Globally, each year, we throw away so much electronic waste (e-waste) that we could fill enough waste lorries to wrap around Earth’s equator. Consumers increasingly realise that this waste comes at an environmental cost. In tandem, cost-of-living crises are also driving the market for second-hand and refurbished devices. Is the story as simple as ‘second-hand is best’? And how can the industry help conscious customers maximise the impact of their choices?
The global technology industry is booming and with the consumer electronics segment valued at nearly $1 trillion in 2023 and growing, today’s consumers are spoiled for choice. The omnipresent upgrade cycle underpins rocketing sales of computers, smartphones, games consoles and wearables.
Yet consumers are catching on to the impact of their choices and the growing selection of marketplaces for second-hand and refurbished electronics shows the market is responding. With more choice than ever to upgrade or replace tech devices, how can the industry help buyers balance performance, price and environment?
Evaluating the carbon impact: New versus refurbished
Upon the purchase of a new smartphone, most of its carbon impact is locked in before the device is turned on – it costs roughly 60 kgCO2e to manufacture, package and ship the product,1 equivalent to approximately 350 km driven in an average petrol car. Buying refurbished can be a good way to reduce a phone’s carbon impact by displacing the purchase of a new device, but it’s not completely free of emissions. The refurbishment process involves inspections, repairs, packaging and transport and, though dependent on various factors, can account for approximately 15 kgCO2e.
Purchasing power: Can buying refurbished reduce the carbon impact of our smartphone purchases?
Attributing carbon impact to multiple users of the same product is a methodological exercise that we won’t explore here, but suffice to say, it doesn’t paint a clear picture to guide purchasing decisions. One thing is crystal clear though: the longer a consumer uses its smartphone, the lower its carbon impact. This principle applies to buying both new and refurbished phones. The average estimated use period of a smartphone is 2-3 years, meaning anyone in the market for a new smartphone should aim to use the device for at least 3-4 years, and ideally as long as it continues to receive critical updates and keeps up with its applications.
The annualised emissions from purchasing a new smartphone reduces from 60 kgCO2e with one year of use, to 30 kgCO2e with two years, to 20 kgCO2e with three years. The same applies to buying refurbished; an effective way to extend the lifetime of a smartphone. Trading in devices prematurely to upgrade to a new device, on the other hand, is bound to increase the carbon bill.
In reality, it’s impossible to know the full effect of purchasing a refurbished smartphone since the carbon savings relies on displacing an alternative purchase. Perhaps the alternative would have been produced anyway or perhaps buying refurbished enabled another buyer to trade in their device early and upgrade to the newest model. We tried to understand this relationship better by reflecting on market dynamics.2
Assessing the impact of secondary markets on total market emissions
In all but one case of the above secondary market scenarios, the existence of a secondary market reduces the total emissions across the entire product market (this assumes demand for secondary products displaces demand for new products). Only when the secondary market becomes supply constrained, does the potential for an increase in emissions across the complete product market appear. From this perspective, nascent secondary markets for smartphones are thereby likely to have a positive impact and even strong secondary markets which grow total market demand can reduce total market emissions.
While we can’t assume with absolutely certainty that refurbished is always the best choice in every case, the presence of refurbished product markets should generally be encouraged by the ICT industry, particularly in the case of smartphones, which end up unused in drawers or as e-waste, well before they’ve reached their potential. As secondary product markets grow, they will help to build strong repair and refurbishment ecosystems to support viable business model while also normalising the choice to buy refurbished products as a genuine consumer option with solid sustainability credentials.
Encouraging consumers towards the refurbished choice is most effective with clear and transparent communication of the carbon impact of consumption choices, while also providing information on device condition and quality, and other aspects of the purchase which consumers care about (e.g., warranty, seller ratings and reviews). Consumer-facing labels such as the Carbon Trust label give credibility to the environmental claims associated with refurbished products and ultimately helps buyers make a smart choice for the environment.
Scaling up the ecosystem of device reuse and life extension is also essential for tackling the wider carbon emissions and environmental impacts of the industry. We will be exploring this further in our next article in this series of circularity in ICT.
1 Exact figures vary but we can typically expect the following carbon footprint breakdown by life cycle stage over a three-year lifetime: production (~80%), transportation (<5%), product use (~15%), end-of-life (<1%).
2 In a developing secondary market, secondary demand displaces a small amount of primary demand and recovery rates are relatively low. In an equilibrium market, recovery rates are very high and supply and demand are perfectly balanced between new and secondary products. Meanwhile, a strong secondary market represents secondary demand beyond simply displacing existing primary demand, but also attracting new customers to the market. A constrained secondary market represents a market that cannot keep up with growing demand for secondary products and paradoxically, relies on production of new products to supply the secondary market.
