Analysis of Product Lifecycle Data to Determine the Environmental Impact of the Apple iPhone

Abstract

The increasing awareness of environmental protection, e.g. in the course of climate change, also affects products of the information and communication technology industry along their lifecycle. Companies have to consider how their processes and products can be designed correspondingly the expectations of their stakeholders as well as the public. Therefore they have to measure and analyze environmentally concerning data to improve their service provision. Using the Apple iPhone as an example this paper will execute such an analysis to evaluate its environmental impact. The data investigation is performed by reconditioning, analyzing and interpreting the data as well as giving potential causes and correlations with other datasets. Basing on the performed analysis a generalized model for the assessment of the environmental impact of ICT products can be enabled.