The Eco Rating Initiative
The Eco Rating initiative was launched in May 2021 by Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica (operating under the O2 and Movistar brands) and Telia Company to provide consistent, accurate information at retail on the environmental impact of producing, transporting, using and disposing of smartphones and feature phones.
The operators have begun to introduce distinct Eco Rating labelling at point of sale across 24 countries in Europe where they are present. Following a detailed assessment, each mobile phone handset is given an overall Eco Rating score out of a maximum of 100 to signal the environmental performance of the device across its entire life cycle. The Eco Rating label will also highlight five key aspects of mobile device sustainability, providing additional information about durability, repairability, recyclability, climate efficiency and resource efficiency.
Ultimately, the initiative aims to improve transparency, help raise awareness of the environmental impact of the phones that consumers choose and inspire the whole industry to accelerate its transition towards a more circular model for mobile phones.
The Eco Rating Methodology
Using information provided by device manufacturers, Eco Rating applies a consistent evaluation methodology equally and objectively across 19 different criteria, culminating in a single score for each device. In addition, the Eco Rating provides guidance in five key areas:
- Durability – The robustness of the device, the battery life and the guarantee period for the device and its components.
- Repairability: Covers the ease with which the device can be repaired, including mobile phone design and supporting activities that could increase the useful life of the product by improving its reparability, reusability and upgradability potential. A higher the score indicates how these aspects are supported.
- Recyclability – How well the device components can be recovered and disassembled, the provided information to allow it, and how well materials can be recycled.
- Climate efficiency – The greenhouse gas emissions of the device during its whole lifecycle. The better the score here, the lower the climate impact is.
- Resource efficiency: Assesses the impact caused by the amount of scarce raw materials required by the device (e.g. gold for the manufacturing of electronic components) towards the resources depletion; the better the score here, the lower the impact is towards the availability of materials.
Eleven Vodafone markets in Europe have launched Eco Rating, and you can find Eco Rating scores for devices on Vodafone’s local websites in Albania, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
Find out more about the initiative and see how the rating is calculated by visiting www.ecoratingdevices.com
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