Circular Repair: Turning Waste into Value

Join Chris Stretton for his keynote learning the insights and practical strategies of ‘repair’.

Why don’t more people repair their electronics? It’s a simple question that Chris Stretton asked himself, but finding an answer wasn’t simple at all. He started with 687 research articles on barriers to electronics repair. After narrowing down to 64 key studies and interviewing 11 experts, he identified more than 100 factors that influence whether someone repairs a product… or doesn’t. Eventually, he distilled them into 10 main factors across the four stages of the repair process:

Attitude → Intention → Action → Learning

Among the big influences?

💡 Past experience — consumers learn from what worked (and didn’t).

👭 Social norms — if no one repairs around us, consumers might not either.

🦾 Confidence — belief in your own or others’ ability to fix things.

🛠️ Access — to services, spare parts, tools, or skilled labour.

💸 Product design and cost — if it’s hard or expensive, chances drop… significantly.

The takeaway? Promoting repair isn’t about a single intervention. It’s about creating an environment where repair makes sense — practically, economically, and socially.

Join us during Circular Economy Week to learn more about Chris’ findings and discuss how Repairability can become a new value stream.

Learn how repair can unlock value and extend product life. Be inspired to act and make sustainability commercially viable.

Practical:

– This session is free, but please RSPV