This paper attempts to make a high-level estimate of the material footprints of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Entertainment and Media (E&M) sectors for one year from four different perspectives while including the full life cycle of products and applying a top-down perspective. The four perspectives explored are: i) amount of materials used; ii) carbon footprint of the materials focusing on Raw Materials Acquisition (RMA) and End of Life Treatment (EoLT) stages; iii) material resource depletion; and iv) toxicity of materials.For the given assumptions, it is estimated that the sectors represent about 0,5% of the global annual usage of the selected materials, and for several materials (indium, gallium and germanium), ICT and E&M usage represents as much as 80-90% of the overall usage. Their use of materials represents about 0.9% of the carbon footprint for the selected materials, and about 0.1% of the total global carbon footprint, while the sectors material resource depletion potential is estimated to be between 13% and 48% of overall global depletion for the selected materials, depending on impact assessment method. Finally, the for toxicity of the selected materials, plus cement production, ICT and E&M are estimated to represent about 3.3%, based on ReCiPe. Toxicity and resource depletion results and the mass result for specific materials all indicate that the ICT and E&M sectors play a larger role than their average share of the total annual materials usage indicates, and gold and copper are identified as the most impacting materials. The applied top-down method provide only coarse estimates and further research is needed based on bottom-up methods.

Based on the Sustainable Development Goals introduced by the United Nations and on the circular economy concept, ICT providers are adapting to become more sustainable. Some assess the CO2 emissions in the whole life cycle, while others propose to use renewable energies during manufacturing and assembling. In contrast with the current smartphone business models that rely on ongoing patterns of production and consumption, this paper proposes a more sustainable approach by combining product modularity, Product-Service Systems (PSS), and design for attachment. With a modular design, it becomes easier to repair the product or to replace parts, allowing for an extended lifespan. In combination with PSS, we propose that the modules, when no longer used by one customer, return to the market to be reused by another one. Lastly, we discuss the impact of the users’ behaviour through emotional bond, personalization, and technology appropriation as predictors of attachment to the product and consequently an extended lifespan. Through comparing case studies and using Life Cycle Assessment to calculate the CO2 equivalent emissions, we argue that our approach would directly reduce the environmental impact of the smartphone on the production phase, which accounts for most of the emissions throughout its life cycle.

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