Eco Rating evaluates the environmental impact of the entire process of production, transportation, use and disposal of mobile phones.
What is Eco Rating?What is Eco Rating?
Eco Rating evaluates the environmental impact of the entire process of production, transportation, use and disposal of mobile phones.
- Helps customers to make informed and more sustainable choices
- Encourages suppliers to reduce the environmental impact of their devices
- Aligns the industry in improving transparency and reducing its environmental footprint
The Eco Rating evaluation assesses devices’ different environmental indicators (e.g. carbon footprint or resource depletion) and material efficiency criteria, which results in an overall score on a scale from 1 to 100. The closer the score is to 100, the better the sustainability performance of the device.
The harmonized environmental scoring system for mobile phones
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Durability
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Resource efficiency
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Repairability
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Climate efficiency
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Recyclability
Why did we introduce Eco Rating?
Mobile phone consumers are increasingly aware of how the device choices they make can contribute to minimising climate impact and lead to a more environmentally sustainable industry.
Building a more sustainable future is our joint responsibility. The consortium behind Eco Rating believes the time is right to have a harmonised, industry-wide Eco Rating that will improve transparency and help raise awareness of the environmental impact of the phones we supply, and our customers choose.
We are convinced that Eco Rating can motivate and inspire the whole mobile industry to accelerate its transition towards a more circular model for mobile phones.
Scoring
The Eco Rating scores the environmental performance of mobile phones based on an objective assessment of both life cycle and circular economy indicators.
Label used for all devices launched from 1. Jan. 2023 onwards.
For details see “Methodology” below.
The highest possible Eco Rating score is 100 for maximum environmental performance. The closer the score is to 100, the better the environmental performance of the device. In addition, the Eco Rating provides guidance in five key areas: durability, repairability, recyclability, climate efficiency and resource efficiency.
The Eco Rating label is easily recognisable and is designed to give consumers consistent, accurate information, helping them to identify and compare the most sustainable mobile phones. Each participating mobile operator will display the Eco Rating on device information at point of sale.
Durability
Covers the robustness of the device, the battery life and the guarantee period of the device and its components.
Repairability
Covers the ease with which the device can be repaired, including mobile phone design and supporting activities that could increase the useful life of the product by improving its repairability, reusability and upgradability potential. A high score indicates how well these aspects are supported.
Recyclability
Covers how well the device components can be recovered and disassembled, the provided information to allow it, and how well its materials can be recycled.
Climate efficiency
Assesses the GHG emissions during the whole life cycle; the better the score here, the higher the contribution to climate protection.
Resource efficiency
Assesses the impact caused by the amount of scarce raw materials required by the device (e.g. gold for the manufacturing of electronic components) towards the resources depletion; the better the score here, the lower the impact is towards the availability of materials.
The Eco Rating methodology
The Eco Rating methodology evaluates the environmental performance of mobile phones across the entire life cycle – production, transportation, use and disposal at end of life – culminating in a final score.
Eco Rating uses information provided by manufacturers about the mobile devices they supply to mobile operators. The evaluation is made by combining 16 different environmental indicators and 6 different material efficiency criteria to obtain just one single score for each device.
These indicators include raw material extraction, device manufacturing, logistics, consumer use and disposal at end of life, in addition to usability, durability, repairability and recyclability.
The Eco Rating methodology builds on industry knowledge and best practice gathered through previous environmental labelling initiatives.
It has been developed with technical support and supervision from IHOBE (a publicly-owned agency specialized in Economic Development, Sustainability and the Environment), with the participation of device suppliers, using the latest standards and guidelines from the European Union, ITU-T, ETSI and ISO with new parameters introduced where appropriate.
Mobile phone lifecycle – five stages:
Raw materials
The raw materials used in the production of mobile phones and their components. Typical examples are the gold needed for connectors, lithium used for the battery, minerals needed for the cover, silicon for the integrated circuit and the rare materials needed for the display. The more that devices use recycled materials, not scarce natural resources, the higher the Eco Rating score for this stage.
