Environmental Assessment of the Mobile Phone Considering the Consumption of Rare Metals

Potential for Integrating Diffusion of Innovation Principles into Life Cycle Assessment of Emerging Technologies

“…When considering the number of units in a particular region, local impacts are likely the main focus of an environmental assessment; although, adding a new market to global diffusion of mobile phones contributes to additional strains beyond the region . The total volume of phone use and disposal may be of interest for projecting regional burdens on the environment. − Otherwise, an evaluation of supply chain pressures for rare materials elsewhere may be a reason to assess the amount of mobile phone diffusion in a new region …”

“…83−85 Otherwise, an evaluation of supply chain pressures for rare materials elsewhere may be a reason to assess the amount of mobile phone diffusion in a new region. 86 The mobile phone example shows the relative simplicity of using a macro-level diffusion model to estimate the potential degree of environmental impacts. The complex social and economic dynamics of diffusion are distilled to equations that approximate scenarios for adoption.…”

Towards Addressing Unintended Environmental Consequences: A Planning Framework

“…Thus the strong focus on profitability and sales expansion has increased consumption beyond what it would otherwise have been (Sterman, ; Worldwatch Institute, ). Continual launching of new product models onto the market has caused (a) product obsolescence (Guiltinan, ; Ongondo and Williams, ; Keitsch, ) and (b) increased consumption (Tromp et al ., ; Soron, ). These effects will eventually lead to resource depletion (Prior et al ., ; Watanabe and Itsubo, ; Hardin, ), unless new means of resource recovery are implemented. Continuous improvements in material and energy efficiency have led to lower production and consumer costs, which in turn have caused natural resource use to increase above what it would otherwise have been due to increased overall consumption. For example, detailed quantitative historical analyses of 10 industrial activities within the field of resource consumption (pig iron production, aluminium production, nitrogen fertilizer production, electricity generation from coal, electricity generation from oil, electricity generation from natural gas, freight rail travel, passenger air travel, motor vehicle travel and residential refrigeration) have revealed that, over long time frames, efficiency improvements reflected by incremental innovations have not resulted in overall reductions in resource consumption (Dahmus, ). Unknown consequences can also be expected to occur.…”

“…• Continual launching of new product models onto the market has caused (a) product obsolescence (Guiltinan, 2009;Ongondo and Williams, 2011;Keitsch, 2012) and (b) increased consumption (Tromp et al, 2011;Soron, 2010). These effects will eventually lead to resource depletion (Prior et al, 2012;Watanabe and Itsubo, 2012;Hardin, 1968), unless new means of resource recovery are implemented. • Continuous improvements in material and energy efficiency have led to lower production and consumer costs, which in turn have caused natural resource use to increase above what it would otherwise have been due to increased overall consumption.…”