By Amy L. Gonzales

In short, although policies to improve broadband access are important, policies that help ensure the availability of low-cost devices are also essential.

But advocates of digital equity are not the only constituent groups concerned with the supply and accessibility of computing devices. Environmental and labor rights activists advocate for policies that extend the lifecycle of existing devices, which can help to minimize e-waste and protect the viability of the repair and refurbishing labor markets, respectively. Making computer repair cheaper and bolstering secondhand and refurbishing markets better ensures that low-income consumers can afford to maintain the devices they already own and that they can purchase devices as needed (Fosdick, 2012; Islam et al., 2021). Extending the life of a device through repair is often a more affordable choice than purchasing a brand-new device (Svensson-Hoglund et al., 2021). Furthermore, optimizing the lifecycle of existing devices helps exert market pressures on manufacturer's pricing of new devices, helping to keep down the cost of brand new devices (Islam et al., 2021; Leclerc & Badami, 2020). Thus, policies championed to reduce e-waste and protect the right-to-repair (R2R) can also enhance digital equity.

Policies that have mutually beneficial outcomes for different sectors have been described as multisolving innovations (Dearing & Lapinski, 2020). Multisolving innovations can broaden the coalition of activists in support of a given policy issue and can be strategically framed to appeal to constituent bases that might otherwise be disinterested or even antagonistic (e.g., framing environmental policies around health outcomes to appeal to conservatives) to an issue.