Smartphones Are Killing The Planet Faster Than Anyone Expected
Researchers are sounding the
alarm after an analysis showed that buying a new smartphone consumes as much
energy as using an existing phone for an entire decade.
Before you upgrade your next iPhone, you may
want to consider a $29 battery instead. Not only will the choice save you
money, it could help save the planet.
A new study from researchers
at McMaster University published in the Journal
of Cleaner Production analyzed the carbon impact of the whole Information
and Communication Industry (ICT) from around 2010-2020, including PCs, laptops,
monitors, smartphones, and servers. They found remarkably bad news. Even as the
world shifts away from giant tower PCs toward tiny, energy-sipping phones, the
overall environmental impact of technology is only getting worse. Whereas ICT
represented 1% of the carbon footprint in 2007, it’s already about tripled, and
is on its way to exceed 14% by 2040. That’s half as large as the carbon impact
of the entire transportation industry.
Smartphones are particularly insidious for a
few reasons. With a two-year average life cycle, they’re more or less
disposable. The problem is that building a new smartphone–and specifically,
mining the rare materials inside them–represents 85% to 95% of the device’s
total CO2 emissions for two years. That means buying one new phone takes as
much energy as recharging and operating a smartphone for an entire decade.
Yet even as people are now buying
phones less often, consumer electronics companies are
attempting to make up for lost profits by selling
bigger, fancier phones. The researchers
found that smartphones with larger screens have a measurably worse carbon
footprint than their smaller ancestors. Apple has publicly disclosed that
building an iPhone 7 Plus creates roughly 10% more CO2 than the iPhone 6s, but
an iPhone 7 standard creates roughly 10% less than a 6s. So according to Apple,
the trend is getting better, but the bigger phones companies like Apple sell
seem to offset some gains. Another independent
study concluded that the iPhone 6s created 57%
more CO2 than the iPhone 4s. And despite the recycling programs run by Apple
and others, “based on our research and other sources, currently less than 1% of
smartphones are being recycled,” Lotfi Belkhir, the study’s lead author, tells
me.
In any case, keeping a smartphone for even
three years instead of two can make a considerable impact to your own carbon
footprint, simply because no one has to mine the rare materials for a phone you
already own. It’s a humbling environmental takeaway, especially if you own
Samsung or Apple stock. Much like buying a used gasoline-fueled car is actually better for the
environment than purchasing a new Prius or Tesla, keeping your old phone is greener than upgrading to any
new one.
Smartphones represent a fast-growing segment
of ICT, but the overall largest culprit with regards to CO2 emissions belongs
to servers and data centers themselves, which will represent 45% of ICT emissions
by 2020. That’s because every Google search, every Facebook refresh, and every
dumb Tweet we post requires a computer somewhere to calculate it all in the
cloud. (The numbers could soon be even worse, depending on how popular
cryptocurrencies get.) Here, the smartphone strikes again. The
researchers point out that mobile apps actually reinforce our need for these
24/7 servers in a self-perpetuating energy-hogging cycle. More phones require
more servers. And with all this wireless information in the cloud, of course
we’re going to buy more phones capable of running even better apps.
As for what can be done on the server end,
Belkhir suggests that government policies and taxes might make a
difference–whatever needs to be done to get these servers migrated over to
renewable energy sources. Google, Facebook, and Apple have all pledged to
move to 100% renewable energy in
their own operations. In fact, all of Apple’s servers are currently run on
renewable power. “It’s encouraging,” says Belkhir of these early corporate
efforts. “But I don’t think it’d move the needle at all.”
If this all sounds like bad news, it’s
because it absolutely is bad news. To make matters worse, the researchers
calculated some of their conclusions conservatively. The future will only
get more dire if the internet of
things takes off and many more devices are hitting
up the cloud for data.
“We are already witnessing internet-enabled
devices, ranging from the smallest form factor such as wearable devices, to
home appliances, and even cars, trucks and airplanes. If this trend continues .
. . one can only wonder on the additional load these devices will have on the
networking and data center infrastructures, in addition to the incremental
energy consumption incurred by their production,” the team writes in the study.
“Unless the supporting infrastructure moves quickly to 100% renewable power,
the emergence of IoT could potentially dwarf the contribution of all the other
traditional computing devices, and dramatically increase the overall global
emissions well beyond the projections of this study.”
Indeed, tech’s carbon footprint is beyond
what any one designer, one company, or even one government regulator can contain.
As consumers, we have more reason than ever to hesitate when it comes to our
next shiny tech splurge. The bottom line is that we need to buy less, and
engage less, for the health of this entire planet.
By Mark Wilson
https://www.fastcodesign.com/90165365/smartphones-are-wrecking-the-planet-faster-than-anyone-expected?utm_source=postup&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Fast%20Company%20Weekly&position=1&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=03302018
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