Eco Shopping Index
How much impact does producing popular consumer products have on the environment?
Recently, the threat of human-induced global warming has become more widely acknowledged and plans are being put in place to tackle the impact. Many people across the planet are now being urged to reduce their carbon footprint to help reverse the damage done to the planet, what many may not realise is that every time they purchase common products they are contributing to the greenhouse effect.
The production of all types of everyday products of all different types has an impact on the environment. From essentials like food and clothes to modern technology such as smartphones and laptops, all consumer goods have a cost to produce and use. These goods use up electricity, fuel, and water (to name a few resources) as they are produced, transported and consumed by the public.
WATER COST
Producing many goods takes a lot of water, a vital resource that is greatly limited in certain parts of the world. The materials that are used to make many consumer products use a great deal of water to produce, it takes 22 gallons of water to make just one pound of plastic.
1
Laptop
50,193
gallons of water to produce
Creating a laptop used the most amount of water out of the consumer goods that have been studied, on average it takes an estimated 50,193 gallons of water to produce a laptop. This is equivalent to 401,544 pints, and as people are recommended to drink 3.5 pints of water a day, the water used to produce one laptop could keep a man well hydrated for almost 115,000 days, or roughly four lifetimes.
2
Car
39,000
gallons of water to produce
The next product that takes a large amount of water to produce is a car. A standard car takes almost 40,000 gallons of water to produce (and some feel this could be a conservative estimate given the products in a car). Although it uses over 10,000 fewer gallons of water than a laptop, it is the second-largest user of water by a big margin.
3
Smartphone
3,400
gallons of water to produce
A smartphone uses an average of 3,400 gallons to be produced, this makes it the third most environmentally damaging product on the list in terms of water used during production. There are 6.64 billion people using smartphones in the world today, which would require 22.58 billion gallons of water to produce, this amount of water could fill a third of Windermere (the largest lake in England). This only accounts for the number of smartphones used right now, as most people upgrade fairly regularly, the total amount of water used in smartphone production will be much higher than this.
4
Pair of Leather Shoes
2,113
gallons of water to produce
The item of clothing that uses the most water to produce is a pair of leather shoes, the production process for leather uses a lot of water as the animal hide is prepared and tanned. Consequently, it takes over 2,100 gallons of water to produce a single pair of leather shoes, and unlike in the past, people will go through many pairs of leather shoes in their lifetimes.
5
Set of Car tyres
2,074
gallons of water to produce
A set of car tyres use slightly less water than a pair of leather shoes during their production, making them the fifth-highest product in the rankings. To turn rubber from a tree into the tyres on a car takes a long process of transportation and manufacturing, and during this vast amounts of water are used. It was estimated in 2017 that there were 1.5 billion wasted car tyres in the world, this means over 4.3 trillion gallons of water are wasted on tyres that are not even being used.
Category Key
Building materials
Clothes
Food/drink
Household
Motoring
Stationary
Technology
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Technological Carbon Footprint
Once a product has been produced and shipped, and then bought by the consumer, its days of impacting the environment are not over. Many items (especially technological electronic ones) impact the environment through their electricity use every day. Unfortunately, most technology companies keep this data close to their chest, and the data on the carbon cost of products is scant. With one big exception, technology giant Apple releases environmental reports on all their products detailing their carbon cost over their entire lifestyle. These are the most wasteful:
1
Mac Pro
@computermane
2,765kg
production average of CO2 in it’s lifetime
Unsurprisingly the flagship Apple computer is the one that generates the most CO2 in its lifetime, over ten times the average of all the Apple products studied. The Mac Pro is certainly an investment, prices start at £5,999, but it can be as high as £52,373.
2
Pro Display XDR
@isetups
974kg
production average of CO2 in it’s lifetime
To go with your Mac is Apple’s own 4-figure display screen, adding a potential extra £4,599 to the Mac. However, you are paying for quality as the Pro Display XDR is the first-ever 32-inch 6k computer display. Unfortunately, the state-of-the -art display produced almost 1,000 kg of CO2 in its lifetime, having a big impact on the environment.
3
IMac
@macfreaks
481kg
production average of CO2 in it’s lifetime
The iMac is the integrated Apple computer, the iconic looking machine that has been around since 1998 but has evolved over the years to the sleek vibrant design we see today. The iMac is a lot more affordable than its big brother, but will still set consumers back over £1,000 for the base model.
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CO2 produced (kg) |
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Methodology
Water usage data was found from various sources including circular computing and stacker.
Apple data is found from the environmental reports Apple publishes for each of their current (and some past) products.
Complete list of sources: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a0q9vssf4rE9q5mE201QfyxjM0OWW5LunTQ31QDq8vA/edit?usp=sharing
