The Business Case for Eco-Friendly Technology: Refurbished Mobile Phones and Your Bottom Line

written by Billy Dowdall, MID Digital Solutions

A mobile phone with an eco friendly symbol peaking out of a hessian bag.
Did you know there are roughly 5.15 BILLION smartphones in use as of right now? That’s a lot of devices in a lot of people’s hands! It’s no doubt that these devices have completely changed the world for the better, but with that has come a huge environmental cost that’s about time we start to repay.

Smartphones have directly contributed millions of tonnes of CO2 to our O-Zone layer, and that number will only keep growing. You might be surprised to know it’s not the charging and constant use of smartphones that cause this, but in fact is the manufacturing of these devices to blame. Roughly 80% of the Smartphone industry CO2 footprint is caused by the gathering of materials and manufacturing, and the other 20% is due to shipping devices to customers & us powering them for a few years whilst we use them. For example, Cobalt and other precious materials we mine & use to create the internal components have contributed 1.6million tonnes by 2020, with that number expected to almost double to 3 million tonnes by 2030. That’s only 1 part of the manufacturing process, and already it looks like we’re fighting a losing battle! So as consumers & businesses, what can we do to help limit our impact on the environment? Here are three tips that you can start switching to right now.

Use your devices until they can be used no more!
Smartphones are getting better and better every year, but they’re coming to a point now where innovation in the industry is starting to plateau and we’re looking at minor improvements on devices each year. We upgrade our phones way too often, when in fact in a lot of cases we may not even need to. So by not upgrading your device as much as usual you can help decrease your CO2 footprint by lowering the need for more manufacturing and transportation of new devices.
Think about a refurbished handset for your next device.
There’s the first great benefit of saving you money on the latest devices, but they’re also far better than buying a second-hand device. There’s a huge market for both refurbished & second-hand devices but refurbished devices are always more reliable. Having worked in the second-hand phone industry for several years, sellers don’t spend much time quality checking the devices but instead focus more on stock rotation & turnaround. Refurbished sellers however will buy in a lot of devices but won’t put anything out on the market until it’s been rigorously tested, and they can be sure of the warranty they offer along with the device. This means the savings of a refurbished device can be handed back to you, whilst also cutting down your CO2 footprint, and not compromising on quality.
Make the switch to renewable energy
You charge your device every day, and especially if you have a lot more devices in your household or your business, that’s a lot of energy used every day. Switching to sustainable and renewable energy sources can not only save you money but will decrease your personal CO2 footprint.
Here at MID Digital Solutions, we only work with businesses that can guarantee us re-usable and sustainable business practices, otherwise we simply don’t buy from them! We’ve converted our fleet of vehicles to electric vehicles that we charge with re-usable and sustainable energy and believe that as a business it’s our responsibility to do our part. We aim to leave the earth in a better condition than we found it for our children and future generations.

We’re proud to offer refurbished devices to businesses across the North-West & the UK, and if you’d like to learn more then get in touch with us by;

Email us @
[email protected]