Researchers are sounding the alarm after analyzing the energy consumption of buying a new smartphone versus using an existing phone for a decade.
A new study published in the Journal of Cleaner Production by McMaster researchers at Canada's top university analyzed the carbon emissions of PCs, laptops, monitors, smartphones and servers across the information and communications industry (ICT) from 2010-2020 Emission impact. They found very bad news.
Even as the world shifts from giant tower PCs to tiny, energy-poor cell phones, the overall environmental impact of technology will only get worse. Although ICT accounted for 1% of the carbon footprint in 2007, it has tripled and will exceed 14% by 2040, which is half the carbon footprint of the entire transport industry.
Smartphones are especially stealthy for several reasons. With an average lifespan of two years, they are more or less one-offs. The problem is that building a new smartphone, especially by digging rare materials inside it, will result in 85 to 95 percent of the device's total CO2 emissions within two years. That means buying a new phone takes the equivalent of a decade of charging and operating a smartphone.
However, consumer electronics companies are trying to make up for lost profits by selling larger, more stylish phones, even though people are buying phones less often now. The researchers found that smartphones with larger screens had significantly worse carbon footprints than their smaller ancestors. Apple has publicly disclosed that building the iPhone 7 Plus creates about 10 percent more CO2 emissions than the iPhone 6, but the iPhone 7 standard creates about 10 percent less than 6 seconds.
So according to Apple, the trend is getting better, but the sale of a big company like Apple seems to be offsetting some of the gains. Another independent study concluded that the iPhone 6s created 57% more carbon dioxide than the iPhone 4. Despite Apple and other companies implementing recycling programs, according to our research and other sources, less than 1 percent of smartphones are currently being recycled.
In any case, keeping your smartphone for three years instead of two can have a considerable impact on your own carbon footprint, since no one has to mine for rare materials for the phone you already own. It's a mind-numbing environmental issue, especially if you own Samsung or Apple stock. Just like buying a new Prius or Tesla, buying a used gas car is actually better for the environment, and keeping the old phone is more environmentally friendly than upgrading to a new one.
Smartphones are part of the rapid development of information and communication technology, but the biggest culprits of CO2 emissions belong to servers and data centers, which will account for 45% of ICT emissions by 2020. This is because every Baidu search, and every call we publish requires a computer all over the place in the cloud. (That number could soon get worse, depending on the popularity of cryptocurrencies.) Here again, smartphones.
The researchers point out that the mobile app actually enhances our demand for these 24/7 servers, enabling a constant cycle of energy savings. More phones require more servers. And, with all this wireless information in the cloud, we're certainly going to buy more phones that can run better apps.
To make matters worse, the researchers calculated some of their conclusions conservatively. If the Internet of Things takes off and more devices are feeding the cloud for data, the future will only get tougher.
We've seen internet-connected devices, from the smallest form factors like wearables, to household appliances, and even cars, trucks, and airplanes. If this trend continues. One can only wonder about the additional load these devices place on network and data center infrastructure, and the increased energy consumption associated with their production.
The research team wrote in the study. "Unless supporting the rapid development of infrastructure to 100% renewable energy, the advent of the Internet of Things could dwarf the contribution of all other traditional computing devices and substantially increase overall global emissions far beyond the projections of this study. According to Apple According to the company's environmental report, the production of the iPhone 7 Plus produces 25 percent more carbon dioxide emissions than the iPhone 6s.
In fact, the carbon footprint of tech companies is beyond the control of any single designer, company, or even a government regulator. As consumers, we have all the more reason to be hesitant when it comes to our next shiny tech waste. Most importantly, we need to buy less and reduce the impact on the health of the entire planet. (Hacker Weekly)