ETSI TR 103 679 V1.1.1 (2019-05)

TECHNICAL REPORT
Environmental Engineering (EE);
Explore the challenges of developing product group-specific
Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCRs)
for smartphones
2 ETSI TR 103 679 V1.1.1 (2019-05)

Reference
DTR/EE-MICT2
Keywords
LCA, smartphone
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3 ETSI TR 103 679 V1.1.1 (2019-05)
Contents
Intellectual Property Rights . 5
Foreword . 5
Modal verbs terminology . 5
Introduction . 5
1 Scope . 8
2 References . 8
2.1 Normative references . 8
2.2 Informative references . 8
3 Definition of terms, symbols and abbreviations . 11
3.1 Terms . 11
3.2 Symbols . 11
3.3 Abbreviations . 11
4 Introduction of Product Environmental Footprint . 12
5 Product Category Rules (PCR) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) models for the smartphone
product category . 12
5.0 General . 12
5.1 Raw Material Acquisition . 12
5.2 Pre-processing: Components production . 13
5.2.0 General . 13
5.2.1 Active components . 13
5.2.1.1 Integrated Circuits . 13
5.2.1.2 Diodes . 14
5.2.1.3 Transistors . 14
5.2.2 PCBs . 14
5.2.3 Other components . 15
5.2.3.0 General . 15
5.2.3.1 Connectors . 15
5.2.3.2 Aluminium, plastic and steel components . 15
5.2.3.3 Capacitors. 15
5.2.3.4 Resistors . 15
5.2.3.5 Packaging materials . 15
5.2.3.6 Documentation . 15
5.2.3.7 Silver, tin and gold PCBA components. 15
5.3 Pre-processing: Smartphone Part Production . 16
5.3.0 General . 16
5.3.1 Battery . 16
5.3.2 Camera . 17
5.3.3 Display . 17
5.3.4 Charger . 17
5.3.5 Cables - USB . 17
5.4 Final assembly - production of the smartphone . 18
5.5 Distribution and storage . 18
5.6 Use stage . 18
5.7 End-of-life treatment . 20
6 Comparison of gaps between existing PCRs/FLCAs and the PEFCR Guidance requirements . 22
6.0 General . 22
6.1 Scope setting . 22
6.2 Data quality . 24
6.3 Impact assessment methods used . 26
7 Challenges associated with Full LCA of smartphones . . 27
7.0 General . 27
7.1 Scope . 27
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7.1.0 General . 27
7.1.1 Comparisons and system boundaries for studied systems . 27
7.2 Unit of analysis . 27
7.3 Reference flow . 28
7.4 Representative products . 29
7.5 Product classification . 29
7.6 System boundaries . 29
7.7 Data quality requirements . 29
7.8 Data collection . 29
7.9 Benchmark and classes of environmental performance . 29
7.10 Interpretation . 30
7.11 Reporting . 30
7.12 Disclosure . 30
7.13 Communication . 30
7.14 Verification. 30
8 Challenges with PEF Screening . 31
8.0 General . 31
8.1 Data challenges in general . 31
9 Insights and conclusions . 31
10 Suggestions for future standardization activities . 32
History . 33

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5 ETSI TR 103 679 V1.1.1 (2019-05)
Intellectual Property Rights
Essential patents
IPRs essential or potentially essential to normative deliverables may have been declared to ETSI. The information
pertaining to these essential IPRs, if any, is publicly available for ETSI members and non-members, and can be found
in ETSI SR 000 314: "Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs); Essential, or potentially Essential, IPRs notified to ETSI in
respect of ETSI standards", which is available from the ETSI Secretariat. Latest updates are available on the ETSI Web
server (https://ipr.etsi.org/).
Pursuant to the ETSI IPR Policy, no investigation, including IPR searches, has been carried out by ETSI. No guarantee
can be given as to the existence of other IPRs not referenced in ETSI SR 000 314 (or the updates on the ETSI Web
server) which are, or may be, or may become, essential to the present document.
Trademarks
The present document may include trademarks and/or tradenames which are asserted and/or registered by their owners.
