Reforms and trends in consumer law: sustainable production and the fight against obsolescence

Abstract

Like it or not, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) constitute the advanced roadmap in Europe for sustainability. The European Union directs its implementation, and the passage of time shows the danger of incurring in empty rhetoric about the inevitable demands of this "sustainability". Consequently, a greater effort seems to be very necessary to rigorously explain its objectives and the foreseeable changes in the profuse regulations and standards that affect the useful life of consumer goods or products, which require clear and precise measures in the fight against technical or planned obsolescence. Within the copious and scattered national and European legislation in force, a transversal legal analysis of the minimum useful life cycle of consumer goods allows, us to identify problems and glimpse solutions in the distribution chain between producers, businessmen and consumers, in the context of that gray matter that we call "Consumer Law" inevitably linked to Civil Law, an essential backbone element. There is no doubt that the principle of sustainability of consumer goods must necessarily be combined with the protection of consumer rights, in the midst of a more competitive circular economy that facilitates the fight against obsolescence.