 2004, 2005) because
they become technologically obsolescent (Cooper, 2005) or are no
longer fashionable (Fisher et al., 2008; Evans and Cooper, 2010;
Brook Lyndhurst, 2009, 2011a). The reasons for premature dis-
posal of products were shown to be as much emotional and social
(Schifferstein et al., 2004; Chapman, 2010; Park, 2010) as to do
with the design and functionality of a product. These influences
on product lifetime were characterised as ‘nurture’ and ‘nature’
respectively. Nurture factors, combined with the intrinsic nature of
products, were shown to influence the extent of consumers’ will-
ingness to keep products in use; and the balance between nature
and nurture varied, depending on whether consumers valued par-
ticular products for being workhorses, investments or up-to-date
essentials.
Consumers also reported that they rely on proxies such as
brand and price to formulate judgements about how long a prod-
uct will last (Cooper, 2004; Cooper and Christer, 2010); and they
do not always know how to get products repaired when they
break, or how to donate them for reuse when they no longer
want them (Brook Lyndhurst, 2009, 2011b). Some consumers
appear to display an ‘ethic of care’ towards products during
use (Watson, 2008) but many do not, which can compromise
a product’s longevity. Variations in how consumers look after
their products make the idea of durability labelling (Cooper and
Christer, 2010) problematic because the same type of item will
last different amounts of time in the hands of different house-
holds.
Durability labelling is an area which could benefit from fur-
ther research. In particular, it would be useful to consolidate
academic research (Cooper and Christer, 2010) and the policy
evidence base in this area, in the UK, Europe and internation-
ally, to generate a critical view of what consumers want on the
one hand, and what is technically and commercially feasible on
the other hand. The relative merits of durability labelling versus
longer warranties would be particularly useful to consider, since
warranties were more commonly mentioned by consumers as
something they would like to see (Brook Lyndhurst, 2011a). Since
our findings and Cooper (2004) consistently show that consumers
lack the information on which to make robust assessments of
potential lifetime, such research might usefully extend to cover
communication channels, messaging and modes more generally,
including avenues such as point of sale information, post-sales
support (including warranties) and consumer resources on the
internet.
In order to build on the insights about product nature and nur-
ture identified in this research, and to test the product typology,
quantitative survey research with a representative sample of con-
sumers would be a useful addition. A survey with a large sample
would be useful as the basis for undertaking cluster/segmentation
analysis to explore the validity of the typology and whether it
holds consistently across different types of consumer. It is recom-
mended that a research design would need to allow for coverage
of a large number of different products rather than to treat ‘prod-
uct lifetime’ in an undifferentiated way, which is likely to result
in abstract answers unrelated to actual behaviours in the authors’
experience.
This paper has focused exclusively on consumer influences on
product lifetimes and narrowly on those places where action by
producers or policy might lead to products being kept in use
for longer within current market structures. By no means do the
findings represent the whole story on product lifetimes. Con-
sumer agency is important, but so are technical aspects such as
product lifecycle analyses (LCAs) which can identify how worth-
while longer lifetime is for individual products (e.g. ERM, 2011)
and alternative market models that would alter the relationship
27
between producers and consumers and, indeed, the whole notion
of product ownership. Further research on both the demand for
and feasibility of delivering alternative consumption models is
needed.
Within those limitations, the research reported here has devel-
oped new evidence on the consumer contribution to using
resources more effectively in consumer-driven economies like the
UK. The research findings suggest that consumer agency is likely
to be of central importance in any attempt to prolong product life-
times. Improving product durability alone is unlikely to deliver the
kind of step-change in sustainable consumption that is required
to meet international carbon reduction commitments and protect
the global economy from future resource scarcity. This is because
many products are thrown away not because they are broken but
because they are no longer wanted. Increasing product durability
on its own is unlikely to overcome the very significant psycholog-
ical, emotional and social factors which underpin the rapid churn
of products in the modern ‘throwaway society’. This research has
demonstrated that a strategy for engaging consumers in extending
product lifetimes needs to have at its heart an understanding of
how product lifetime relates to consumer value. The research has
identified a number of possibilities for simultaneously improving
value for the consumer and extending how long products are kept
in use. These opportunities, which are described below, would need
to be researched and developed further by policy and/or produc-
ers.