ETSI claims no ownership of these except for any which are indicated as being the property of ETSI, and conveys no
right to use or reproduce any trademark and/or tradename. Mention of those trademarks in the present document does
not constitute an endorsement by ETSI of products, services or organizations associated with those trademarks.
Foreword
This Technical Report (TR) has been produced by ETSI Technical Committee Environmental Engineering (EE).
Modal verbs terminology
In the present document "should", "should not", "may", "need not", "will", "will not", "can" and "cannot" are to be
interpreted as described in clause 3.2 of the ETSI Drafting Rules (Verbal forms for the expression of provisions).
"must" and "must not" are NOT allowed in ETSI deliverables except when used in direct citation.
Introduction
In 2013, the European Commission (EC) released a proposal for the use of common methods to measure and
communicate the life cycle environmental performance of products and organizations [i.1]. EC started a journey to test
the Product and Organization Environmental Footprint methods in action. Together with more than 260 volunteering
organizations EC tested how to develop product- and sector-specific rules, how to communicate and verify
Environmental Footprint (EF) information. In January 2018 EC announced that the journey is coming to an end [i.2].
It can therefore be concluded that Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) seems to be slowly converging into a useful policy
tool. To this end the electronics and ICT industry and others have in recent years started to prepare for possible LCA
legislation from the European Commission according to the so called Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) method.
The aim of PEF is to enhance the quality of LCAs by harmonization, leading to comparable product environmental
footprints within specified product groups in a single market.
Figure 1 shows a set of non-comparable and non-standardized GWP100 results for smartphones for selected life cycle
stages.
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6 ETSI TR 103 679 V1.1.1 (2019-05)

Figure 1: Non-comparable and non-standardized GWP100 results for smartphones
The PEF method might help verify the reliability of the results such as those shown in Figure 1.
Nevertheless, PEF has been questioned for not leading to comparative results but only reproducible results [i.3] and
[i.25]. Using PEF, specific features of individual products can seemingly not be reflected (e.g. how to compare
"standard" and "durable" devices when the same lifetime is assumed). Still, the PEF Category Rules (PEFCR) Guidance
[i.7] states that comparability is possible if the results are based on the same PEFCR.
NOTE: This might be true for PEFCR but it is not true for the EPD System Product Category Rules (PCR) [i.19]
which are too flexible regarding data quality and functional unit selection.
Examples of unique features of PEF - compared to e.g. the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)
standard for LCA [i.4] and [i.5] - are the strict requirements on data quality, definition of exact FU, default end-of-life
(EoL) scenario, mid-point impact categories, and that cut-off should be avoided. Moreover - in order to be compliant
with PEF - the industry leaders for each product group sold in the EU - such as smartphones - will have to reach
consensus on the product category rules (PCR) for these product groups.
Recently IT storage equipment - belonging to classification 26.2 in Statistical Classification of Products by Activity in
the European Economic Community [i.6] - was investigated in an official PEF pilot.
In 2017 a guidance document was published including the experience of the PEF pilots [i.7]. Oja et al. argued that it is
important to find a balance between comparability, reliability, and costs when performing PEF LCAs [i.8].
The common wisdom is that simplified LCA approaches do not have enough precision compared to Full LCA (FLCA)
when applied to the rather complex life cycle of smartphones. Still, there exist several simplified LCA methods for
smartphones [i.10]. Andrae identified that there are at least 14 different - simplified and full - methods for LCA of
consumer electronics such as smartphones [i.11]. One of the FLCA methods is the PEF method, expected to be the
state-of-the-art for FLCA [i.7]. In the present document only FLCA of smartphones will be discussed. PEF has very
strict data quality requirements as product comparisons need good quality data. Ojala et al. [i.8] argued that PEFCR
developers should devote time to finding the most appropriate methodological choices. There exists no analyses of the
degree to which current smartphone Full LCAs fulfil the requirements of the strict PEF Guidance [i.10]. To shed light
on that issue is one of the main objectives of the present document.
Moreover, the present document will discuss the discrepancy between FUs currently formulated for smartphones
compared with those required by PEF. While comparability is the ultimate aim of the PEF FLCA method, it will require
very high data quality lowering the uncertainty. Even with "perfect" data quality, there will be variability of LCA scores
for the same type of smartphones.