Manufacturing
When the components of the mobile phone are produced and assembled to become the finished product, including packaging (plastic) and accessories (charger, cable). The main produced components of a mobile phone are the electronic circuit board, battery, display, touch-panel, antenna, camera(s) and cover. The Eco Rating will verify the impact of this stage for carbon emissions, energy consumption and other environmental categories.
Transport
Once the device is assembled, the finished product is shipped from the manufacturing location to the country of sale. This stage considers the distance, plus the transportation method (ship or plane) and its carbon footprint.
Usage and Spare parts
Once consumers have purchased the device, they will own and use it for several years. The useful life of the device depends on factors including durability, upgradability and repairability, in addition to the energy consumption of the device from charging.
End of life
This last stage looks at the environmental impact of disposing of the device, including an assessment of how easy it is to be refurbished or if its metals and the plastics can be easily recycled.
Current methodology
As part of our regular review, we continuously assess the sustainability demands and decide if there is a need to update the methodology. Methodology updates consider new device technologies, updated LCA standards and/or new environmental legislations. During the reviews we take feedback received from stakeholders (including customers, operators, standardization bodies and NGOs) seriously.
For more details on the current Eco Rating methodology (Version 3), applicable from 1 Jan 2023, please click here
In the table of history you will find the evolution of Eco Rating.
Helping customers making informed and more sustainable choices.
Eco Design
As of 2024 we have assessed and evaluated more than 550 devices with over 80,000 data points. By combining these statistics with input from customers and environmental demands, we’re able to provide Eco Design guidelines on how to reduce the environmental impact for mobile devices. Implementing as many aspects of these guidelines will help the industry to achieve its challenges on Net Zero targets and support stronger circularity demands.
As a summary we see:
- ~80% of the overall environmental impact is driven by the raw material and manufacture stage; and the key contributors are the integrated circuits (up to 50%).
- Higher storage variants increase the environmental impact significantly (e.g. 1TB demands 30% more CO2 than 512GB)
- In the material efficiency section, we recognize that >20% devices have high sub-scores (4 or 5) but the majority (>50%) score lower.
- For some categories we see a positive trend from 2022 to 2024, but other categories have not yet improved.
- Special focus needs to be on reparability, durability and recyclability as the key consumer demands (though focus should not be limited to these).
- In the LCA section we’re seeing optimization of semiconductor use and reduction of gold. The supply chain needs access to recycled metals/minerals and the manufacture process need to exploit access to renewable energy for all production processes.
Download the detailed guidelines
About us
Who is behind the Eco Rating initiative?
Participating operators:
Participation in Eco Rating is open to all operators that have a strong interest to increase transparency on the environmental impact of the mobile devices offered to their customers and seek to accelerate the transition towards a more sustainable and circular economy for mobile phones. MNOs that are interested in joining the initiative can send an inquiry through the “Contact us” form in the footer.
Participating mobile suppliers:
FAQs
Who is behind the Eco Rating initiative?
In 2019/2020 five of Europe’s leading mobile operators joined forces through a consortium to develop and launch a harmonised scoring system to evaluate the environmental impact for Smartphones and Feature Phones. – This consortium - Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica (operating under the O2, Vivo and Movistar brands), Telia Company and Vodafone have been working with independent 3rd parties whose profession is “Life Cycles Assessment” – naming IHOBE and IK Ingenieria. End of May 2021 this pan-industry Eco Rating labeling scheme was launched. Since November 2021 Eco Rating has expanded globally and is open for all mobile operators to join. At the end of 2022 there are more than 20 mobile suppliers that supports this initiative and provide the raw data about their device models that is then assessed through our Eco Rating methodology. In the area “About us” you will find an overview of all participating mobile operators and suppliers that is updated regularly.
Why are we doing this?
The Eco Rating initiative has three main goals:
- To address the increasing consumer demand for environmental information about mobile phone devices
- To raise awareness and transparency by creating a consistent way for consumers to identify and compare the most sustainable mobile phones
- To encourage and incentivise suppliers to reduce the environmental impact of their devices.
