Life-cycle Assessments

LCA is a scientific technique that can be used to analyze the environmental impact of a product or system from "cradle to grave," that is, from the time raw materials are extracted, through manufacturing and production, transportation, use, and final disposal.

In describing the relevance of Ericsson's environmental profile, it is worth noting that impacts from manufacturing and operations of telecommunications networks are relatively small compared with other industrial activities. Using the CO2 indicator to compare telecom with physical travel, for example, one year of mobile-phone use is roughly equivalent to driving a typical automobile 160 km.

The graph below shows annual emissions (kg CO2 equivalent) per average subscriber in a reference 3G network with 1.5 million subscribers. The system consists of 3G handsets, radio base stations, network-control equipment and a core network with routers, switches and servers. Also included is transmission equipment such as feeders and cables, and site equipment such as antennas, climate control and equipment shelters. The scope of the LCA includes raw materials, supplier activities, transportation, handsets and operator activities, as well as end-of-life treatment (EoLT). Our LCA work has provided the following results.

The manufacturing phase accounts for approximately 34 percent of total impact, and includes:

• Raw materials - production of raw materials from natural resources, including all chemicals and metals required for manufacturing handsets, infrastructure and network equipment.
• Supply chain - production of semi-manufactured products and components from raw materials.
• Ericsson activities - factory operations, transportation and office activities.

The operational phase is the most significant, accounting for approximately 67 percent of total impact, and includes:

• Equipment operation - power consumption for all network equipment. The largest share of this figure is from RBS operation.
• Operator activities - constructing the network, site maintenance visits, office activities and employee travel.
• End-of-life-treatment (EoLT) - equipment dismantling and recycling of metals in the infrastructure, batteries, cables and printed circuit boards. Recycling generates a slight net decrease in total energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

For 2005 the total CO2 per average subscriber and year was 38kg (equivalent to about 16 liters of gasoline). In 2002, the total CO2 per subscriber was 54kg.

Emission equivalents from the manufacturing phase were unchanged between 2002 and 2005, while energy consumption and associated CO2 emissions in the operation phase fell from 34kg (lighter bar) to 20kg. A decrease in the operator-activities share of the operation phase was also achieved, from 7.5kg (lighter bar) in 2002 to 5.1kg, thanks to a reduced need for maintenance visits, improved equipment reliability and more efficient procedures adopted by network operators.