The Future of MFP Remanufacturing and Sustainable Design
April 24, 2026
Security, Sustainability, Article, Trends
Will rapid technology evolution outstrip the viability of remanufacturing MFPs?
Circularity is well-established in the print industry, with many vendors offering comprehensive cradle-to-cradle programmes that seek to reduce the environmental impact of their products through design, recycling, refurbishing, and remanufacturing. However, as the AI revolution accelerates and quantum computing looms, returning products to market in a commercially viable manner while ensuring they meet rapidly evolving performance and security standards becomes more complex.
MFPs – high remanufacturing potential
The European Remanufacturing Council aims to triple the value of Europe’s remanufacturing sector to €100bn by 2030. The Council targets product groups that have high remanufacturing potential and possess three common factors relating to price, simplicity, and robustness:
- Price. Products suitable for remanufacturing typically have a high purchase price, reflecting the value of the R&D and raw materials they contain.
- Simplicity. Products must be simple enough for cost-effective disassembly, fault diagnosis, and remediation.
- Robustness. Products must be able to take account of novel technologies, have upgrade potential, and adapt to changes in legislation.
Historically, MFPs perform well in all three areas. They are premium-priced, typically modular in design, and increasingly designed for disassembly. They have proven technology longevity, which was underscored during COVID-19, when many devices reached the end of their rated lives yet remained unaffected.
Several OEMs operate established and successful remanufacturing programmes and invest substantially in continuously improving product design and remanufacturing processes. Notable achievements include remanufactured products with up to a 90% lower carbon footprint than manufacturing a new product[1], devices that have been upgraded to ‘better than new’ performance[2], remanufactured MFPs that achieve the US Energy Star rating[3], and products that have been officially designated as ‘remanufactured’ under the EU Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR)[4].
EU regulations also support the remanufacturing and refurbishment market. The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) stipulates that all products must meet high standards for energy consumption, extended lifespans, repair and disassembly, and reuse and recyclability. In France, public sector technology contracts require that 20% of expenditure on laptops and desktop PCs is devoted to refurbished or remanufactured devices.
There is also a brand protection benefit for vendors undertaking remanufacturing and refurbishment in-house. It allows them to ensure that devices bearing the brand meet the high standards of performance and reliability that customers expect.
Remanufacturing progress continues, with vendors investing in new facilities and innovating within the second-life value chain. Quocirca’s Sustainability Leaders, 2025 report covers the remanufacturing capabilities of leading vendors including Brother, Canon, Epson, HP, Konica Minolta, Ricoh, Sharp, Toshiba, and Xerox (including Lexmark).
Barriers to remanufacturing expansion
Despite the ethical and regulatory drivers supporting device remanufacturing, barriers remain for customers and vendors.
Quocirca research shows that while IT decision-makers’ interest in remanufactured products is growing, with 31% of respondents to Quocirca’s 2025 Sustainability Trends report [5] citing use of remanufactured products, concerns remain. One-third of IT decision-makers say they are worried about device guarantees and/or lifecycle, even though OEMs offer robust guarantees with remanufactured devices. Twenty-nine percent are worried about hidden costs related to breakdowns, and 27% cite concerns about value for money, despite lower device purchase prices.
From a vendor standpoint, there are commercial challenges associated with selling products in regions outside where they were originally remanufactured. For example, some countries classify a product as ‘waste’ as soon as it leaves the original user, even if it is fully functional. The device may only be moved across a border under the Waste Shipment Regulation, which adds unwieldy bureaucracy to onward sales and often restricts sales of remanufactured devices to the country where the remanufacturing facility is located.
It should also be noted that the heavy R&D investment OEMs commit to new product development and manufacturing means remanufacturing can only constitute a small part of the overall business model, which relies on the build, sale, and onward support of new devices.
Accelerating technology evolution adds new dimensions to remanufacturing
Potentially the most significant challenge on the horizon, however, is the pace of technology evolution. The MFPs manufactured today have advanced significantly compared with their five-year-old ancestors.
Modern MFPs are increasingly equipped with NPUs or specialised ASICs designed to handle AI tasks locally. Their dedicated edge AI capabilities enable them to perform tasks such as real-time OCR, automatic document redaction, and content summarisation with minimal lag and strong security, since they don’t need to send jobs to the cloud. This also reduces energy consumption, as edge computing is less power-hungry than cloud-based processing.
Admittedly, these capabilities are relatively new to the market. Users and organisations have not yet embedded them into daily workflows and performance expectations. However, as time passes and MFPs become more deeply integrated into digitised workflows, such capabilities will become table stakes. A device remanufactured to three-year-old ‘as-new’ status may not be sufficiently powerful to meet customer needs.
Security is a further concern. Leading vendors are already offering MFPs featuring ASICs with quantum-resistant cryptography and quantum-safe digital signature verification for firmware. As quantum computing draws nearer, organisations will need to ensure that all devices introduced to the print environment are quantum-resistant. It may not be possible or commercially viable to upgrade older devices to Post-QC standard during remanufacturing. This could prove a break point marking the end of the remanufacturing cycle for Pre-QC devices.
Designing for circularity takes on new dimensions in the AI era
As technology cycles shorten, remanufacturing viability will depend heavily on how vendors design products in the first place.
Many print vendors have already adopted modular design across MFP ranges, standardising components to make them interchangeable between ranges of similar age and performance ratings. This must remain a core principle of sustainable design, ensuring that new devices are compatible with earlier ranges. Similarly, new products must be specifically designed for disassembly, upgrade, and recertification.
Moving forward, vendors must also consider the circularity and modularity of on-device technology. This means designing edge AI boards for reuse and enabling software-defined upgrades, so new functionality can be added without requiring new hardware.
Quocirca opinion
Regulations and corporate sustainability expectations mean remanufacturing must be part of every vendor’s design philosophy.
Remanufacturing programmes will benefit from drawing on device data gleaned from in-use fleets in areas such as usage, failures, and wear to clearly identify devices that are suitable for remanufacture and to feed into future design processes.
Product modularisation and standardisation, alongside security and performance upgrade capabilities, will be important elements as vendors navigate accelerating technology cycles.
Learn more about remanufacturing in the EU in our podcast featuring David Fitzsimons, Director of the European Remanufacturing Council. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga5LTsNgpRo&t=135s
[1] Canon ImageRUNNER ES range, cited in Quocirca Sustainability Leaders, 2025 report
[2] Xerox Certified devices, cited in Quocirca Sustainability Leaders, 2025 report
[3] Ricoh Greenline MFPs, cited in Quocirca Sustainability Leaders, 2025 report
[4] Ricoh Circular Economy (CE) MFPs, cited in Quocirca Sustainability Leaders, 2025 report
[5] Quocirca Sustainability Trends, 2025 report