Which mobile phone models have been rated so far?
By end of 2023 more than 500 devices had been rated, and the total number of devices assessed by Eco Rating is continuously increasing in order to keep the pace of new portfolio entrants so that the growing demand from consumers for more transparency continues to be met. The assessed devices can be found on this website in the “Ratings” menu as well as on the websites and shops of the participating mobile operators.
What are our plans going forward?
The consortium aims to keep the current portfolio rated as new portfolio entrants get regularly assessed and increase the consumer visibility of Eco Rating across the point of sales. By the end of 2023 Eco Rating had been launched in more than 35 countries and its geographical footprint is expected to grow in the upcoming years. More than 20 leading mobile suppliers are already onboard, and the increased transparency brought by Eco Rating heightens the ambition of manufacturers to find better approaches to reduce their devices’ environmental footprint reduce waste and critical substances and improve circularity. This has already intensified the dialogue between manufacturers and the consortium to foster eco-design and increase the contribution of this industry to global environmental protection targets.
How do I interpret the scoring? Does a higher score mean that the ecological performance is better?
Each mobile phone handset is given an overall Eco Rating score out of a maximum of 100 to signal the environmental performance of the device across its entire life cycle. Eco Rating also highlights five key aspects of mobile device environmental sustainability, providing additional scores for durability, repairability, recyclability, climate efficiency and resource efficiency.
The higher the score, the better the environmental sustainability performance of the device.
What is a good score? Is a score of 100 achievable?
The methodology has been established so that the highest possible score - 100 out of 100 - is very challenging for manufacturers to achieve.
There are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ scores – but by applying the Eco Rating methodology consistently and bringing it to market, it will help consumers identify and compare the most sustainable mobile phones and, over time, encourage suppliers to reduce the environmental impact of their devices.
How confident are you in the Eco Rating methodology?
Eco Rating has been developed jointly by five of Europe’s leading mobile operators in close co-operation by third party experts in Sustainability and Life-Cycle-Analysis. The development was executed by recognized international standards from the European Union, ITU-T, ETSI and ISO.
The methodology is periodically revised in order to better assess upcoming new technologies against environmental best practices, as well as ensuring it adapts to any relevant European and international regulations and/or standards, markets trends, etc.
For more information, please refer to ‘The Eco Rating Methodology’.
How do I compare a phone with an Eco Rating to one without it?
Eco Rating aims to assess as many models as possible from all participating mobile suppliers. However there are devices in the market that do not have an Eco Rating score. For devices which are not rated, consumers will have to rely on the information provided by suppliers.
What can I do to optimise the ecological performance of my smartphone?
- Around 80% of the greenhouse gas emissions over the lifetime of a device occur during the production stage. To reduce the carbon emissions associated with a mobile phone, keep it for as long as possible before replacing it.
- The battery inside a mobile phone is a sensitive item. Quick charging, trickle charging and exposure to excessively cold or warm temperatures will reduce its useful life.
- Do not keep the device in environments that are too hot or too humid. This will increase corrosion and can impact components, including the battery.
- Always ensure the device is kept up to date with the latest available software updates. Missed software updates can give the impression that the device is performing poorly or incorrectly – encouraging people to replace the device early.
- In case the display has too many scratches or is broken and/or the battery has too low capacity and/or other parts do not function anymore, do not throw away the device but bring it to an authorized repair center. A repair is often much cheaper than purchasing a new device.
- Check if the supplier or operator offers a take back program– it might be possible for the device to be refurbished and resold.
- All devices that can’t be used anymore should not be thrown in the normal “household garbage” but should be brought back to a recycling point to extract raw materials, metals and minerals.
What does ‘durability’ mean and how is this related to sustainability or ecological performance?
One of the key reasons why consumers replace their mobile phones are defects or wear and tear, which prematurely shortens the viable lifetime of the device. The more durable the device, the less likely it is to be discarded early, reducing the greenhouse gases associated with the manufacture of a new device and reducing e-waste.
