Contribuição dos reparos de smartphones à economia circular: Uma abordagem baseada na síntese de emergia e avaliação do ciclo de vida.

Resumo (EN)

The increasing generation of electronic waste and the linear production model have intensified the exploitation of natural resources and exacerbated the environmental impacts associated with the manufacturing of mobile devices. This study evaluates how smartphone repairs can contribute to the circular economy, particularly in mitigating environmental impacts and conserving natural resources. To this end, a complementary methodological approach was adopted, integrating Emergy Synthesis (EmA) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), applied to the comparison between the production of a new smartphone and the repair through display replacement. The analysis was conducted based on the functional unit of one smartphone, considering data from the Ecoinvent 3.8 database, sectoral surveys, and scientific literature. EmA was employed to quantify the emergy invested in production and repair processes, while LCA estimated environmental impacts such as CO₂-eq emissions (GWP), resource depletion in Sb-eq (antimony equivalent), toxicity, water use, acidification, and ecotoxicity. An emergy-based repair efficiency indicator (nrep) was proposed, with annualized evaluation across different extended lifespan scenarios. The results indicate that repair performs better environmentally than device replacement, provided the lifespan is extended by at least two years. The emergy invested in the repair accounted for only 24% of the emergy originally incorporated into the smartphone, demonstrating a savings of 76%. The annual repair efficiency (nrep annual) increased proportionally with the extended use time, reaching up to 40% in three-year extension scenarios. From the LCA perspective, the repair also reduced the global warming potential impact from 14.57 kg CO₂-eq (3 years without repair) to 8.64 kg CO₂-eq (6 years with repair), and the abiotic resource depletion from 0.05 kg Sb-eq (3 years without repair) to 0.03 kg Sb-eq (6 years with repair). The study highlights that the integration of Emergy Accounting (EmA) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) provides a holistic and consistent view of repair sustainability, offering methodological and practical insights to support decisions aligned with the principles of the circular economy.