Planned obsolescence, the smartest business strategy for environmental destruction disguised in human modernisation. But how can businesses do better? 

In a purely profit-driven, short-term economic model, planned obsolescence is indeed “smart”:

  1. Guaranteed Future Demand: Instead of selling one product that lasts a lifetime, you sell ten to the same person.
  2. Maximizes Shareholder Value: Constant sales cycles lead to predictable quarterly growth, which is the primary metric for much of the corporate world.
  3. Lowers Immediate Costs: Using cheaper, less durable materials and designing products that are difficult to repair reduces the initial cost of production, boosting profit margins.
  4. Controls the Market: By making repair difficult or impossible (through proprietary screws, sealed units, or software locks), companies ensure that revenue flows back to them for replacements or authorized, expensive repairs.

In this context, creating a durable, repairable product is “bad for business.” It’s a strategy that thrives in an economic system that does not account for externalities—the real costs dumped onto society and the environment.

The “Disguise” of Modernization

  • Progress: “You need this new, faster, slimmer model to keep up with the modern world.”
  • Innovation: “The old one doesn’t support the latest features that define a modern lifestyle.”
  • Convenience: “It’s cheaper and easier to just replace it than to fix it.”

This disguise is crucial. A deliberate scheme to extract more money while trashing the planet. The narrative of “modernization” makes us willing participants in our own financial depletion and the planet’s ecological degradation.

The Ultimate Irony:

The tragedy is that this “smart” strategy is leading to a monumental collective failure. It’s a Pyrrhic victory for business, where the cost of “winning” (short-term profit) is the degradation of the very system that supports life and, eventually, the market itself.

  • It destroys the customer base: A polluted, resource-depleted world with widespread economic inequality is not a world with a strong consumer class.
  • It creates systemic risk: The environmental collapse and social unrest fueled by this linear “take-make-waste” model pose a direct threat to global stability and, by extension, business stability.

The Counter-Strategy is Emerging

The “smartest” business strategy for the 21st century is rapidly becoming the opposite: sustainability.

The companies that will thrive in the future are those that align with the new values of resilience and circularity:

  • Building Loyalty through Integrity: Brands like Fairphone (modular phones) and Patagonia (repair and reuse) are building fiercely loyal customer bases by rejecting planned obsolescence.
  • New Revenue Models: Service-based models like “Product-as-a-Service” (e.g., leasing a washing machine instead of selling it) incentivize the company to make the most durable, repairable product possible.
  • Regulatory Foresight: With the EU’s Right to Repair and similar laws spreading globally, the companies already practicing circular design will have a massive head start.

The truly intelligent strategy now is to build a world where business success is not in opposition to, but in harmony with, a healthy planet.