Nordic Refurb — Every phone carries its carbon number

Why it matters

80%

of a phone's lifetime emissions happen before you switch it on.

Manufacturing is where the carbon goes — mining, refining, fabrication, assembly, freight. Charging it for years barely registers next to that. Which means the greenest phone in the world is the one that already exists.

The number

A figure per device, not a claim per company.

Most of the industry publishes one sustainability number a year and calls it transparency. We calculate avoided emissions from the manufacturer's own published product environmental data — per model, per configuration — and attach the result to the individual unit alongside its grade, its battery health and its repair history.

Method published. Inputs traceable. Every figure reproducible from the model and the unit record.

kg CO₂e

~430

km not driven

Roughly Helsinki to Vaasa in an average European car — from a single phone that didn't need to be built.

~2.5

trees for a year

What a mature tree absorbs annually, several times over — without waiting a decade for it to grow.

1 000×

the charging

You could charge that phone every day for years and not spend what its manufacture already cost.

Equivalences are illustrative conversions from the same per-model figure, using published emission factors. They exist to make the number legible — the number itself is what we stand behind.

Refurbished vs. new

Move the slider. Watch the gap open.

Same device, same use, same electricity. The only variable is whether it was built again from raw material or restored from one that already existed.

Over 3 years of ownership

kg CO₂e avoided

1 yr23456 yr

Buying new64 kg

Buying refurbished from us10 kg

Assumes a three-year replacement cycle, one device, an iPhone 13 128 GB class handset, and identical use-phase electricity on both paths. Manufacturing figures from the manufacturer's published product environmental report; refurbishment figure covers parts, logistics and process energy.

Look up a device

Type an IMEI.
Get its record.

Every unit we have handled has a record, and the record is public to whoever holds the device. Nothing is aggregated, nothing is rounded up at company level.

Demo units:

Demonstration data. On the live site this field queries our device database directly — the same record that is printed on the certificate shipped with the unit.

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Enter an IMEI to pull the unit's grade, battery health,
repair history and carbon figure.

Inside a device

We keep the expensive part.

The housing, the logic board, the camera stack, the display panel — the carbon is locked in there. A battery is a consumable. Replacing one cell and keeping everything else is the difference between a new phone's footprint and almost none.

Cover glass

Replaced only when it is actually damaged.

Display panel

Tested for dead pixels, touch response, burn-in.

Battery

The one consumable. Replaced below 80 % health.

Logic board

Where most of the embodied carbon sits. Never replaced.

Housing & cameras

Kept, cleaned, re-certified. The expensive part stays.

The grade ladder

Where the value is actually created.

Buying a finished A-grade device and reselling it is a two-percent business. The margin lives in moving a device up the ladder — and every rung is a device that did not have to be manufactured.

Working, visibly used

Deep scratches, dents, possible screen marks. Fully functional, honestly described. This is where most of our intake arrives.

Resale index 100

Baseline — as received

Light wear

Minor surface scratches, no dents, no display defects. Battery at 85 % or above, or replaced to get there.

Resale index 112

+12 % — clean, polish, battery

Near-flawless

Marks only visible at an angle in direct light. Battery 90 %+. Every port, speaker, camera and radio verified.

Resale index 127

+27 % — glass, housing work

A+

Indistinguishable from new

New battery, new cover glass, new back where needed. Re-boxed with accessories. The original board and cameras stay.

Resale index 141

+41 % — full restoration

Index values are relative resale positions derived from our supplier's published grade pricing for the same model and configuration. Absolute uplift varies by model, age and the cost of the parts required.

What we trade

Phones first. Everything around them too.

The same standard, the same record, the same carbon figure — applied across the devices people actually live with.

Smartphones

iPhone and flagship Android, graded cosmetically and functionally.

avg. 45–70 kg CO₂e avoided

Tablets

iPad and equivalents, tested to the same 52-point protocol.

avg. 60–120 kg CO₂e avoided

Wearables

Smartwatches with battery health verified and straps replaced.

avg. 25–40 kg CO₂e avoided

Audio & accessories

Earbuds, chargers and cables — sanitised, tested, re-boxed.

avg. 8–20 kg CO₂e avoided

Ranges are indicative and depend on model and configuration. The figure published against any individual unit is calculated from that unit's own model data.

