Sub-Saharan Africa stands at the brink of a digital revolution, where telecommunications and technology are poised to be the driving forces behind sustainable socio-economic development. With a youthful population and vast economic opportunities, the region is embracing digital transformation as a pathway to inclusive growth and prosperity.

Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division and Altium have entered a strategic partnership to help with the design and manufacturing of electronics and to make the process more environmentally sustainable.i

Sustainable manufacturing is a hot topic in the engineering world today, and for good reason. As technology advances and more electronics enter the market, e-waste becomes an ever-growing problem.

Fortunately, engineers can use sustainable manufacturing strategies to reduce or even eliminate e-waste. Sustainable manufacturing techniques focus on reducing waste while maximizing resources—a win-win situation that benefits our planet and business bottom lines.

Marie McCarthy, Consumer Electronics Revenue Director at Centric Software, looks at the consumer electronics industry using data to improve sustainability
Consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about the sustainability of products each year. Sustainability is ranked by 66% of consumers as one of the top five drivers behind a purchase decision, up from 50% in 2021, according to Simon Kucher’s 2022 Global Sustainability Study. Additionally, 75% of global consumers feel environmental sustainability is as important or more important to them now than it was in 2021. 

This shift in consumer behaviour is particularly challenging for consumer electronics brands, retailers and manufacturers, especially as reports continue to emerge about growing quantities of e-waste and its environmental impact. The consumer electronics industry is taking steps to address this issue by improving post-use disposal, such as using more ‘closed-loop’ materials. In the future, it seems likely that brands will develop products in ways that make it easier to recycle their parts. However, recycling can’t be the whole story. A multifaceted solution is needed to fully address the problem of e-waste and increase sustainability.

Demand has not peaked. Some 1.43 billion phones are sold annually. E-commerce sales continue to surge worldwide. As a result, e-waste is one of the fastest growing waste streams in the world. The UN forecasts that, on current trends, yearly e-waste generation will balloon to 74.7 million tonnes by 2030. The report called for a global reboot and a new vision for e-waste rooted in the ‘circular economy’ of reuse and recycling. But is a sustainable electronics industry possible?

Circular by design
Many companies, from fledgling start-ups to established tech giants, have been grappling with that question, and a number of organisations have sprung up to coordinate their efforts.

The Circular Electronics Partnership (CEP) was established in 2021 to unite experts, business leaders and global organisations in co-designing solutions for a ‘circular’ electronics industry. Alongside 40 companies, CEP produced a roadmap identifying the core barriers to sustainability faced by the industry, and the pathways towards circularity.

Huawei Technologies, a global leader in information and communications technology (ICT) solutions, emphasised the crucial role of green ICT development in ensuring sustainable digital economic growth during a keynote delivered by Mr. Alex Wang, Senior Vice President of Huawei Carrier BG Marketing, at the SAMENA Leaders’ Summit.

In his address, Mr. Wang highlighted the evolution of intelligence and the need for co-development between ICT and energy technology. “Much like human evolution, our technology has evolved to become increasingly intelligent. Today, computing capability has grown by leaps and bounds and consequently, the corresponding energy consumption is also increasing. We firmly believe that green and low-carbon development, as well as digital and intelligent transformation are the two main forces driving the fourth industrial revolution forward”.

Printing giant Lexmark has announced what it claims are a series of industry-disrupting printer models designed to “reset the industry standard,” and it has business customers firmly in its sights.

The company’s new 9-Series models promise to deliver versatility and simplicity, but more importantly, Lexmark also wants to tackle sustainability with its latest additions.

[Barcelona, Spain, February 29, 2024] Huawei held the Green Development Summit, themed "Thrive with Green ICT", during MWC Barcelona 2024. At the summit, guests from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), MTN Group, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Kenya's ICT Authority, and Indonesia's Bandung Institute of Technology discussed how digital technology can be used to promote green development and enable an inclusive and sustainable digital world.

Jeffrey Zhou, President of ICT Marketing at Huawei, noted in his speech that digital technology has become a key enabler for global sustainable development. He stressed that Huawei would continually work on technological innovation alongside global partners to enhance digital inclusion, promote thriving digital talent ecosystems, and help enable an inclusive and sustainable digital world.

A study by the VTT Technical Research Center of Finland reports that changing the manufacturing of electronics can improve their environmental impact. For example, one of the project’s most significant findings showed that environmental impact could be reduced by 86% when additive printing methods are used to create flexible electronic components, as reported in detail by LUT University.

The project showed several areas of electronics manufacturing where an impact on environmental footprint and sustainability is possible.

With a 100 percent recycled plastic back and the only smartphone maker that utilises Fairtrade gold in its supply chain, Amsterdam-based Fairphone is not only taking a vertical but an industry.

A new wave of electronics manufacturing is on the horizon, aiming to satisfy the increasing demand for sustainability and mitigate the impact of volatile energy prices. With the electronics industry accounting for 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it requires substantial innovation to reduce its environmental footprint. Fortunately, this area has a lot of movement, with several potentially revolutionary technologies entering the scene. IDTechEx's report, "Sustainable Electronics Manufacturing 2023-2033", explores the key opportunities for sustainable innovation and the most promising new manufacturing approaches. The report concentrates on the fundamental building blocks of electronics - printed circuit boards (PCBs) and integrated circuits (ICs).

There is broad agreement that the ICT sector and digitalisation can have a favourable impact on international and regional climate targets, by enabling green and digital transitions. Companies in the connectivity sector claim they want to make responsible and sustainable investments. For them, one of the key challenges will be to balance their role as an enablers of green and digital transformations with operational resources required to implement their own sustainability efforts. Moreover, several of the EU’s Green Deal and Digital Decade 2030 targets require upgraded infrastructure and increased private investment.

The need to act on both individual and collective responsibility is more important than ever, says Louise Koch, Dell Technologies
As part of their commitment to future proof-recovery, governments worldwide have expressed their desire to ‘build back better’. To determine the success of government’s efforts to reboot post-pandemic economies alongside addressing the seismic challenges of climate change however, we should instead look to their desire to ‘build back greener’.

The good news is that by harnessing digital innovation across key sectors matched with a willingness to act, we still have time to avoid the worst-case scenarios and create a better tomorrow.