Placing the Duration of Use at the Heart of Tomorrow’s Economy

By Celia RENNESSON

Placing the duration of use at the heart of the economy is no longer an option: it has become a strategic necessity in the face of growing pressure on resources, increasingly fragile supply chains, and the competitiveness challenges facing European businesses. Long confined to environmental policies or individual behaviours, the question of how long products are effectively used remains largely absent from the most structuring economic decisions.

While awareness of recycling and eco-design is now widespread, very few stakeholders—companies, investors or public authorities—still arbitrate their choices based on the duration during which a product actually fulfils its function. Yet this is precisely where a decisive part of the economic transformation ahead will take place: producing less, but better; creating value no longer through volume, but through the intensity and quality of use.

As we move towards a more resource-efficient and resilient economy, there is an urgent need to build a shared, collective culture of the duration of use, embraced by all economic actors. A culture capable of moving beyond the sterile opposition between economic performance and environmental responsibility, and of restoring the circular economy to its full strategic dimension.

Why the Duration of Use Is a Major Economic Issue

The duration of use is today one of the major blind spots in our economic transformation. Our models remain largely organised around a linear logic: extract, produce, consume, discard. Even when efforts are made to improve recycling or reduce environmental impacts, a central question is often overlooked: for how long is a product actually used?

This omission is far from neutral. It sustains a structural dependence on raw materials, increases economic vulnerability to geopolitical shocks, and drives up production costs. In many sectors—from electronics to packaging—economic value is still primarily created at the point of initial sale, with insufficient consideration given to use over time.

Yet extending the duration of use of products is one of the most effective levers to reduce material and carbon footprints while strengthening the resilience of value chains. In most manufacturing sectors, between 70% and 90% of a product’s environmental impacts occur during the production phase.

A product that is used for longer, repaired, reused or refurbished allows these impacts to be amortised over time. It reduces dependence on virgin resources, alleviates pressure on supply chains, and creates local economic value through repair, reuse, refurbishment and logistics activities.

The duration of use is therefore not merely an environmental indicator: it is a core economic variable that reflects the maturity and robustness of business models. As long as it is not integrated as a central criterion in industrial, commercial and regulatory decision-making, the transition will remain partial and fragile.

Building an Economic Culture of the Duration of Use

If the duration of use still struggles to assert itself, this is not due to a lack of technical solutions. It is primarily the result of a missing shared economic culture. Today, the duration of use is neither sufficiently visible nor sufficiently legible to effectively guide economic choices.

Building a culture of the duration of use first requires making this notion tangible and comparable. For companies, consumers and public decision-makers alike, access to simple, reliable and harmonised information is essential. Clear indicators related to reparability, durability or reuse potential make it possible to turn intentions into informed economic decisions.

The experience of the French repairability index demonstrates how clear and accessible information can rapidly change behaviours, stimulate innovation and reorient market offerings. But this logic must be extended, deepened and embedded within a coherent European framework. The duration of use must become as natural a criterion in economic trade-offs as price or technical performance.

Beyond indicators and tools, what is required is a genuine collective reflex. Designing products intended for multiple cycles of use, organising their return and circulation, and valuing repair and reuse must move out of the margins and become the norm. This implies training, supporting and aligning all actors—from engineers to public decision-makers, including marketing and financial functions.

Building such a culture also means recognising that value does not reside solely in the act of sale, but in the service delivered over time. This represents a profound shift, redefining traditional benchmarks of economic performance.

Aligning Business Models with the Duration of Use

The success of this transformation depends on a clear alignment between the duration of use and business models. As long as extending the duration of use is perceived as a cost or a constraint, initiatives will remain fragmented. Conversely, when the duration of use becomes a driver of value creation, it naturally embeds itself within corporate and industrial strategies.

New models are already emerging: the functional economy, product-as-a-service offerings, integrated repair, industrial refurbishment, and large-scale reuse. These approaches make it possible to decouple economic value from production volumes, anchoring competitiveness in the quality, continuity and security of use over time.

This evolution opens up major opportunities for territories. Extending the duration of use relies on local infrastructures, technical skills and redesigned logistics flows. It fosters employment, territorial anchoring and cooperation between industrial, non-profit and public actors.

Public authorities have a structuring role to play, by steering regulatory frameworks, economic incentives and public investment towards models aligned with the duration of use. The objective is not to slow down the economy, but to adapt it to the physical, economic and geopolitical realities of the 21st century.

Aligning business models with the duration of use means embracing a paradigm shift: moving from an economy of ownership to an economy of use, from a logic of volume to a logic of sustainable value creation.

Conclusion

Placing the duration of use at the heart of economic priorities is a prerequisite for building an economy that is both competitive, resource-efficient and resilient. This change of compass is not a marginal adjustment, but a deep cultural transformation involving all stakeholders.

By making the duration of use visible, measurable and economically desirable, we can move beyond the false dichotomy between economy and ecology, and pave the way for models that create lasting value. Europe—and France in particular—has fertile ground to structure this leadership, provided that the duration of use becomes an explicit pillar of economic policy.

Ultimately, the challenge is no longer only to produce differently, but to make better use of what we already produce. This is where the economy of tomorrow will be shaped.