Andrae and Vaija [i.5] argued that PEF has several strengths and weaknesses. Strengths include guidance and
requirements on FU definition. Moreover, PEF demands relatively precise analyses of the supply chains which could
lead to eco-innovation. Furthermore, the fact that cut-off is not "allowed" gives an estimation of the truncation error.
Another benefit is that the circular footprint formulae should improve the end-of-life modelling for all.
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However, again, the PEF method has several weaknesses. First the ambitious data collection targets cannot - by most
actors - be applied consistently along the supply chain. Furthermore, the usefulness beyond traditional ISO [i.12] and
[i.13] and ETSI FLCA standards [i.14] is in doubt as these data and comparability issues are not solved.
PEF also might threaten the flexibility needed by LCA practitioners in their pursuit to influence the product design
holistically. Such worries are echoed by recent research [i.25].
The present document is expected to provide valuable input for all users of LCA within the smartphone sphere and to
some degree also for the consumer electronics sphere. Five smartphone manufacturers approaches for FLCA have been
analysed based on openly available information.
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8 ETSI TR 103 679 V1.1.1 (2019-05)
1 Scope
The present document investigates current approaches, concepts and metrics of LCA as proposed by PEF and their
applicability for the smartphones. The present document:
1) searches to identify if Product Category Rules (PCR) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) models for the
smartphone product category have been developed;
2) explores existing PCRs and LCAs for gaps compared to the PEFCR Guidance requirements;
3) explorse the challenges associated with: setting the scope, defining the unit of analysis, reference flow,
representative products, product classification, system boundaries, data quality requirements, data collection,
benchmark and classes of environmental performance, interpretation, reporting, disclosure, communication,
and verification;
4) explores the challenges with PEF Screening (impact assessment, interpretation and conclusion, report).
2 References
2.1 Normative references
Normative references are not applicable in the present document.
2.2 Informative references
References are either specific (identified by date of publication and/or edition number or version number) or
non-specific. For specific references, only the cited version applies. For non-specific references, the latest version of the
referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
NOTE: While any hyperlinks included in this clause were valid at the time of publication, ETSI cannot guarantee
their long term validity.
The following referenced documents are not necessary for the application of the present document but they assist the
user with regard to a particular subject area.
[i.1] European Union: "Single Market for Green Products Initiative", 2014.
NOTE: Available at http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eussd/smgp/index.htm.
[i.2] European Union: "Final Conference of the Environmental Footprint Pilot Phase", 2018.
NOTE: Available at http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eussd/smgp/EFconference_2018.htm.
[i.3] Lehmann, A.; Bach, V.; Finkbeiner, M.: "EU product environmental footprint-mid-term review of
the pilot phase", Sustainability 2016, pages 1 to 13, article 92.
NOTE: Available at http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/1/92.
[i.4] Andrae, A.S.G.; Vaija, M.S.: "To Which Degree Does Sector Specific Standardization Make Life
Cycle Assessments Comparable? - The Case Of Global Warming Potential Of Smartphones",
Challenges 2014, 5, 409-429.
NOTE: Available at http://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/5/2/409/htm.
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[i.5] Andrae, A.S.G.; Vaija, M.S.: "Life cycle assessments of an optical network terminal and a tablet:
experiences of the product environmental footprint methodology", In Advances in Environmental
Research, 1st Ed.; Daniels J.A., Ed.; Publisher: Nova Science Publishers, Hauppauge, NY, USA,
2017; Volume 55, pp. 31-46.
NOTE: Available at
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317934185_The_life_cycle_assessments_of_an_optical_networ
k_terminal_and_a_tablet_Experiences_of_the_product_environmental_footprint_methodology.
[i.6] European Commission: "METADATA - Statistical Classification of Products by Activity in the
European Economic Community, 2008 version".
NOTE: Available at
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ramon/nomenclatures/index.cfm?TargetUrl=LST_NOM_DTL&StrNom=CP
A_2008&StrLanguageCode=EN&IntPcKey=&StrLayoutCode=HIERARCHIC.