The barriers to engaging consumers cannot, however, be under-
estimated (Evans and Cooper, 2010; Brook Lyndhurst, 2011a).
Currently, consumers do not appear to want to take responsi-
bility for prolonging the lifetime of the products they own, and
there is almost no evidence that the public is aware of the link
between consumption and environmental problems. Even if con-
sumers do try to take responsibility for a product’s lifetime they
often encounter a number of barriers that are likely to frustrate
their efforts. Some of these barriers look more formidable than
others. In particular the easy affordability of new products and
the strength of consumers’ feeling about their ‘need’ to be up-
to-date present two significant challenges to lengthening product
lifetimes and slowing product churn. Despite this, however, some
of the consumer attitudes and behaviours identified in the research
point to a number of opportunities for positive change. These
include:
Start from where consumers currently are, in particular by
recognising the fundamental importance of consumers’ need to be
‘up-to-date’, but also by seeking to build on social norms around
the ‘wrongness’ of waste (Watson, 2008; Brook Lyndhurst, 2009,
2011a). Workhorse products appear to be those where there is
most appetite for durability and annoyance when products break
down before the end of their expected lifetime.
Help consumers to reduce the risk of making the wrong choice
by giving them clearer and more certain means for judging the
expected lifetimes of products (including those that have been
repaired) and reduce the need to use unreliable proxies, such as
brand (Cooper, 2005). Durability labelling (Cooper and Christer,
2010) is problematic because actual lifetime is influenced so
strongly by how the product is treated in use. Particularly for
investment and expensive workhorse products, however, there is
scope to provide better information and advice at point of pur-
chase, to increase consumers’ awareness of simple care steps, and
better signpost where consumers can obtain after-care, servicing
and repairs.
Focus on value and perceived value. Longer life products have
to offer consumers clear and apparent value when compared
with shorter life and possibly cheaper alternatives. Examples with
respect to the most ‘up-to-date’ products might, for example,
28 J. Cox et al. / Resources, Conservation and Recycling 79 (2013) 21–29
include the development of options for up-datable and up-
gradable products that do not have to be replaced in their entirety
(van Nes, 2010). For investment products, encouraging greater
design for repair and remanufacturing should be considered as
a means to keep products in use for longer (Watson, 2008; WRAP,
2009, 2010; ERM, 2011).
Improve service performance to help keep products in use.
This potentially includes innovations in product service systems
(where producers or retailers maintain long-term service rela-
tionships with customers or lease instead of selling products)
(Gottberg and Cook, 2008) as well as improvements to warranties
and guarantees. The latter could either be voluntary or mandatory
(ERM, 2011). Improving the infrastructure for the repair and reuse
of products, public awareness of the options, and ease of access
to reuse channels also need to be addressed to increase the size
of second-hand markets (Brook Lyndhurst, 2009, 2011b; Curran
et al., 2007; Curran, 2010; OFT, 2011).
It appears unlikely that consumer attitudes or behaviours
towards product lifetimes will change on their own. The prevalence
of historically cheap products supports the continuing persistence
of an updating mindset and the transfer of previously durable
products to the status of semi-disposable. To extend product life-
times, significant change is required in the market and social
environment in which consumption decisions are made, so that
consumers can begin to feel they are not ‘locked in’ to throw-
away consumption. Given the right products, services and policy
framework, there is potential to expand both the willingness
and ability of consumers to take at least some responsibility for
prolonging the lifetime of more of their products, more of the
time.
Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the UK Department of the Envi-
ronment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as a contribution to the
evidence base for policy on sustainable consumption and produc-
tion. The views expressed in the paper are entirely those of the
authors and should not be interpreted as a statement of Defra views
or policy.
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