IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jchals/v5y2014i2p409-429d42113.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

To Which Degree Does Sector Specific Standardization Make Life Cycle Assessments Comparable?—The Case of Global Warming Potential of Smartphones

Author

Listed:
  • Anders S. G. Andrae

    (Huawei Technologies Sweden AB, Skalholtsgatan 9, 16494 Kista, Sweden)

  • Mikko Samuli Vaija

    (Orange Labs Products & Services, 28 chemin du Vieux Chêne, 38240 Meylan, France)

Abstract

Here attributional life cycle assessments (LCAs) for the same smartphone model are presented by two different organizations (Orange, OGE and Huawei, HuW) and the effect of different modeling approach is analyzed. A difference of around 32% (29.6 kg and 39.2 kg) for CO 2 e baseline scores is found using same study object and sector specific LCA standard, however, different metrics, emission intensities, and LCA software programs. The CO 2 e difference is reduced to 12% (29.9 kg and 33.5 kg) when OGE use HuW metrics for use phase power consumption and total mass, and when HuW use OGE metrics for gold mass and silicon die area. Further, a probability test confirms that present baseline climate change results, for one specific study object modeled with two largely different and independent LCA modeling approaches, are comparable if both use the European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI) LCA standard. The general conclusion is that the ETSI LCA standard strongly facilitates comparable CC results for technically comparable smartphone models. Moreover, thanks to the reporting requirements of ETSI LCA standard, a clear understanding of the differences between LCA modeling approaches is obtained. The research also discusses the magnitude of the CO 2 e reduction potential in the life cycle of smartphones.

Suggested Citation

  • Anders S. G. Andrae & Mikko Samuli Vaija, 2014. "To Which Degree Does Sector Specific Standardization Make Life Cycle Assessments Comparable?—The Case of Global Warming Potential of Smartphones," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 5(2), pages 1-21, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jchals:v:5:y:2014:i:2:p:409-429:d:42113
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/5/2/409/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/5/2/409/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paul Teehan & Milind Kandlikar, 2012. "Sources of Variation in Life Cycle Assessments of Desktop Computers," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 16(s1), pages 182-194, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anders S. G. Andrae, 2017. "Life Cycle Assessment of a Virtual Reality Device," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-11, July.
    2. Qingbin Song & Jinhui Li, 2015. "Greenhouse gas emissions from the usage of typical e-products by households: a case study of China," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 132(4), pages 615-629, October.
    3. Anders S. G. Andrae & Mengjun Xia & Jianli Zhang & Xiaoming Tang, 2016. "Practical Eco-Design and Eco-Innovation of Consumer Electronics—the Case of Mobile Phones," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-19, February.
    4. Bourgeois Guillaume & Duthil Benjamin & Courboulay Vincent, 2022. "Review of the Impact of IT on the Environment and Solution with a Detailed Assessment of the Associated Gray Literature," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-19, February.
    5. Anders S. G. Andrae & Mikko Samuli Vaija, 2017. "Precision of a Streamlined Life Cycle Assessment Approach Used in Eco-Rating of Mobile Phones," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 8(2), pages 1-24, August.
    6. Anders S. G. Andrae & Tomas Edler, 2015. "On Global Electricity Usage of Communication Technology: Trends to 2030," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-41, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Josh Lepawsky & Kathia Cáceres & Marco Gusukuma & Ramzy Kahhat, 2023. "Carbon and water conservation value of independent, place‐based repair in Lima, Peru," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 27(3), pages 896-907, June.
    2. Kasulaitis, Barbara V. & Babbitt, Callie W. & Kahhat, Ramzy & Williams, Eric & Ryen, Erinn G., 2015. "Evolving materials, attributes, and functionality in consumer electronics: Case study of laptop computers," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 1-10.
    3. Fabio Pesari & Giovanni Lagioia & Annarita Paiano, 2023. "Client‐side energy and GHGs assessment of advertising and tracking in the news websites," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 27(2), pages 548-561, April.
    4. Kevin Joseph Dillman & Áróra Árnadóttir & Jukka Heinonen & Michał Czepkiewicz & Brynhildur Davíðsdóttir, 2020. "Review and Meta-Analysis of EVs: Embodied Emissions and Environmental Breakeven," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-28, November.
    5. Anders S. G. Andrae & Tomas Edler, 2015. "On Global Electricity Usage of Communication Technology: Trends to 2030," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-41, April.
    6. Raihanian Mashhadi, Ardeshir & Behdad, Sara, 2018. "Discriminant effects of consumer electronics use-phase attributes on household energy prediction," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 346-355.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jchals:v:5:y:2014:i:2:p:409-429:d:42113. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.