[i.7] European Commission: "Guidance for the implementation of the EU Product Environmental
Footprint (PEF) during the Environmental Footprint (EF) pilot phase version 5.2", February 2016.
NOTE: Available at http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eussd/smgp/pdf/Guidance_products.pdf.
[i.8] Ojala, E.; Uusitalo, V.; Virkki-Hatakka, T.; Niskanen, A.; Soukka, R.: "Assessing product
environmental performance with PEF methodology: reliability, comparability, and cost concerns",
International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 2016, 21, 1092-1105.
NOTE: Available at
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298908043_Assessing_product_environmental_performance_w
ith_PEF_methodology_reliability_comparability_and_cost_concerns.
[i.9] Andrae, A.S.G.: "Life Cycle Assessment of a Virtual Reality Device", Challenges 2017, 8, 15.
NOTE: Available at http://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/8/2/15.
[i.10] Andrae, A.S.G.; Vaija, M.S.: "Precision of a Streamlined Life Cycle Assessment Approach Used
in Eco-Rating of Mobile Phones", Challenges 2017, 8, 21.
NOTE: Available at https://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/8/2/21.
[i.11] Andrae, A.S.G.: "Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of consumer electronics: A review of
methodological approaches", IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine 2016, 5, 51-60.
NOTE: Available at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7353286/.
[i.12] ISO 14040 (2006): "Environmental management -- Life cycle assessment -- Principles and
framework".
NOTE: Available at https://www.iso.org/standard/37456.html.
[i.13] ISO 14044 (2006): "Environmental management -- Life cycle assessment -- Requirements and
guidelines".
NOTE: Available at https://www.iso.org/standard/38498.html.
[i.14] ETSI ES 203 199 (V1.3.1): "Environmental Engineering (EE); Methodology for environmental
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) goods,
networks and services".
NOTE: Available at
https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_es/203100_203199/203199/01.03.01_60/es_203199v010301p.pdf.
[i.15] Smith, L.; Ibn-Mohammed, T.; Koh, S.L.; Reaney, I.M.: "Life cycle assessment and environmental
profile evaluations of high volumetric efficiency capacitors", Applied Energy 2018, 220, 496-513.
NOTE: Available at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261918304057.
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[i.16] Andrae, A.S.G., Xia, M., Zhang, J., Tang, X. "Practical eco-design and eco-innovation of
consumer electronics-The case of mobile phones", Challenges 2016, 7(1), 3.
NOTE: Available at http://www.mdpi.com/2078-1547/7/1/3/htm.
[i.17] Allacker, K.; Mathieux, F.; Pennington, D.; Pant, R.: "The search for an appropriate end-of-life
formula for the purpose of the European Commission Environmental Footprint initiative",
International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 2017, 22(9), 1441-1458.
NOTE: Available at https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11367-016-1244-0.pdf.
[i.18] Compal Communications: "Product-Category Rules (PCR) for Preparing an Environmental
Product Declaration (EPD) for Smartphone PCR 2011:1.0".
NOTE: Available at https://www.idbcfp.org.tw/GetDownloadSubFile.ashx?id=85.
[i.19] The International EPD System: "Product Category Rules".
NOTE: Available at https://www.environdec.com/PCR.
[i.20] Heo, Y.C.; Bae, D.S.; Oh, C.Y.; Suh, Y.J.; Lee, K.M.: "Assessment of the Potential Environmental
Impact of Smart Phone using LCA Methodology", Journal of Korean Society Environmental
Engineers 2017, 39(9), 527-533.
NOTE: Available at http://www.jksee.or.kr/journal/view.php?number=4059.
[i.21] Yeom, J.M.; Jung, H.J.; Choi, S.Y. et al.: "Environmental Effects of the Technology Transition
from Liquid-Crystal Display (LCD) to Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) Display from an
E-Waste Management Perspective", International Journal of Environmental Research 2018, 12,
479-488.
NOTE: Available at https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41742-018-0106-y.
[i.22] Belkhir, L., Elmeligi, A.: "Assessing ICT global emissions footprint: "Trends to 2040 &
recommendations", Journal of Cleaner Production 2018, 177, 448-463.
