Investigating the climate impacts of a mobile phone. Building a novel checkout feature to invite customers into the sustainability conversation.
We worked with a mobile telecom company called Light Phone to dive head first into the environmental footprint of their flagship product, the Light Phone II.
A cradle to grave product lifecycle
Our analysis was conducted as cradle to grave. That means — additional to the emissions associated with raw materials and manufacturing, we additionally took into account all of the emissions incurred during day to day operations over the life of phone, including the environmental cost of recycling it at end of life.
Climate impact was our primary focus — so we started by researching and understanding each “phase of life” the product goes through; and next, worked to translate each sub-component on the circuit board into broad impact categories, allowing us to measure each component and develop a sense of the overall impact for the device.
Embedded circuitry is notoriously hard to measure from a carbon emissions point of view, so (and in order to keep our time constrained), took a “Lightweight LCA” approach to understanding the device’s overall impact.
Our Lightweight LCA Approach
In order to keep our process light and simple, we developed a light-weight approach to taking inventory of all of the processes and parts that make up the device. We worked through each of these emission events to develop an inventory on a per unit basis, and carefully documented every decision process in a detailed report that the Light Phone team published on medium.
Read the Full Report on Medium
The outcome: our (conservative) estimate for the embodied carbon in each Light Phone device was found to be 60.6 kg CO2e, from manufacturing, fulfillment and electricity usage, all the way through to end of life.
Our users have always appreciated that we the avoid planned obsolescence of trying to upsell them a new model every year, and instead continue to provide meaningful updates to their existing phones. It’s a business decision with environmental impacts that come with electronic waste. We knew our users would be interested in learning about the Light Phone’s carbon footprint and likely willing to invest in offsetting.
Seaborne took the lead and was very thorough as well as efficient in their lightweight LCA approach. They were cooperative in helping us tell the carbon story in our own voice, and very mindful of potential greenwashing. They seamlessly integrated the offset option into our checkout, and we were able to offer it retroactively to existing users as well. It was very popular with our base and is just one of the first ways we’ll be thinking about sustainability with Light.
Explore Light's Sustainability Work
Consumer Education and Storytelling
Part of any successful environmental strategy is a resonant and legible approach to talking about the work. So, we set out to tell that story; so that the Light Phone’s customers could quickly understand how the device compares to it’s competitors, and other lifestyle choices.
Read the Full Report on Medium
We worked with Joe from the Light Phone team, who’s signature illustration style we incorporated into some key graphics that broke down the carbon footprint and made our work easy to digest for a casual consumer.
A Carbon Offsetting Checkout Flow
In order to mitigate the device’s impact, the Light Phone group chose to split a carbon offset 50/50 with their consumer, as an add-on during the checkout process. Carbon offsets are woefully underpriced in today’s carbon market, so we chose to price our offsets at $100 per ton (6 - 10x the going rate), which resulted in an additional $3.15 cost to the consumer.
We’ve sold over 6000+ offsets at an opt-in rate of roughly ~40% per order.
In order to mitigate the device’s impact, the Light Phone group chose to split a carbon offset 50/50 with their consumer, as an add-on during the checkout process. Carbon offsets are woefully underpriced in today’s carbon market, so we chose to price our offsets at $100 per ton (6 - 10x the going rate), which resulted in an additional $3.15 cost to the consumer.
Using our consumer education piece, we are able to legitimize our research, and help the consumer understand the integrity of our offsetting program.