Does ‘repairability’ relate to the repair cost of the device?
During mobile phone repair, a technician will need to dismantle the device, replace the defective part and then reassemble it again. As a result, the labour cost is a substantial part of the overall cost of repairing a mobile phone. If the design of a mobile phone makes it easier and quicker to dismantle and reassemble, then this will reduce that element of the cost.
What does ‘recyclability’ mean? Isn’t it already a legal requirement to ensure that devices can be recycled?
Recyclability indicates how much of the material used in the manufacture of a mobile phone can be recovered at its end of its life and processed for other future uses. The ideal is to avoid having materials left over after recycling that need to be disposed of in landfills.
The relevant European law (WEEE 2012/19/EU) only mandates basic recyclability. The assessment for ‘recyclability’ exceeds the requirements in law.
What is the difference between the Eco Rating ‘repairability’ score and the French ‘repairability’ index?
Device ‘repairability’ provides consumers with an assessment of how easy it is to repair a faulty device. If devices can be repaired, they can remain in use for longer.
This aspect of Eco Rating was included independently from the legislative standard introduced by France’s ADEME agency, which has applied only in France since 2021 to a range of consumer products including smartphones, washing machines, TVs or lawnmowers.
Both the French index and the Eco Rating ‘repairability’ rely on the same underlying standards. There are some differences - the French index relates to documentation (guidelines for self-repair, for instance) or how long spare parts will remain available – while Eco Rating also considers software support and the availability of major spare parts such as displays or batteries.
What is difference between Eco Rating and the environmental evaluation system EPEAT?
EPEAT is an environmental evaluation system that ranks different kind of electronic devices based on their environmental attributes. The system has a scoring system in which gold, silver or bronze rating can be achieved, depending on device performance in different categories. The consortium believes that both systems are complementary.
For mobile phones, four suppliers are participating. Under EPEAT, the life cycle assessment (LCA) of the product only represents 7.5% of the overall score, while under Eco Rating it is 100%. The EPEAT system asks if the supplier has conducted an LCA and if this LCA has undergone third-party verification or was made publicly available.
EPEAT is not asking suppliers for the raw data for their LCA, and is also not considering the result obtained in the LCA. Under Eco Rating, a simplified LCA is performed and the results are correlated to 16 environmental impact categories.
Is there a dependency between the overall score out of 100, and the five sub-scores - durability, repairability, recyclability, climate efficiency and resource efficiency?
The overall Eco Rating score (1-100) is based on the evaluation of the environmental impact of the entire life cycle of the analysed device and its material efficiency scores. In addition, some additional sub-scores are also shown, providing more detailed guidance on the performance for specific key aspects.
The Rating Eco Rating applies a consistent evaluation methodology equally and objectively across 16 different environmental impacts and 6 circular economy criteria. The final score includes assessments that are not reflected in the sub-scores.
Devices that achieve higher sub-scores will usually achieve a higher overall Eco Rating score, but the overall score is not directly dependent on the sub-scores and isn’t calculated as an average of the sub-scores. However, all the sub-scores have a relative impact on the overall result, depending on their relevance towards the life cycle of the specific device being assessed.
How are the different life-cycle aspects weighted to calculate the overall score?
To obtain the overall Eco Rating score, all the aspects within the life cycle of the device are evaluated across 16 different environmental impacts. These include climate change, resource use, land use, water scarcity, photochemical ozone formation, eutrophication, acidification, and ozone depletion
The results from these 16 individual evaluations are then weighted to obtain a single score, showing the overall environmental performance of the device.
The weighting uses factors recommended by the European Commission in the EF Method, which is publicly available and already used by the Product Environmental Footprint Initiative.
Can the methodology and Eco Rating score be used for all types of mobile device?
The Eco Rating and the methodology is developed for smartphones and feature phones. Please note that given their differences, scores for smartphones and feature phones are not comparable. Other product types like tablets, wearables/smart watches, C-IoT products, routers and laptops are out of scope for the time being.
