What is the carbon footprint of a smartphone per handset?
Most of a phone's footprint comes from making it, mainly the chips and the display, not from charging it. Use the brand's published product report for that model if one exists. A company buying phones for staff counts them in Scope 3, usually Category 2 if they are capitalised.
Where the emissions sit
- Manufacturing: integrated circuits, display, battery and casing.
- Transport from the assembly plant.
- Use: charging electricity, a small share over the phone's life.
- End of life: collection and recycling.
For a buyer
Count each phone once, in the year you buy it, using the model's published figure. If none exists, use a spend-based factor and label it as an estimate.
What Senseible does here
Senseible reads the energy invoices behind the making stage into a fingerprinted Scope 1 and 2 record, and keeps material invoices on the Scope 3 trail. Material factors come from your supplier or a named database and are labelled with their source, so the product figure can be traced line by line.
Sources: GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard
Last reviewed 2026-10-22.