EU consumers’ evidence shows innovation and environmental impacts with possible common charger regulation

The European Commission is considering adopting legislation to establish a ‘common charger for mobile telephones and other compatible devices’ in the EU: the Common Charger initiative. Our focused policy evaluation study assesses the interaction of policy decisions with EU consumers’ preferences and convenience, the impact to the environment and the effects of forced standardisation curtailing or slowing innovation.

Our key research focus in the study is on the demand-side, i.e. putting EU consumer evidence and impacts at the centre of the analysis. We measure the likely impacts on consumer value from future device-side charger innovation, changes to consumer behaviour and the resulting environmental impact.

In analysing empirical evidence, including evidence from a survey of European electronic device users, our conclusion is that a single connector-type mandate would harm consumers significantly more than it would help either them or the environment.

The evidence we found was clear. The consumer harm from a regulatory-mandated single connector type (at least €1.5bn) significantly outweighs any associated environmental benefits (€13m). On this basis, given the centrality of consumer benefits in policy evaluation, it is unlikely that a Common Charger initiative forcing a single connector type would achieve a positive socio-economic outcome. Even a well-intended policy runs a clear risk of ending up with a significant unintended impact due to the large consumer harm from stifling or delaying innovation in device and connector type design, which consumers have highly valued and continue to value looking forward.

The report highlights evidence from a survey among device users showing that EU consumers:

• Value current state-of-the-art connector types’ features as a key benefit compared to connector types from previous generations, demonstrating that market forces have delivered large value by the past innovation waves – €14 billion of estimated consumer value, accumulated between the period 2012-2018.
• Clearly express a desire to see further innovation in the future; such innovation could be blocked or significantly delayed if a regulatory-mandated EU common charger is imposed – a €1.5 billion estimated future consumer harm (NPV over seven years)

The survey results also show that having three device-end connector types rather than one is not a concern for consumers in reality since consumers:

• Have, on average, close to 1 cable in regular use for each device (5.6 cables and 5.4 mobile devices per household, plus 0.4 cables not in regular use)
  • 51% of households already have a single connector type across all of their mobile devices, so a EU single connector mandate would not impact them for the 49% of households whose devices rely on different connector types, less than half would likely reduce their cable demand/use if a single connector type were required across all mobile devices
  • Nearly 90% of all EU households charge multiple devices at the same time at least sometimes per week out of all households; only 20% said they are likely or very likely to reduce the number of charging cables they have
• Would only in small part reduce demand/use of cables if a regulatory-mandated single connector type is forced: an average reduction from 5.6 cables to 4.9 cables per household, at most (a 14% decrease)
  • Given the CO₂ impact of each cable and the official € trading value for CO₂, the likely decrease yields environmental benefits limited to €13 million (NPV over seven years)
    • In comparison, the environmental cost of CO₂ emissions from the EU (excl. the UK) passenger car traffic in 2017 was €6 billion

The study is commissioned by Apple.

For further information and media enquiries regarding the findings and methodology of this report, please contact Dr Bruno Basalisco, available at bb@copenhageneconomics.com

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