Glossary / Externalities

Externalities

Costs (or benefits) of a product borne by third parties or the environment rather than its maker or buyer — for example, the waste a device leaves behind.

Introduced in Chapter 1 — Why is Hardware THAT Hard? of Tangibles.

Related terms

• Sunk cost — Money already spent that cannot be recovered.
• Tooling — The molds, jigs, and fixtures built to mass-produce a part.
• EU Ecodesign — EU rules whose delegated acts will, by 2030, make minimum spare-parts availability and software-support periods binding requirements for CE marking.
• FDA — The US Food and Drug Administration.