Promoting circularity

The UN estimates that as much as 50 million tonnes of electrical waste (‘e-waste’) is produced globally each year, with only 20% being formally recycled. In only 12 years, the amount of e-waste generated per year worldwide has almost doubled to 62 billion kg in 2022–and is projected to increase further to 82 billion by 2030. The telecommunications industry operations generate e-waste from used electronic network equipment (such as radio antennae or decommissioned data servers) and from the devices sold to customers (such as mobile phones or broadband routers) when they are no longer used.

Vodafone is committed to minimising the generation of e-waste from our business operations and from the devices we sell. To do so, we developed our waste and circularity strategy, focusing on two areas of e-waste: the network equipment used to run our fixed and mobile access networks; and the electronic devices that we provide or sell to customers.