Verification requirements for a Certified to LAST-product

Purpose

To develop and offer a product with a long life, a company needs to acquire knowledge and understanding of what limits the practical life of the product. The limitations can be linked to design, function or material selection, but can also be about how the product works together with the user or with other products, or how the product can remain relevant in an innovation- or fashion-driven context.

The purpose of the verification requirements for Certified to LAST is to create a commonly understood and reliable basis for the product's durability, service life, availability of affordable service and spare parts, resource efficiency and other sustainability claims about materials and resources.

By using these verification requirements in product and business development, the company gets a mapping of what is required for a promised lifespan to be achieved and how risks can be avoided because products stop working or are used prematurely. A third-party verification can also act as a trust-building promise to the customer.

Method

Lifetime claims according to Certified to LAST are classified into four groups, Long lifetime, Access to service and spare parts, Sustainable materials and their life cycle, as well as Transparent information, abbreviated to L, A, S and T, and integrated into a certified market competition platform called Certified to LAST.

Four canvases to verifiably describe a product according to Certified to LAST

1. Canvas for product lifetime risks

Lifetime definition includes the lifetime itself, how this lifetime is to be achieved, through service, maintenance, upgrading, etc. and specifies what must be available to maintain this lifetime sustainably. Risks of product life interruption are based on the following aspects of the analyzed product:

• Internal structure
• Material
• Wear and aging
• Support system
• User preferences
• External co-functionality
• Regulatory requirements

2. Canvas for risks regarding the impact on sustainable development

Sustainability risks include environmental, social and economic risks and are related to the following aspects of the analyzed product:

• Internal structure
• Material
• Manufacturing/dismantling
• Circular/Cradle to Circular/Grave
• Sustainability aspects of functionality
• Sustainability aspects of the support systems
• Second life
• Value beyond functionality
• Health and safety risks

3. Canvas for access to service, spare parts and information

The Canvas on Actions to Manage the Risks of Reduced Lifespan includes information that should be available to consumers and other stakeholders, such as:

• Documentation of maintenance needs
• Spare parts and specifications
• Service and dismantling
• List of materials
• Environmental compliance
• Ethical compliance
• Conscious trade-offs
• Applicable ESG reporting systems

4. Canvas for transparency and traceability to verifiable information documents

The transparency canvas summarizes the information submitted as evidence that will also be available to the customer and other relevant stakeholders of the Certified to LAST product, for example

• Service provider
• Spare parts manufacturer and supplier
• Secondhand retailer
• Recycler
• etc.

The principles of verifiability when using the LAST canvas

LAST Canvas is based on principles needed to support verifiability of claims underlying a Certified to LAST product.

When one starts working with canvas on a certain product, several of the requested facts are not yet known or well established. Canvases are intended to support guidance in choosing which facts to collect.

Objectivity

The LAST canvases are intended to get the facts right for a producer who is serious about achieving a verifiable product lifetime. Therefore, statements entered into the canvases need to be impartial and based on best available facts.

Relevance

The LAST canvases request facts and knowledge from several different information sources and expertise. What to include and not include should be based on an assessment of the significance of the information.

Note: Relevance should be guided by a combination of respect for the customers and for the sustainability impact from the product over its total circular life cycle(s).

Simplicity

Statements in canvases should be clear, straightforward, and easy to understand. Complex explanations of logic relationships, risk causalities and potential solutions should be handled separate from the canvases.

Verifiability

Statements made in canvases are supported by empirically supported facts or by transparent risk analysis. Claims about future promises are supported by verifications such as future responsibility agreements and other verifications ensuring how accessibility of spare parts, service and information are secured.

Comparability

When canvases are used with the intent to compare lifetime, accessibility, sustainability and transparency claims between different products in the same product category, competence, facts and information should be generated, selected and provided similarly, consistently and with equal measurement units.

Delivery

Verificate