Early replacement of notebooks considering environmental impacts

Early replacement of EEE has often been argued in conjunction with the continuous improvement of energy efficiency in the use phase. Recent LCA studies show that the raw materials and manufacturing phase of many EEE have a proportionally increasing environmental impact. For mobile electronic products, an early replacement due to improved energy efficiency in the use phase is to some extent not reasonable anymore. This paper shows that the production, with about 56% of the GWP of a notebook has a significantly higher impact than the use phase. Moreover, GWP of the production of a notebook are so high, that they cannot be compensated in realistic time-periods by energy efficiency gains of new products. The paper recommends decision-makers to give attention to hardware upgrading, modular and repair-friendly product design, availability of spare parts, standardisation of components and minimum warranty periods while defining mandatory product policy for ICT.