How a device moves through us

Six steps. Nothing skipped.

The carbon number is not a marketing step bolted on at the end — it is generated by the same process that grades the device.

Intake & identity

IMEI logged, blacklist and lock status checked, lot reconciled against the seller's list.

52-point diagnostic

Display, touch, cameras, radios, sensors, charging, battery cycle count and health.

Certified erasure

Data wiped to a recognised standard, certificate issued per IMEI for the seller's records.

Repair, not replace

Battery, glass, port — the consumables. Housing, board and cameras stay with the device.

Carbon calculation

Avoided emissions computed from the manufacturer's own published product data for that exact model.

Record published

Grade, battery health, repair history and carbon figure travel with the unit to the buyer.

What the buyer receives

The document,
not the adjective.

"Sustainable" is a word. This is a signed record with an IMEI on it, issued per unit, reproducible from our data at any point afterwards.

Issued per unit, not per shipment One certificate, one IMEI. It travels with the device, not with the invoice.

Carbon figure with its method attached Source data, model, configuration and the calculation are all referenced on the face of it.

Erasure evidence for corporate sellers Standard, date and operator recorded — the part your compliance team actually asks for.

Repair history, stated plainly What was replaced and what was kept. A refurbished device with nothing to hide is worth more.

Device certificateNR-2026-0114-8842

iPhone 13 · 128 GB · Midnight

IMEI 356938035643809 · Grade A

kg CO₂e avoided

Battery health94 %

BatteryReplaced

Diagnostic52 / 52 passed

Cover glassOriginal

Logic boardOriginal

CamerasOriginal

Data erasureCertified

Released14.01.2026

Avoided emissions calculated from the manufacturer's published product environmental report for this model and configuration, less Nordic Refurb's refurbishment footprint. Method reference NR-CM-02. Nordic Refurb OÜ, Tallinn · nordicrefurb.com

Verify

Supply partnerships

Sitting on devices you've written off?

Most refurbishers compete for clean, tested, A-grade stock. We're built for the other end — mixed lots, untested returns, damaged units, end-of-lease fleets. Send the list and you'll get a number back, with the carbon saving quantified alongside it.

Send us a lot list → Request an NDA

Who we work with

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Operators & retailers

Trade-in returns, unsold stock, reverse-logistics overflow

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ITAD & asset disposal

Corporate fleets with certified erasure requirements

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Insurers & warranty

Claim replacements, damaged units, swap-stock residuals

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Leasing & DaaS

End-of-term fleets with residual values agreed up front

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Refurbishers

Overflow, reject grades and the tail of your own lots

Market value

What is your stock actually worth?

Devices written off internally are rarely worth nothing. Pick what you are sitting on and see the consumer market value it still carries — and the carbon that stays out of the atmosphere if it goes back into use instead of into a drawer.

Model

Quantity

Condition

This is market value, not our offer. What we pay sits below it, because between your shelf and a consumer we carry the grading, the repair, the warranty and the risk that a unit does not sell. The gap is the honest part of this business, and we would rather you saw the whole number first.

We also quote on

Untested / mixed lots Trade-in returns End-of-lease fleets Damaged & swap-stock The tail of your own lots

The grades and the leftovers that most refurbishers will not touch are usually the ones we want.

Consumer market value

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Carbon avoided if they go back into use

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Send the list for a firm offer →

Market values are observed consumer retail prices for refurbished units of the stated model and grade, VAT included, and they move week to week. They are an indication of what the stock is worth on the open market — not a price we are offering and not a valuation you should book. A firm, per-IMEI offer requires the actual list.

Get in touch

Let's put a number on your devices.

Placing a lot, retiring a fleet, or looking for a refurbishment partner in the Nordics and Baltics — send the list and we'll come back with a price and a carbon figure.

hello@nordicrefurb.com Supply partnerships