What's the carbon footprint of... a mobile phone

The GSM Association of mobile operators and manufacturers employed the Climate Change Group to look at this exact question to benchmark the current footprint of the industry.

They calculated that the industry as a whole used 245 Million Tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2009 based on the 4,600 Million users; equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions of the Netherlands.
So each user has a footprint of 55 Kg of carbon per annum; most of this (84%) going on the power for the networks' masts and operations, the rest on the handsets.
The good news is that the mast technology is becoming more efficient and more networks are sharing masts so the carbon footprint per consumer is coming down.
By showing this matters to you we can bring further pressure to bear on the changes we would like to see.
GSM Green Manifesto http://www.gsmworld.com/documents/mobiles_green_manifesto_11_09.pdf