Europe – mobile phones LCA report

The European Commission has made available a report from telecoms giant Nokia which reviewed life cycle assessment data on mobile phones.



This is the first report in the EC IPP pilot project and serves as a guidance document on the environmental issues in the life cycle of a mobile phone, and shares the findings of the assessments conducted by Nokia and the stakeholders for assessing the life cycle environmental impacts of mobile phones.



The main findings of the assessments are:



· regardless of method, the phases of use and component manufacture are the biggest contributors to life cycle environmental impacts

· in the use phase, the standby power consumption of the charger accounts for the majority of the environmental impact

· in the component manufacture phase, energy consumption accounts for the major portion of the environmental impacts

· the most important environmental issue for a mobile phone is energy consumption

· the printed wiring board (PWB), integrated circuits (ICs) and the liquid crystal display (LCD) are the components with the highest environmental impacts

· in the transport phase, airfreight accounts for almost all the environmental impacts

· collection & proper management of mobiles and accessories at the end of their lives is crucial to have positive environmental impacts from end-of-life (EoL) phase (the positive environmental impacts in the EoL arise from metals recovery

· from the perspective of a mobile system, the energy consumption of radio base stations during the use phase is most significant