On World Environment Day, iServices presented 2025 results and what more than a million customers taught about how we consume technology: the greatest environmental impact happens long before a device reaches the recycling point.
When we talk about sustainability in technology, the conversation tends to begin at the end of the story: in electronic waste, in recycling, or the fate of devices when they stop being used. But the reality is that the greatest environmental impact of technology occurs long before a smartphone reaches the recycling point. It happens at the moment we decide to replace a device that could still be used.
Numbers help gauge the problem. According to the Global E-waste Monitor 2024, published by UNITAR and ITU, UN system agencies, the world generated 62 million tonnes of electronic waste in 2022 and could reach 82 million tonnes by 2030. The same report warns that electronic waste grows at a rate five times higher than documented recycling. This is a real problem. But perhaps the most important question is to understand why we reach the replacement moment so early.
iServices tracks daily hundreds of thousands of devices throughout their life cycle. In 2025, more than one million customers turned to the brand’s technical services and more than 360 thousand devices, including smartphones, tablets and computers, had their useful life extended through repair, technical support, or refurbishment, the equivalent of about 986 devices per day. These numbers reveal a curious phenomenon: many of the reasons that lead a consumer to replace a device are not related to the device’s end of life.
In 2025, more than 1 million customers turned to iServices and more than 360 thousand devices had their useful life extended, about 986 per day.
A degraded battery. A cracked screen. A charging port with poor contact. A software problem. In many cases, the device remains perfectly capable of performing the function for which it was purchased. Yet there is a growing tendency to consider that a device has lost value long before it ceases to be useful.
The Replacement Logic Carries Costs
For years, technological innovation was communicated as a perpetual sequence of novelties: new models, new functionalities, new generations. This progress brought undeniable benefits. But it also contributed to reinforcing a subtle idea: that the best solution to a technological problem almost always passes through replacement. Today we know that this logic carries significant economic and environmental costs.
Each new device requires raw materials, energy, water, transport, and complex industrial processes. The majority of a smartphone’s environmental footprint is concentrated in the production phase rather than in the usage phase. Therefore, prolonging a device’s life by one, two, or three more years can represent an environmental benefit greater than that obtained through many other actions associated with sustainable consumption.
People Choose Solutions, Not Calculations
The issue is that consumers rarely make decisions based on environmental calculations. Our experience shows precisely the opposite. People do not choose to repair because they want to reduce carbon emissions. They do not choose a refurbished device because they have calculated the savings of natural resources. They do not choose to extend a device’s life because they know the principles of the circular economy. People choose solutions that solve problems. They choose what is simple, fast, convenient, and financially rational.
This is perhaps one of the most important lessons for those working in the field of circularity. The transition to more circular consumption models does not depend solely on awareness or campaigns. It depends on the ability to make sustainable alternatives attractive enough to compete with traditional models. The circular economy gains when it no longer requires extra effort from the consumer. It gains when repair is simple. When refurbishment means trust. When there is a warranty. When the process is transparent. When the experience is as convenient as buying new.
It is precisely here that sustainability ceases to be an abstract concept and becomes an operational reality. Over the past few years, we have witnessed a gradual shift in the way many consumers view technology. Refurbishment has ceased to be a niche solution and has established itself as an option considered by an increasing number of people. Repair has ceased to be seen only as a last resort and has become part of the normal decision-making process. This change does not happen out of idealism. It happens because it starts to make sense.
2025 in Numbers
The impact of this shift is measurable. Applying conservative average life-cycle ratios to the universe of devices involved, iServices’ activity in 2025 avoided about 72 thousand tonnes of electronic waste, saved approximately 4.32 billion litres of water, prevented about 18 thousand tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions, and preserved more than 28 thousand tonnes of natural resources. Compared with 2024, technical services grew 36%, repairs 31%, technical interventions 75%, and refurbishment 52%.
In parallel, the company strengthened the robustness of the environmental information underpinning its ESG reporting. The carbon footprint for 2025, calculated under Scope 1, 2 and 3 of the GHG Protocol, totalled 61,909 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, of which 99.99% stems from value-chain activities. Scope 2 emissions, under a market-based approach, recorded a 72% reduction versus 2024, benefiting from the shift of most electricity contracts to green energy and from a fully electric fleet. These numbers are meaningful. But they primarily reflect the consequence of something more important: hundreds of thousands of individual consumer decisions to prolong the life of their devices instead of replacing them prematurely.
Repair and refurbishment do not solve the electronic waste problem by themselves. But they remain among the most direct and measurable interventions to reduce waste, and their effectiveness is measured device by device. Sustainability does not begin when we recycle a device. It begins when we manage to use it for longer. And perhaps the greatest challenge of the next decade will not be to produce more technology. It will be to learn to make better use of what we already have.
For the Consumer, Four Simple Decisions
- Replace the battery before replacing the device, when loss of autonomy compromises use.
- Always use a protective case and screen protector to reduce the risk of physical damage.
- Perform timely maintenance when you notice signs of failure, such as unstable charging, a damaged screen, or sound problems.
- Consider repairing or buying refurbished before opting for a new device.
Content in partnership with iServices. Article published in issue No. 23 of Green Savers magazine.
