Impact: what we can prove

Buying a second-hand device avoids manufacturing a new one. That is all Damjitech does, and it is already a lot — because manufacturing is by far the heaviest stage.

Roughly 10 to 25 kg of CO2e per device that changes hands

A range, not an exact figure: the result depends on which reference device is used, and that choice more than doubles the total. Claiming «9.94 kg» would be inventing a precision the data does not allow. This estimate already accounts for the fact that a second-hand purchase does not always replace a new one.

The figures, with their sources

78 %
of a smartphone's carbon footprint comes from making it, not from using it
Source · Fraunhofer IZM — Life Cycle Assessment of the Fairphone 5, tabla 5-1 (32,7 de 42,1 kg CO2e) (2024)
60 % → ~100 %
the share of manufacturing across all impact categories — close to all of it for mineral depletion
Source · Fraunhofer IZM — LCA Fairphone 5, figura 1-1 (la producción domina TODAS las categorías de impacto, hasta casi el 100 % en agotamiento de minerales) (2024)
hasta 51 %
reduction in annualised footprint by going from 3 to 10 years of use, net of battery replacement
Source · Fraunhofer IZM — LCA Fairphone 5 (pasar de 3 a 10 años de uso reduce la huella ANUALIZADA; neto del reemplazo de batería) (2024)
62 Mt · 22,3 %
of electronic waste produced worldwide in 2022, of which only 22.3 % was documented as collected and recycled
Source · UNITAR / UIT — Global E-waste Monitor 2024 (62 millones de toneladas generadas en 2022; solo el 22,3 % recogido y reciclado de forma documentada) (2024)
164 484 t
of electronic waste in Morocco in 2019, the latest published regional data — with no documented formal collection rate
Source · Global E-waste Monitor — Marruecos, 2019 (últimos datos regionales publicados; sin tasa de recogida formal documentada) (2019)

What we forbid ourselves

We offset no emissions. We buy no carbon credits and we claim no neutrality: we avoid one manufacturing, nothing more.
Damjitech collects, recycles and treats no electronic waste. The figures above describe the problem, not our action.
Our estimate is gross: it does not yet deduct the footprint of the second life itself — travel to hand over the device, battery replacement. So it errs on the generous side, and will be revised downwards as soon as we can measure it.
At every uncertainty we take the lower bound. Every time, even when the other figure would flatter us more.
Any correction that lowers our estimate is applied retroactively. No upward revision ever is.

Things we owe the reader

This research covers Europe and devices refurbished by professionals; Damjitech is a peer-to-peer marketplace in Morocco. We cite it as an order of magnitude, not as a measure of our activity.

The usage phase in these studies counts charging the device, not the mobile network or data centres.

We show no impact figure on any individual listing. The evidence we hold supports an order of magnitude, not one particular device.