NOTE: Available at http://www.electronicsilentspring.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/ICT-Global-Emissions-
Footprint-Online-version.pdf.
[i.23] IEC TR 62635:2012: "Guidelines for end-of-life information provided by manufacturers and
recyclers and for recyclability rate calculation of electrical and electronic equipment".
NOTE: Available at https://webstore.iec.ch/publication/7292.
[i.24] Corcoran, P., Andrae, A.S.G., Vaija, S.M., Garcia, C., Dechenaux, E.: "Effect of Modeling
Approach on climate change focused life cycle assessments for a Contemporary Smartphone
Device", 2014.
NOTE: Available at https://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/handle/10379/4522.
[i.25] Bach, V.; Lehmann, A.; Görmer, M.; Finkbeiner, M.: "Product Environmental Footprint (PEF)
Pilot Phase-Comparability over Flexibility?", Sustainability 2018, 10, 2898.
NOTE: Available at https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/8/2898.
[i.26] Andrae, A.S.G.: "Collection rate and reliability are the main sustainability determinants of current
fast-paced, small, and short-lived ICT products", WSEAS Transactions on Environment and
Development 2018, 14, 531-540.
NOTE: Available at http://www.wseas.org/multimedia/journals/environment/2018/b125115-097.pdf.
[i.27] Zhu, Y.; Andrae, A.S.G. 2014.: "System and method of life-cycle assessment for equipment of
information and communication technology", WO/2014/012590.
NOTE: Available at https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2014012590.
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[i.28] Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December
2006 concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals
(REACH).
NOTE: Available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-
content/en/TXT/?qid=1532936325230&uri=CELEX:02006R1907-20180509.
3 Definition of terms, symbols and abbreviations
3.1 Terms
For the purposes of the present document, the following terms apply:
assessment method: procedure for determining the value of a metric or indicator and validating it
NOTE: The method could include measurement and calculation.
component: part of a product that cannot be taken apart without destruction or impairment of its intended use
indicator: quantifiable representation of a parameter
NOTE: Example includes acidification potential.
material: substance or mixture of substances within a product or product part [i.28]
metric: measurable representation of a parameter or indicator
NOTE: Examples include mass of product, disassembly time, and re-used parts.
parameter: entity representing an aspect
NOTE: Examples include acidification which is an entity representing environmental aspects
product: good or service
product part: sub-unit of a product
substance: chemical element and its compounds in the natural state or obtained by any production process, including
any additive necessary to preserve the stability of the product and any impurity deriving from the process used, but
excluding any solvent which may be separated without affecting the stability of the declarable substance or changing its
composition [i.28]
3.2 Symbols
Void.
3.3 Abbreviations
For the purposes of the present document, the following abbreviations apply:
ASIC Application Specific Integrated Circuit
CFC11E CFC11 Equivalents
CFF Circular Footprint Formulae
CO2E CO2 Equivalents
EF Environmental Footprint
EPCR Existing PCR
EPD Environmental Product Declaration
FLCA Full LCA
FU Functional Unit
GPS Global Positioning System
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GWP Global Warming Potential
IC Integrated Circuit
ICT Information Communication Technology
LCA Life Cycle Assessment
LCD Liquid Crystal Display
LCI Life Cycle Inventory
MP Mega Pixel
OLED Organic light-emitting diode
PCB Printed Circuit Board
PCBA Printed Circuit Board Assembly
PCR Product Category Rules
PEF Product Environmental Footprint
PEFCR Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules
RAM Random Access Memory
RC Recycled Content
RP Representative Product
RP Representative Product
SbE Sb Equivalents
4 Introduction of Product Environmental Footprint
Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) is a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) based method to quantify the relevant
environmental impacts of products (goods and services) and organizations [i.7]. PEF is an assessment method for
FLCA.
5 Product Category Rules (PCR) and Life Cycle
Assessment (LCA) models for the smartphone
product category
5.0 General
There exist some PCR and FLCA models for smartphones. PCR could define allowed allocation methods exactly for
the specific products targeted. More freedom needs to be allowed by pure LCA standards such as ISO 14040 [i.12],
ISO 14044 [i.13] and ETSI ES 203 199 [i.14]. The clause will discuss FLCA models only as they are closest to the PEF
method for FLCA. This clause would be strengthened if actual LCA practitioners shared their actual working ways
beyond the publicly available information. Manufacturers model the smartphone life cycle in different ways.
