In the 14-49 age group, almost every German uses a smartphone: statistics show more than 95 percent market penetration here. Almost 23 million new smartphones are bought in Germany every year. And that has an impact on the environment.

Resource consumption and CO₂ emissions from smartphones and tablets

That is because the production of smartphones requires energy-intensive resources such as gold, copper, tin, iron, nickel, stainless steel and, above all, aluminum. In addition, carbon dioxide is produced during manufacturing.

smartphone recycling — *In addition to plastics, metals are also needed for smartphone production.*

A study published by the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety, and Energy Technology (UMSICHT) in collaboration with recycling service provider Interseroh identifies the consumption of resources and CO₂ emissions caused by mobile devices.

The study determined the following values (for models from 2016):

	Smartphone	Tablet
Ressource consumption (production)	14 kg	58 kg
Ressource consumption (usage)	32 kg	65 kg
Ressource consumption total	46 kg	123 kg
Greenhouse gas emissions (production)	58 kg CO₂e	141 kg CO₂e
Greenhouse gas emission (usage)	5 kg CO₂e	10 kg CO₂e
Greenhouse gas emissions total	63 kg CO₂e	151 kg CO₂e

63 kg CO₂ equivalent per smartphone

The Fraunhofer Institute has calculated that no less than 58 kg of CO₂ equivalent is produced during the manufacturing of a smartphone. For tablets, the researchers have even calculated CO₂ emissions of 141 kg. Added to this are the (lower) CO₂ emissions caused by electricity consumption during use.

With an average per capita carbon dioxide emission in Germany of 10.3 tons (2024), this may seem like a drop in the ocean – but for the smartphones sold in Germany alone, this adds up to over 1.44 million tons of CO₂ equivalent. That is no small amount – and, as mentioned, every contribution counts in order to reduce Germany's above-average emissions compared to the rest of Europe.

Refurbishment doubles useful life

In a model scenario, the Fraunhofer study assumes that the useful life of smartphones and tablets can be doubled by refurbishment.

Refurbishing involves the repair or overhaul of devices. For mobile devices, the battery or display usually plays a crucial role in refurbishing. According to the Fraunhofer researchers, refurbishing could increase the useful life from two to four years.

But are these devices still powerful enough for everyday use? Yes. The researchers' assumption is plausible in view of the fact that smartphone models in recent years have used significantly more powerful processors and GPUs and usually also have sufficient storage capacity to be future-proof for the longer service life.

A few years ago, this was not the case; the models became outdated rapidly and quickly reached their limits due to increasingly demanding applications. Today, this is no longer the case, especially with flagship models.

58 kg of CO₂can be saved per smartphone

In the model scenario, the study concludes that refurbishing can double the lifespan of a smartphone. This means that the exact 58 kg CO₂ equivalent that would be required to manufacture a new smartphone if it were purchased new can be saved.

The refurbishment itself only generates comparatively low emissions (less than 0.2 kg CO₂ equivalent). The savings potential for tablets is even higher, at 139 kg CO₂ equivalent.¹

According to the study, Gartner analysts conclude that no fewer than 120 million refurbished smartphones could be reintroduced to the market in 2017 alone.¹

Recycling also plays an important role, because currently the proportion of companies that specifically send their mobile devices for recycling after their useful life is still far too low. This is also shown by our own survey, in which we asked 158 companies about their handling of smartphones and tablets.

Question: “What do you do with your company smartphones after you've used them?”

26 percent of the companies surveyed replied that they “put the devices in a cupboard”.

recycle old smartphones — Old company phones

Everphone helps by renting smartphones

The device-as-a-service approach from Everphone helps companies to sustainably extend the lifetime of devices by adding a second lifecycle. The company only leases the devices it actually needs. Old or redundant devices from the inventory are simply sold or returned to Everphone. Everphone then takes care of refurbishing or recycling.

recycle company phones — Old smartphones can be found literally stacked in numerous “IT poison cabinets”

Everphone customers often send us entire boxes of defective or end-of-life devices: discarded company cell phones *(photo: Everphone)*

“Device-as-a-Service” (DaaS)

DaaS has other advantages for companies in addition to the more sustainable handling of the devices: they can equip their teams based on their actual needs and do not have to struggle with bulky constraints such as leasing agreements.

If one of the currently used smartphones is defective, it will be replaced immediately as part of the DaaS replacement service.

The defective device is collected, then refurbished in the background and resold (of course, after a certified deletion of the data on it, keyword: GDPR). If refurbishing is not possible, Everphone recycles the mobile device so that valuable precious metals and other raw materials can be reclaimed. However, this is only the case for around two percent of rented devices. The vast majority of devices are refurbished.

This puts an end to the “graveyard of end devices” that we often find in many companies. This is good for companies and employee satisfaction. And it's good for the environment.

Resource consumption and CO2 emissions from smartphones and tablets

Smartphone

Tablet

Ressource consumption (production)

Ressource consumption (usage)

Ressource consumption total

Greenhouse gas emissions (production)

Greenhouse gas emission (usage)

Greenhouse gas emissions total

63 kg CO2 equivalent per smartphone

Smartphones: refurbishing saves 58 kg of carbon dioxide per device