“I know that people bash the phone companies for ‘planned obsolescence’ of their products, but in most cases phones are replaced when they are still working fine, so improving repairability won’t necessarily help much. ” said Tamar Makov, a doctoral student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES). “Perhaps we should be focused on what really makes us replace phones so quickly, or we should be angry at manufacturers for making really good commercials. But it’s likely that the problem is not the hardware.”



The findings, she said, illustrate the potential of utilizing such intangible properties to promote sustainable consumption of these and other popular consumer goods.



The paper was co-authored by Marian Chertow, associate professor of industrial environmental management at F&ES, Tomer Fishman, a postdoctoral associate at F&ES, and Vered Blass of Tel Aviv University.



With penetration rates of almost 90 percent in the world’s developed countries, mobile phones present a critical challenge in terms of environmental sustainability. Smartphones can contain as many as 50 different elements, including minerals linked to civil unrest, rare earth metals whose availabilities are dwindling, and various toxic materials that can degrade the natural world and threaten public health.



These environmental costs are exacerbated by the relatively short lifespans of most smartphones. According to recent estimates the use phase of the average phone is less than two years.



In recent years, a growing secondhand market for used smartphones has extended the average lifespan of these devices. But just how much longer, the researchers say, depends on the name on the phone.



For their study, they examined the resale performance of the two largest manufacturers of smartphones in the U.S. — Apple and Samsung — which combined command about 70 percent of the smartphone market. They each produce both phone models that are relatively easy to repair and harder to repair. And while the products are similar enough that the two manufacturers are engaged in an ongoing patent infringement lawsuit, Apple ranks higher in terms of brand equity. While Apple typically is ranked at the top of the world’s most valuable brands, Samsung usually falls below the top 10.