Nevertheless, it is a common approach to perform a tear-down, weigh each module, weigh each part, identify each
component and allocate each to appropriate secondary LCI data. Over- and underestimations are common due to a
myriad of assumptions. Naturally no valuation is done on which approach is better than another. The hypothesis is that
further scope clarifications than those prescribed by ETSI ES 203 199 [i.14] - inspired by the PEFCR Guidance [i.7] -
would be valuable for every smartphone manufacturer. However, developing full PEFCR - strictly according to the
PEFCR Guidance [i.7] - is not worthwhile at the moment for smartphones.
5.1 Raw Material Acquisition
This clause handles the typical modelling choices of smartphones manufacturers as far as raw material acquisition is
concerned. As smartphones usually consist of a large number of materials all manufacturers have chosen to use
secondary data for raw material production. The identification of the raw materials is however done differently.
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5.2 Pre-processing: Components production
5.2.0 General
This clause handles the typical modelling choices of smartphones manufacturers as far as component production (e.g.
printed circuit board, integrated circuit and capacitor production) is concerned. One way is to use the material content of
sub-components - of each component - as basis for determining the raw material content [i.27]. Hence the material
content is chosen as basis for the environmental impact modelling to get - as close as possible - a unique footprint of the
mobile phone at hand. However, for several raw materials losses in the upstream are not accounted for and secondary
data are used for gate-to-gate component assembly. The components included by some manufacturers are:
• Integrated Circuits (ICs)
• Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs)
• Aluminium components
• Plastic components
• Steel components
• Capacitors
• Resistors
• Packaging materials
• Documentation
• Silver PCBA components
• Tin PCBA components
• Gold PCBA components (including connectors, ICs, PCBs, etc.)
The recycled content is included where specified by component and part suppliers. Common is to use a blend of
primary and secondary data for all parts and components, including cradle-to-gate modelling. Using entirely secondary
data for all parts and components will not give very representative results, however, very repeatable results. Such results
might be useful for limited sensitivity analysis and broad eco-design recommendations. Another way is to use primary
material contents for key components, i.e. not fully relying on secondary LCI modules from LCI databases. Typically
systematic approaches mixing primary secondary data for all parts and components is common. Anyway results based
entirely on secondary data might be more realistic than using only the material content (primary data) without
production and upstream losses.
5.2.1 Active components
5.2.1.1 Integrated Circuits
Integrated Circuits (ICs) are very important to model as precisely as possible. The reason is that they usually stand for a
rather large share of the total production environmental impacts of a smartphone, e.g. > 30 % to < 80 % of the
cradle-to-gate GWP100 score.
NOTE 1: The share of the IC impacts is dependent on the design characteristics of the phone at hand.
Especially the silicon die manufacturing stands out as being especially sensitive to the precision of the environmental
impacts [i.10]. One modelling approach is based on material contents and the impacts per area of processed die, being
an important first metric for IC impacts. The approach is to normalize impacts per cm silicon die and use secondary
mass-based IC LCI modules (MBICLCI) that contain a certain cm silicon wafer. One way is to exclude gold content
from the IC model, and instead include it in "Gold PCBA components". The reason is that gold is normally recovered
from the PCBAs as a whole and not from first extracting the ICs.
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EXAMPLE: When the MBICLCI {excluding gold, silver} GWP100 score is 800 kg CO2E/kg, and the typical
GWP100 score for Silicon die manufacturing is 2 kg CO2E/cm , 2/800 = 1/400 kg of MBICLCI is
necessary per cm Si die within the mobile phone at hand. So, if the Si die area within the mobile
phone is 10 cm , 10/400 kg MBICLCI is required.
However, ICs should be more carefully modelled than other components. It is important to use LCI data (e.g. those
leading to GWP100 scores) which represent region specific electricity production. Preferably is to categorize the
environmental impact per semiconductor technology node rather than approximating all silicon dies as being the same.
