Written by Leandro Navarro (UPC and Pangea) and Jes Ciacci (Sursiendo)
Imagine the evolution of our digitally connected world. There are now more digital devices in the world than people. In 2019, humans around the world purchased approximately 1.52 billion smartphones, 785 million laptops, 128 million desktop computers, and 489 million Wi-Fi routers, figures that are expected to grow exponentially over the next five to ten years with new “smart” technologies.
We live on a planet that follows natural cycles and boundaries. Climate change, biodiversity loss, land erosion, pollution, and resource depletion are the direct result of human impacts on the planet. The digital device on which you are reading this guide impacts our planet at each process in its life cycle.
Do you know how your digital device was created? A mobile phone is composed of over 200 minerals, 80 chemical elements, and 300 alloys and plastics. Minerals are part of our daily lives, but we know very little about their impact on our planet.
More than 230 civil society organisations from around the world published a statement in September 2020 that called on the European Commission (EC) to re-evaluate its plans to obtain raw materials. The statement noted irregularities, lack of transparency mechanisms, and disregard for growing resistance by local communities, and called for the EC to implement policies that reduce consumption, promote recycling, and contribute “a fair share of support to the nations of the global South to redress the continued extraction of wealth from the global South for Europe, which has taken place for centuries."
Mining and extraction of natural resources for digital devices is unsustainable, and has led to massive violations of human rights, including the right to a healthy environment.
Within a linear economy, natural resources that are extracted and used in digital devices do not have value beyond the use of that digital device. A key objective of circular economies is to significantly reduce the extraction of natural resources through repair and recycling.
Learn more about mining and extraction in the circular world of digital devices through our case studies in Chapter 2.