Petition Force manufacturers to publish expected product lifespans

When designing a product manufacturers always work out the expected product lifespan to calculate warranty costs - e.g. they may expect a model of washing machine they produce to perform 200, 800, or 2000 cycles before developing a serious fault.

These figures are routinely published for commercial equipment but are almost never published for domestic equipment. This makes it hard for consumers to make an informed choice about which product will give them best value for money and also not have an environmentally costly "built in obsolescence".

In much the same way publishing energy labels have fostered competition to produce the most efficient products, forcing publication of product lifespans will encourage competition to produce the most durable, long lasting product. This will be of great benefit to consumers and the environment, at almost no cost to manufacturers as they already collate this information.