Cellphones Sustainability
SSQI predicts that cellphones—the world’s most famous customers electronics device, expected to have an installed base of 4.5 billion in 20221—will generate 146 million tons of CO2 or equivalent emissions (CO2e) in 2022.2 This is less than half a percent of the 34 gigatons of total CO2e emitted globally in 2021, but it is still worth trying to reduce
Making smartphones is a laden process
A brand-new smartphone generates an average of 85 kilograms in emissions in its first year of use. Ninety-five percent of this comes from manufacturing processes, including the extraction of raw materials and shipping. Exactly how much CO2e this releases depends on several factors, mainly
- Recycled material is used?7 Reusing material defines a reduction in carbon-intensive mining. Tin is reused for circuit boards, cobalt for batteries, and aluminum for enclosures.8 Technology now also exists to recycle rare-earth elements, which go into components such as speakers and actuators; up until a few years ago, extracting rare-earth elements from these components was considered commercially unviable due to their small size.
- What energy-efficient manufacturers’ facilities are? The production of the circuits used in smartphones consumes significant amounts of energy. For example, up to 30% of a semiconductor fabrication plant’s operational costs comes from the energy needed to maintain constant temperature and humidity.10
- After it is manufactured, a smartphone generates an average of 8 kilograms of emissions from usage during its working life, which is most commonly between two and five years.12 At the end of that time, its end-of-life CO2e emissions are determined partially by the ease with which its components can be recycled.13
- Because manufacturing accounts for almost a smartphone’s entire carbon footprint, the single biggest factor that could reduce a smartphone’s carbon footprint is to extend its expected lifetime.14There could still be just as many smartphones in use; what would change is that each smartphone would be used for longer, regardless of the number of individual owners of each smartphone during its lifetime. Even accounting for the CO2e emissions resulting from refurbishing and shipping a used phone, prolonged ownership, whether by the original owner or a series of owners, provides a clear-cut benefit.
- Several trends point to the likelihood that smartphone lifetimes will likely indeed become longer in the medium term:
- Consumers are keeping phones for longer. The average ownership time for smartphones has steadily been lengthening in developed markets. Figure 1 shows that between 2016 and 2021, there was a decline in the proportion of respondents whose smartphones had been bought in the prior 18 months (the trend reversed in markets in 2021, which we attribute to forced savings on services as a result of the pandemic leading to greater spend on devices). Over the same period and in the same markets, the percentage of smartphones purchased over 3.5 years ago doubled on average from 5% to 10%.19
- The global market for refurbished and handed-down phones is growing.The higher a phone’s nominal resale value, the more likely it is to be traded in. A US$1,000 phone could retain half its value after the first year, providing the minority of smartphone users who swap out premium phones annually a strong incentive to trade them in.21 Companies also have an incentive to refurbish: a one-year-old, pristinely refurbished phone may retail for 80% of the price of a brand-new one. A four-year-old premium phone may be unwanted in wealthier markets but be in significant demand in emerging ones. Premium phones are also likely to be more water and dust resistant and use better quality glass than lower-priced phones.22 Indeed, the refurbished smartphone market is expected to grow annually at 11.2% per year through 2024, at which point it will be worth US$65 billion and comprise 352 million units.