What is the real environmental benefit in terms of carbon reduction if a device scores 10 points higher than another device?
The Eco rating methodology considers the full life cycle of the device, taking into account more than 10 different environmental impact categories, combined into one single score.
It isn’t possible to directly correlate the CO2 emission benefits of a device that scores 10 points higher, as the score not only considers the carbon impact but accounts for a range of environmental factors.
Since the climate impact is an important element, Eco Rating includes the subcategory “Climate efficiency”.
As a rough rule of thumb, a device with a 10% longer bar for “climate efficiency” saves the equivalent of around 10Kg of CO2. This is a simplistic view, however, and includes the CO2 emissions generated during manufacturing (mainly driven by Integrated circuit and printed circuit boards), transport (e.g. from Asia or US to Europe) and the electricity consumed by regularly charging the battery for the equivalent of four years.
Why do you not assess corporate sustainability aspects like human rights or working conditions?
The key purpose of Eco Rating is to evaluate the environmental impact of the devices and not the company. There are already established methods to assess sustainability performance on a corporate level. However, the industry was missing a common solution to score the ecological performance of specific devices transparently, and it is our ambition to fill that gap.
Would a device that is protected with an external accessory (like protection foil) or a device that is refurbished (and sold again) get a better score?
Devices that are protected for scratches or drops by “protection accessories” would positively impact the lifespan of a device. Also, devices that are refurbished (e.g. exchange of the display, camera or battery) and enter the supply chain again have a positive impact on the environment. As the Eco Rating methodology is designed for the original/new devices brought into the markets, these aspects (accessories and refurbishment) would add complex dependencies to the methodology and make the comparability of the original devices difficult, hence these are not in scope of our current approach.
Why do you not show the energy consumption of the devices as a dedicated sub-score?
The five sub-categories that are shown on the label have the biggest impact on the environment. Energy consumption during daily use is not among them. A smartphone consumes about 3-8 kWh per year depending on many factors such as personal usage pattern (talk time, browsing time, steaming) but also on on the antenna performance (antennas are tuned for the differnet network and bands) , network (2G, 3G, 4G, 5G, WiFi) and Apps that are not in idle stage when not used. Relative to large consumer goods (like washing machines, TVs, oven, air conditioner, water boiler, etc) a mobile device has a hundred times lower energy consumption. In the overall score the energy consumption is included. Because it contributes to less than 5-8% of the overall environmental impact, it was decided to not show this as a dedicated sub-category as it could result in a misleading information for the customer.
Is Eco Rating available to all mobile operators worldwide?
Yes, Eco Rating is open to all mobile operators that would like to join this initiative. This geographical expansion will help to improve transparency and raise awareness of the environmental impact of the smartphones that are supplied, and the customers choose. The consortium is thus encouraging other mobile operators to join the Eco Rating initiative and is happy to provide additional information to them about how to join the initiative.
Why aren’t all mobile suppliers supporting Eco Rating?
The consortium has extensively consulted with all device suppliers prior to launch and openly shared plans and the methodology. At launch (May 2021), we had 16 participating suppliers in the scheme. By end of 2023, we had more than 20 participating suppliers, representing the majority of the European smartphone market by sales volume.
All participating suppliers support Eco Rating on a voluntary basis and not as a mandatory requisition. The customers will acknowledge this transparency and harmonized solution and we are convinced that in the future more suppliers will join.
Can I compare devices assessed with the previous methodology to devices assessed with the new methodology?
No. There are differences in the weighting factors for certain questions and new questions added in the new methodology. Therefore, a device that has been assessed with one methodology should not be compared to a device that has been assessed with the other methodology. In order to not mix up both versions, the labels (old and current version) are different.
How should I differentiate a device assessed by the previous methodology and the new methodology?
Since devices assessed with different methodologies should not be compared, it is important that you consider specific aspects of the label (e.g year and tag “Version 3”).