Three quarters of a smartphone’s environmental impact occurs before the device reaches the consumer, according to a new report from Dutch manufacturer Fairphone that maps the resource extraction and manufacturing footprint of the consumer electronics sector.

The study, released yesterday at MWC Barcelona on (3 March), traced 24 minerals used in smartphone production to their source regions and assessed the environmental risks at each location. From these, 11 were identified as highest-risk and subjected to sub-regional analysis across eight countries: Brazil, China, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Peru and the Philippines.

Fairphone applied the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN) framework, a methodology more commonly used in food and agriculture, to a smartphone supply chain for what the company said is the first time in the sector. The assessment combined lifecycle analysis data with supply-chain mapping to pinpoint where environmental pressures from mining and processing are most acute.

“We’ve been optimising for carbon while ignoring the systems that actually keep the planet alive,” said Monique Lempers, Chief Impact Officer at Fairphone.

The findings point to a pattern of compounding pressure on a small number of regions. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s Lualaba and Haut-Katanga provinces, which supply nearly 74 per cent of the world’s cobalt, scored at the maximum risk level across both assessment metrics used in the report. Indonesia’s Sulawesi, a source of nickel, and Guinea’s Boké bauxite belt registered similarly. Brazil’s Minas Gerais appeared as a hotspot for both gold and iron extraction.

Concentration risk in the supply chain

The geographic concentration of mineral production is a recurring theme. China accounts for 88 per cent of global magnesium output, 77 per cent of graphite and 24 per cent of tin, with extraction concentrated in a handful of provinces. For cobalt, the DRC alone supplies nearly three quarters of global production. Indonesia provides half the world’s nickel.

Several of these same regions appear across multiple mineral supply chains, meaning the environmental burden of smartphone manufacturing is not spread evenly but piled onto the same places. Minas Gerais, for instance, is a production hub for gold, iron and lithium. Sulawesi supplies both nickel and cobalt.

The report’s lifecycle analysis identified mining and mineral processing as the single largest source of environmental damage across a smartphone’s life, ahead of component manufacturing and end-of-life disposal. Printed circuit boards, displays and batteries were singled out as the components with the highest environmental pressures during production.

Manufacturing also contributes substantially to the overall footprint of phones. The assessment found water pollution and soil contamination from component fabrication and PCB assembly, predominantly in East and Southeast Asian production centres, to be a distinct impact separate from the mining phase.

Outdated baselines and regulatory pressure

One of the report’s less headline-friendly findings may prove more consequential for the wider industry. Publicly available environmental data used in supply-chain assessments is typically 10 to 20 years old, according to the study. Companies attempting to measure their nature-related impacts are working with baselines that may substantially understate current damage.

This data gap is set against an incoming wave of disclosure requirements. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires companies to report on biodiversity and ecosystem impacts where these are deemed material, with the ESRS E4 standard covering nature-related risks. The December 2025 Omnibus I agreement narrowed CSRD’s scope to companies with more than 1,000 employees and €450 million in net sales, but major electronics manufacturers and their Tier 1 suppliers remain within scope.

Separately, the EU’s Ecodesign Regulation for smartphones, in force since June 2025, requires spare parts to be available for at least seven years after a model is discontinued, batteries to retain 80 per cent capacity after 800 charge cycles, and devices to survive 45 accidental drops. The regulation is designed to extend device lifespans, which in turn reduces demand for virgin materials.

The EU Critical Raw Materials Act adds further pressure from the supply side, with targets for 25 per cent of strategic raw materials to come from recycling by 2030, and for no more than 65 per cent of any strategic material to be sourced from a single third country. The first implementation report is due this year.

The Fairphone report positions its methodology as a template for nature-related risk assessment under these frameworks. Whether the broader smartphone industry embraces this remains to be seen. Global e-waste reached an estimated 74.7 million tonnes in 2025, according to the Global E-waste Monitor, with formal collection and recycling rates at just 22 per cent and forecast to decline further.