The answer flips between products because the emissions sit in different places. The EEA's 2020 briefing on longer-lasting electronics puts up to 75% of a washing machine's life-cycle impact in the use phase, while for a mobile phone most of it falls in extraction and production, for the EU. So keep the phone, and treat the washing machine as a calculation: the same briefing cites a UN study concluding that replacement makes sense once a machine is at least 10 years old and the new model is significantly more efficient.
Where the impact sits, by product
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| Product | Where the impact sits | Published average life | What changes the answer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile phone | Extraction and production; 16 to 110 kg CO2e over the life cycle depending on model | Replaced after less than two years | Almost nothing; keeping it longer is the lower-impact option |
| LCD television | Manufacture is about half of the estimated 300 kg CO2e a year for the whole life cycle | Just over seven years | Newer sets can use more energy, not less |
| Washing machine | Up to 75% in the use phase | Around eight years, against an expectation of 12.5 | Age of 10 years or more, plus a significantly more efficient replacement |
| Vacuum cleaner | Around 70% of life-cycle energy in the use phase | Eight years | Rising manufacturing share as cordless and robotic models spread |
Every figure in that table comes from the same EEA briefing, published in June 2020 and drawn from case studies on those four product groups. Applying one row to another product is the mistake the table exists to prevent.
Example: one phone, two years or five
An example, worked inside the EEA's range. Take a phone with 60 kg CO2e of life-cycle emissions, which sits inside the 16 to 110 kg range the briefing gives. Kept for two years, the length the briefing reports as the average before replacement, that is 30 kg a year. Kept for five years, it is 12 kg a year: 60% less, for the same handset and the same emissions total.
The five-year figure is not arbitrary. Under the rules that applied to smartphones and tablets from 20 June 2025, operating system updates must run for at least 5 years after the last unit of a model is sold, batteries must manage at least 800 charge cycles while keeping 80% of their capacity, and key spare parts must reach repairers within 5 to 10 working days for at least 7 years after the model leaves the market. One person works out the arithmetic for the handset in the house; the other checks the model's last sale date, because that is when both clocks start.
The gap between the life a product gets and the life it was built for
The briefing's central finding is a gap, not a ranking: across smartphones, televisions, washing machines and vacuum cleaners, either the designed or the desired lifetime is at least 2.3 years longer than the life the product actually gets. Things are retired early, not worn out.
The waste side makes the same point. The EEA put 20.6 kg of electrical and electronic goods per person on the EU market in 2017, and 10.4 million tonnes of electrical waste generated across the EU that year, of which around 44% was collected. A replacement decision that ends with an old device in a drawer has not produced a second life, and counting one is the commonest way a household estimate goes wrong.
What the 2025 rules put on the box
Some of the missing inputs are now printed. From 20 June 2025 phones and tablets sold in the EU carry a repairability score from A to E on the energy label, alongside battery lifespan and resistance to dust, water and drops. The Commission expects those rules to save 2.2 TWh of electricity by 2030 and €20 billion of consumer spending in 2030.
Repair itself gained a deadline. The directive on the repair of goods, adopted on 13 June 2024 and applying from 31 July 2026, obliges manufacturers of the products in its Annex II to repair them at a reasonable price and to publish indicative prices for typical repairs on a free website. A published repair price is the input a keep-or-replace comparison has always lacked.
What a claim has to name before it means anything
Four things: the product, the service it provides, the period, and the alternative. "Keeping devices longer saves carbon" names none of them. "This phone's 60 kg of life-cycle emissions spread over five years instead of two" names all four, and can be checked.
Two people can divide that work. One traces where a published number came from and what it included; the other checks whether those assumptions match the device on the table, particularly its electricity mix, its hours of use and what happens to the device it replaces. When the honest answer is that a figure is missing, name the missing figure rather than borrowing one from another product category, and look at what the packaging is actually claiming, since repairable, reusable and recyclable are different promises. If the device is broken rather than merely old, the cheaper first move is a repair question prepared without taking anything apart, and if it turns out you need the thing only twice a year, the comparison is really borrow, buy used, or use what you have.
Sources
- Europe's consumption in a circular economy: the benefits of longer-lasting electronicsAccessed September 17, 2026
- New EU rules for durable, energy-efficient and repairable smartphones and tablets start applyingAccessed September 17, 2026
- Directive on repair of goodsAccessed September 17, 2026