Page 289 - GHES-3-3

Global Health Economics and
Sustainability
Carbon footprint of smartphones in healthcare

users in 2025, suggesting increased carbon emissions. ensuring that production processes align with sustainability
Approximately 60 kg CO emission or less is considered goals. In addition, smartphones should be subjected to
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an acceptable emission standard for individual devices, a defined carbon emission cap over their conventional
including smartphones (United Nations Conference on lifespan, currently estimated at approximately 2.5 years,
Trade and Development, 2024). The number, 60 kg CO , providing a benchmark for sustainable usage and disposal.
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represents a goal that balances technological utility with
environmental responsibility. 5. Conclusion
Healthcare providers report an average daily smartphone The carbon footprint of smartphones is an important
usage of 1 – 5 h, primarily for health and medical data, as consideration in healthcare and daily life, given the growing
well as patient communication (Chapala et al., 2024). This reliance on these devices for communication, patient care,
engagement with digital tools represents a shift from the and access to AI-driven platforms, such as ChatGPT,
clinical practice patterns of 20 years ago, when paper charts Gemini, Claude.ai, and Meta AI. The majority of smartphone
were used, along with the corresponding changes in energy owners are unaware of the CO emissions of their devices. It
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consumption and associated emissions. The integration of is unclear whether the data are accurate while querying the
smartphones into clinical settings has occurred rapidly, chatbots. Our analysis revealed that while AI-LLMs, such
without adequate consideration of the environmental as ChatGPT-4.0, Gemini, and Claude.ai provide a response,
consequences of this technological adoption (Lee et al., the data may not be accurate. The tendency of newer AI
2023). models to “guess” when faced with data gaps highlights the
The lifecycle emissions of smartphones can be divided importance of training source limitations.
into three stages: Production, usage, and disposal. Each The carbon footprint of smartphone production and
stage contributes differently to the overall environmental usage is significant. Using Google’s search engine consumes
impact of these devices. Production generates the highest energy, and the use of LLMs, because of its association with
emissions, driven by mining rare earth elements, and is AI computing, further increases energy consumption.
associated with energy-intensive manufacturing processes AI can improve the transparency of a device’s carbon
(Cenci et al., 2024). Beyond carbon emissions, habitat footprint with the potential to provide environmental
destruction and water pollution exacerbate the ecological benefits. The emergence of AI and its progressively wider
impact of mineral extraction, which often occurs in
regions with poor environmental regulations (Cordella impact on many sectors requires an assessment of its
et al., 2021). Ongoing research is exploring the use of effect on the achievement of the Sustainable Development
alternative chemicals and ceramics in smartphone batteries Goals, as AI has rapidly developed to enable sustainable
development (Vinuesa et al., 2020). This advanced
(Imanzadeh, 2024). However, lithium remains an essential technology can play an important role in the ongoing effort
component in their production.
to save the Earth by reducing the emission rates.
Fifty million tonnes (55 M metric tons) of electric and
electronic garbage are dumped per year globally. There As we enter an era of widespread and intensive use of
is 100 times more gold in e-waste than in gold mines electronic devices, everyone in healthcare should be aware
(Chauhan et al., 2025). Only 20% of e-waste is disposed of of the associated energy costs.
legally (Li et al., 2024). China generates far more e-waste With more awareness that purchasing a smartphone
than other countries or regions in total (12 M metric tons/ might result in an increase in GHG emissions, it may
year) (Seif et al., 2024). In 2019, the United States ranked encourage people to reconsider their ownership and usage
second with 10 M metric tons/year, India ranked third with habits. We hope that readers will think twice before buying
3 M metric tons/year, and Japan ranked fourth with 2.6 M the latest version of a smartphone and think about the
metric tons/year (Forti et al., 2020). This may indicate that price of recycling rare earth metals, as well as the toxic
China will bear a greater e-waste burden while facing a waste produced when a smartphone is discarded. Our
continuously growing e-waste challenge. research suggests greater awareness of the carbon footprint
The establishment of standardized regulations of smartphones in health care. As smartphone users,
for smartphone carbon emissions is imperative, akin we should ask our hospitals to increase their recycling
to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards set by efforts to balance the increased use of smartphones in the
the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for the healthcare setting.
automotive industry (Klier & Linn, 2016). Federal and state Acknowledgments
governments should impose limits on the carbon emissions
associated with the manufacturing of each smartphone unit, None.

Volume 3 Issue 3 (2025) 281 https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.8359