Leonie Reins, Professor of Public Law and Sustainability, and Alberto Quintavalla, Assistant Professor of Innovation in Public Law at Erasmus School of Law, have received a research grant as partners in a consortium led by the University of Twente. The project, titled Advancing Dutch Circular Economy through Additive Manufacturing: Strategies for Repair and Remanufacturing using AM (Add-reAM), brings together universities, industry partners, and policymakers in the Netherlands to strengthen the Dutch circular economy.
Repair instead of waste
At the core of the project lies a simple but pressing societal challenge: extending the lifespan of products. “At its heart, this project is about making it easier for people and businesses to repair products instead of throwing them away,” explain Reins and Quintavalla. Their specific contribution focuses on the legal side: “Of course, our contribution to the project is to make it easier from a legal standpoint: we are looking at how policies, laws, and standards can evolve to support the ‘right to repair’ when using 3D printing to create high-quality replacement parts.”
Political and legal momentum
The timing of the research is closely connected to current developments at the European and Dutch levels. “There is growing political and legal momentum at both the EU and Dutch levels – through initiatives like the European Green Deal, the Eco-design for Sustainable Products Regulation, and the Critical Raw Materials Act – calling for longer product lifespans and reduced dependence on raw materials,” say Reins and Quintavalla. “Yet, current laws and standards often make it harder, not easier, to reuse and repair products.”
Addressing societal challenges
The project directly responds to some of the most urgent societal challenges of today. “Our work addresses three urgent societal challenges: climate change, resource scarcity, and the waste crisis. Legally, we are tackling gaps that hold back sustainable manufacturing – such as unclear rules on marketing remanufactured products, standards that don’t reflect the realities of modern repair processes, and the lack of incentives in Extended Producer Responsibility schemes for reuse and remanufacturing.”
Towards a regulatory roadmap
The long-term ambition is to contribute to a more robust and future-proof regulatory environment for sustainable industry. “We hope to deliver a comprehensive regulatory roadmap for additive manufacturing in repair and remanufacturing. This would contribute to facilitate a wider adoption of additive manufacturing for repair and remanufacturing. In this way, the Netherlands could position as a leader in rights-based and policy-driven circular manufacturing and embed repair-first thinking into both policy and practice.”
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