All materials constituents' impacts, including gold, are then included in the IC models. Excluding the ICs altogether and
instead only include secondary display, PCBA and battery models will lead to a low data quality rating notwithstanding
non-compliance with e.g. ETSI ES 203 199 [i.14]. Dividing the semiconductors into IC and ASICs and use primary and
secondary data to create a range of emissions per area is common. Using the die size as a scaling parameter is typical as
well as including front-end and back-end processes for the a specified technology node (e.g. 32 nm). There seems to be
several ways for smartphone manufacturers to agree on an appropriate scope for IC modelling for smartphones.
NOTE 2: Available data on ICs are very scarce in databases and academic literature. Primary data from IC
manufacturers are problematic to get and smartphones manufacturer mostly do not have access to these
data from their suppliers. Most smartphone manufactures are not IC manufactures and even so, they
might not have access to the environmental data of the IC production.
Given the occasionally large amount of different ICs in smartphones, hypothetically die-to-package ratios can be used
for in the quantification of die areas.
NOTE 3: The die-to-package ratio varies greatly between different ICs. The appropriate way or source to derive
die-to-package ratios need to be investigated [i.10].
5.2.1.2 Diodes
Usually diodes are not significantly contributing to any environmental category and manufacturers use secondary data.
5.2.1.3 Transistors
Usually transistors are not significantly contributing to any environmental category and manufacturers use secondary
data.
5.2.2 PCBs
Depending on the scope for cradle-to-gate and the data used for the model, the PCBs contribute to around 15% of
GWP100 scores for the production of smartphones, but might be more important for other impact categories and single
score weighting methods. It is worth mentioning that the yield in the PCB production might be an issue affecting the
importance of PCBs.
One model is based on material contents and the impacts per area of PCBs, each with specific number of layers. The
approach is to normalize impacts per cm PCB and use secondary mass-based PCB LCI modules (MBPCBLCI). As for
all components, the gold content is excluded from the PCB models, and instead included in "Gold PCBA components".
This division of raw materials and component/part production is done influenced by the ETSI LCA standard [i.14].
EXAMPLE: When the MBPCBLCI {excluding gold, silver} GWP100 score is 150 kg CO2E/kg, and the
typical GWP100 score for 10 layer PCBs is 12 g CO2E/cm , 12 / 150 = 2 / 25 g MBPCBLCI is
necessary per cm 10 layer PCB within the mobile phone at hand. So, if the 10 layer PCB area
within the mobile phone is 25 cm , 2 g MBPCBLCI is required.
Treating the PCBAs inside the smartphone - possibly including the ICs and PCBs - as one part and base the model on
secondary data will lead to a lower data quality rating than appropriate for any advanced PCR. On the other hand,
taking into account the real size of the PCB panels used to make the rectangular PCBs - not only the rectangular shape
and layers of the PCBs themselves - will lead to a higher data quality rating. As well as for ICs, the PCB modelling
requires more investigations before a proper assessment scope can be agreed. Handling the current over- and
underestimation of PCB impacts is crucial going forward.
ETSI
15 ETSI TR 103 679 V1.1.1 (2019-05)
5.2.3 Other components
5.2.3.0 General
This clause refers to modelling choices for all other components than ICs and PCBs. One approach is to base
components environmental impacts on their raw material content and cradle-to-gate assembly process (Part final
assembly, See annex E in the ETSI LCA standard [i.14]). The Raw Material Acquisition is included via the material
content declaration of the entire phone. Most manufacturers however base the environmental impact - of cradle-to-gate
assembly of other components - on available secondary LCI data. Commonly cradle-to-gate assembly of other
components is not left out.
5.2.3.1 Connectors
Connectors are included as a cradle-to-gate assembly process. Connectors are probably environmentally more important
than passive components such as capacitors. Most manufacturers use cradle-to-gate models for all components such as
connectors with less focus on the primary material content.
5.2.3.2 Aluminium, plastic and steel components
Aluminium parts - such as casings - are occasionally modelled as a cradle-to-gate assembly process. However, the most
common way is to include the impact of aluminium production too.
5.2.3.3 Capacitors
Some manufacturers leave
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