Fix Your Bike Voucher Adopted by UK in Lausanne: Saving CO2 and Boosting Bike Shops by 10%

A repair voucher is a financial incentive measure that can be introduced by cities, federal states, or countries to encourage citizens to have defective or damaged items repaired rather than discarded and replaced with new ones. This allows for saving considerable waste and strengthens the circular economy. Typically, a repair voucher scheme includes financial support or discounts for repair services. The introduction of repair vouchers has the potential to strengthen awareness of sustainable consumption and promote the longer use of products (5) as can be seen with the Vienna Repair Voucher. By using the Vienna Repair Voucher, more than 40,000 items have been repaired during a period of 1 year since the start of the funding program, thereby avoiding around 2,800 tons of CO2. For comparison: one hectare of forest stores around 13 tonnes of CO2 per year. The Vienna repair voucher has therefore taken on the work of around 215 hectares of forest (6). Such an initiative can also result in significant economic savings for governments in terms of waste management. In 2020, the global direct cost of waste management was estimated at EUR 228 billion. Without urgent improvements in waste management, the global annual cost could double to an astounding EUR 580.4 billion by 2050 (8). A repair voucher could encourage individuals to repair items instead of discarding them, which in turn reduces the amount of waste to be managed.