How to Buy Ethical and Eco-Friendly Electronics (2026)

We all love shiny new electronics. But every new smartphone or laptop comes with baggage. Weighing climate dread, terrible working conditions, energy usage, and worries over hellish e-waste graveyards can quickly kill your excitement about shopping for a new gadget. None of us wants to be complicit, but what can we do if these issues concern us?

Sadly, there’s no easy way to find ethically manufactured and eco-friendly electronics. But there are things you can do to reduce any negative impact your purchases may have. Here are a few ideas we’ve compiled, with the help of Alex Crumbie, writer and researcher at Ethical Consumer, a UK magazine that ranks brands across various categories, from environmental reporting to workers’ rights.

Updated March 2026: I've conducted a new expert interview, added options for buying used or refurbished, added Framework laptops, and removed some older picks.

Repair What You Have

The best way to minimize your impact is to avoid buying new devices if you can. The unpalatable truth is that every new gadget has a cost in manufacturing, shipping, operating life, and, eventually, waste. Most of the environmental impact comes from the manufacturing stage.

The carbon footprint of a smartphone decreases with each additional year it is used, according to Crumbie. To give an example, the carbon footprint of an iPhone 11 is 52.5 kg if you keep it for two years, but it drops to 35 kg if you keep it for three, and just 10.5 kg if you're still using it a decade later.

It’s best to continue using what you already own or get devices repaired to extend their lifespan wherever possible. Thankfully, this is becoming easier with the US Federal Trade Commission voting to enforce the right to repair. Manufacturers like Apple and Samsung are starting to offer guides and repair kits, but there’s still a ways to go. If you want to check how repairable your gadgets are, iFixit has a guide, and it’s also a great place to find tutorials, instructions, and the necessary components and tools to fix your devices. You might even be able to rent iFixit kits from your local library, as one WIRED staffer found when looking to repair her Roomba.

Buy Used or Refurbished

“Buying secondhand is generally much better in terms of the environment, especially if it means something gets more life rather than going to landfill,” Crumbie says.

If your device is beyond repair, or you're shopping for a new category of device you're not very familiar with, consider buying used or refurbished tech. You can sometimes get a discount on devices often indistinguishable from brand-new ones. You won't get as great a deal buying from somewhere like Apple’s Certified Refurbished store, but you can rest assured you will get a perfectly working device in as-new condition with a warranty. You might also check out Amazon Renewed or Best Buy Refurbished.

For deeper discounts, you'll have to buy used from dealers or private sellers, but there’s more risk involved. Follow our advice on the best used tech to buy and check out our guides on how to buy a used phone and how to buy used devices on eBay to boost your chances of bagging a bargain while avoiding potential pitfalls.

Do Your Research

To manufacture electronic devices, companies need to source numerous materials and components, usually from various countries. That often means the mining and assembly take place in countries with low wages and scant protections for workers. Working out whether a device was produced in a fully ethical manner with no exploitation of workers or environmental damage is very tough.

What you can do is take a hard look at the manufacturer behind the device you want and consider which issues are most important to you. Ideally, the company will have strong policies on managing workers' rights issues in the supply chain and sourcing materials in an eco-friendly way. Look for evidence on how a company is reducing its carbon emissions in line with science-based targets, and find out if it's attempting to reduce harmful chemicals in its products. Also, consider tax avoidance and policy transparency.

Searching for news stories and digging into a company's websites to see what issues they talk about can amount to a lot of work. Websites and publications like Ethical Consumer have done some of the legwork here, condensing this information into score tables for devices like laptops and smartphones.

Standards to Look For

Several standards and labels can help you assess the environmental and ethical impact of different tech devices. It's worth looking for the EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) label, which is managed by the Global Electronics Council. Registered products must meet various criteria for environmental performance and impact.

Crumbie recommends TCO Certified, a sustainability label for tech products that considers the broad range of social and environmental factors in every product's lifecycle. To receive a TCO-Certified label, devices must meet criteria relating to the design and manufacture, including workers’ rights, conflict minerals, hazardous chemicals, user health and safety, durability, and recyclability.

Consider Energy Use

Consumer electronics require power to run. Some of that energy will likely come from burning fossil fuels, and the more power your chosen device or appliance needs, the higher your electricity bills will be. Many devices have labels that reveal their energy efficiency. Choosing more energy-efficient appliances and using eco modes can save a substantial amount of power over the lifetime of a device.

In the US, you will often see the government-backed Energy Star label, which means the device conforms to energy efficiency standards set by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). You can also find an EnergyGuide label on some appliances that displays estimated annual running costs and energy usage. Energy labels in the UK and the EU show energy efficiency on a scale of A to G, energy consumption, and other details such as volume, noise, and water consumption, where relevant.

Switching to LED from incandescent or halogen bulbs can significantly reduce energy use and bills. Even smart bulbs and other kinds of smart lighting often require less power than traditional lights.

It’s also worth buying rechargeable batteries instead of single-use disposable batteries, but we recommend choosing carefully, as some cheaper rechargeable batteries don’t perform as well or last as long as they should. My pick is Panasonic’s Eneloop range.

Finding Ethical and Eco-Friendly Brands

Companies are good at highlighting that they use ocean-reclaimed plastic in a particular device or that they donate a percentage of their profits to a worthy cause, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are truly ethical or eco-friendly. Here are a small handful of brands that seem to have a deeper commitment to doing the right thing.

Fairphone: The first name that sprang to mind (and the only company Crumbie and Ethical Consumer recommended), Fairphone has been talking about conflict minerals and striving to reduce their use since its inception. The company is also committed to ethical supply chain management and to producing modular, repairable phones.

Nimble: The power banks, cables, and other accessories Nimble offers are made using recycled and renewable materials. It also uses plastic-free packaging and provides free pre-paid shipping so you can send any old electronic devices, plastic cases, cables, and more to the company's e-waste recycling partner. Nimble produces an annual Impact Report that includes details of its third-party certifications.

Humanscale: This office furniture brand constantly strives to minimize its carbon footprint, not only to avoid negative impact but also to have an overall net positive impact on the world. The company outlines its progress in an annual Corporate Social Responsibility Report.