AI-powered repair programs become the new frontier of corporate sustainability claims
A new study shows that companies making genuine sustainability commitments must embed repair capabilities into their digital systems—not just advertise them. The finding matters because brands face growing pressure from regulators and consumers to prove environmental responsibility, but AI-mediated repair creates new risks around transparency and corporate control.
Originaltitel: Sustainable Branding through AI-Mediated Repairability: Reconfiguring CSR in Digital Ecosystems
**AI-medlerad reparerbarhet omdefinierar ansvarsfull varumärkespositionering** Företags hållbarhetsambitioner når trovärdighet endast när de förankras i faktiska repareringsinfrastrukturer — inte enbart marknadsföringskommunikation. Rätten till reparation (R2R) tvingar denna övergång genom att göra det operationellt: konsumenter kräver verklig möjlighet att laga produkter, inte löften om det. Artificiell intelligens omformar detta landskap genom att möjliggöra fjärrdiagnostik och guiderad reparation. Samtidigt introducerar AI motsatta spänningar — proprietary datasystem, mjukvarulås och gatekeeper-effekter som begränsar faktisk åtkomst. Linnaeus University presenterar ett ramverk för när varumärken bygger autentisk legitimitet: när tillgång, intelligens, styrning och community-lager är alignerade. Motsägelser mellan ansvarspåståenden och infrastrukturella begränsningar utlöser publik misstro i digitala rum. För beslutsfattare och kommunledningar innebär detta att regelkrav på reparerbarhet måste paras med faktisk infrastrukturell öppning — eller risken för regulatorisk motreaktion ökar.
Sustainable branding increasingly depends on whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) is operationalized through digital infrastructures, not merely communicated. The right-to-repair (R2R) movement makes this shift visible by framing repairability as both a consumer right and an environmental responsibility. This manuscript contends that repairability attains legitimacy as a credible CSR initiative when embedded in infrastructures that facilitate practical repair, rather than advanced merely as a communicative assertion. Artificial intelligence reconfigures this capability by mediating diagnostics and guided repair while introducing tensions around opacity and dependence on proprietary data infrastructures. Self-service repair programs, platform partnerships, and predictive maintenance illustrate how ecosystem design enacts responsibility in practice. Yet these same infrastructures redistribute accountability, introduce gatekeeping through software locks and parts pairing, and expose brands to public contestation. Drawing on a composite vignette as a theory-building device, this conceptual manuscript develops a layered framework, a commitment–openness typology, and testable propositions for credible repairability-based sustainable branding. The framework reveals that brand legitimacy strengthens when access, intelligence, governance, and community layers align with responsibility claims and erodes when auditable inconsistencies trigger accusation dynamics in digital publics. For managers, repairability claims must be substantiated by repair infrastructures capable of withstanding public verification.