What is the carbon footprint of an iPhone?

Apple publishes a Product Environmental Report for every iPhone at launch, with a life-cycle carbon footprint for each storage size. That makes the iPhone one of the few products whose footprint you can look up from the manufacturer rather than estimate. This page brings those figures together for the current models and the last seven years, shows where the emissions come from, and works out what keeping a phone longer does to its footprint per year.

Every current iPhone

Each figure covers making the phone, shipping it, three years of charging and recycling it at the end, including the in-box cable and the packaging. Apple calculates it for the US configuration at launch.

Where the emissions come from

Apple’s 2026 reports break the footprint down in kilograms. For the 256 GB models:

Making the phone dominates: 50 of the iPhone 18 Pro’s 63 kg (79%) is emitted before it reaches you, and the electricity used in factories is the largest single part. Charging it for three years adds 13 kg. Apple says renewable sources supply 50% of the manufacturing electricity for the iPhone 18 Pro and 60% for the iPhone Duo; the rest is why factory electricity is still the biggest line.

Why storage matters

More storage means more memory chips, and chips are carbon-intensive to make. An iPhone 18 Pro rises from 63 kg with 256 GB to 109 kg with 2 TB, and the iPhone Duo from 93 to 138 kg. If you will not use the space, the smaller model is the lower-carbon choice.

Older iPhones

Comparing the 256 GB version of each standard iPhone, as Apple reported it at launch:

The same storage size went from 89 kg to 55 kg in six years; Apple attributes its cuts mainly to recycled materials and cleaner electricity in its suppliers’ factories. Apple sometimes revises an older model’s figure in a later report (the iPhone 12 report puts the 64 GB iPhone 11 at 70 kg rather than the 72 kg published at launch), so small differences between years are not meaningful.

Keeping it longer

Because most of the footprint comes at the start, the longer you use a phone the lower its footprint per year. On the iPhone 18 Pro’s figures, if you keep it for three years, as Apple assumes, it comes to about 21 kg a year. Keep it five years and, assuming charging emissions stay the same each year, it falls to about 14 kg a year: 50 kg of manufacturing, shipping and renewable infrastructure plus five years of charging at 4.3 kg a year, divided by five. That is 32% lower, before counting the new phone you did not buy.

How Apple calculates it

• A life-cycle assessment under ISO 14040, ISO 14044 and ISO 14067, using IPCC AR6 100-year global warming potentials (stated in reports from the iPhone 15 onward).
• Three years of use for an iPhone; the in-box accessories and packaging are included.
• Apple uses its own detailed models for the components that contribute most and industry-average data for the rest, and notes that modelling carries uncertainty.
• Apple’s 2025 reports label the total “net” and its 2026 reports “gross”; neither mentions carbon credits.

For a generic smartphone without a manufacturer report, a published academic estimate of the embodied (manufacturing) footprint is 50 kg for the 2020 smartphone mix (Lövehagen et al., 2023), in line with the 50 kg Apple gives for making and shipping an iPhone 18 Pro. For company IT inventories, see the IT asset life-cycle calculator.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: Apple Product Environmental Reports for each model (apple.com/environment). Related: electronics carbon footprint calculator · CO₂e to smartphones charged · the carbon footprint of the average American