Green Group Seeks Microsoft Right-to-Repair Shareholder Vote

As You Sow filed a Microsoft shareholder proposal urging the board to “analyze the environmental and social benefits of making its devices more easily repairable through measures such as the public provision of tools, parts, and repair instructions,” said the green group Thursday. “Repairability is a key tenet of a circular economy, wherein the traditional take-make-dispose model is disrupted, new resource extraction is minimized, and existing resources are kept in perpetual use.” Microsoft "makes its devices exclusively repairable at selective authorized repair shops," a practice the FTC decided last month had scant evidence to justify (see 2105070013), said the group. The company “actively restricts consumer access to device repairability, undermining our sustainability commitments by failing to recognize a fundamental principle of electronics sustainability: that overall device environmental impact is principally determined by the length of its useful lifetime,” said the proposal. Microsoft customarily holds its annual meetings in early December, where a shareholder vote on the proposal would take place if the board lets the item on the agenda. The company didn’t comment.