Sustainability has become one of the defining promises of modern consumer technology. Companies highlight recycled materials, carbon-neutral operations, renewable energy, and environmentally friendly packaging. These initiatives matter, but they also raise a fundamental question: If a product is designed to be replaced after just a few years, can it truly be called sustainable?
Too often, sustainability is measured by how products are made while overlooking what happens after they leave the factory. We celebrate manufacturing improvements yet accept an industry model that encourages consumers to replace perfectly functional devices long before they've reached the end of their useful life. I believe this is one of the biggest blind spots in sustainability today.
The world generated a record 62 million metric tons of electronic waste in 2022, according to the United Nations [1]. That's enough to fill more than 1.5 million garbage trucks. Yet only about 22% of that waste was formally collected and recycled. Much of it wasn't discarded because products stopped working or became obsolete. It was discarded because they stopped being supported.
Across consumer technology, software updates end, batteries become difficult to replace, repair options disappear, new models make older ones feel outdated, and older models intentionally work slower. Phone manufacturers, in particular, have normalized profit-driven product cycles that force replacement every three or five years, even when existing devices remain capable of meeting consumers' everyday needs.
The result is what we call profit-driven waste: the unnecessary disposal of functional products because manufacturers and shareholders favors forced-replacement over longevity.
The environmental cost extends far beyond landfills. Modern electronics depend on finite resources such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper, gold, and rare earth elements. Every unnecessary replacement drives additional mining, manufacturing, transportation, and disposal. Research from the European Environmental Bureau estimates that extending the average smartphone's lifespan by just one year across the European Union would reduce carbon emissions by approximately 2.1 million metric tons annually, roughly equivalent to removing nearly one million cars from the road [2].
That statistic points to an important truth: one of the most effective sustainability strategies isn't just producing more "green" products, it's also favoring longevity over forced replacement.
At IQAir, this philosophy has fundamentally shaped how we approach product design.
When we developed our Atem Earth and Atem Eco air purifiers, our goal wasn't simply to reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing. We wanted to reduce the environmental impact of ownership over decades.
That meant asking different questions. How can we reduce plastic without compromising durability? How can we minimize energy consumption throughout a product's lifetime? How can we make products repairable instead of disposable? And perhaps most importantly, how can we build products customers won't need, or want, to replace after only a few years?
The answers influenced every stage of development.
Atem Earth uses 30% less plastic than conventional air purifiers through a more efficient design and sustainably sourced beech wood housing. Its frameless filter design reduces filter waste by up to 80%. The purifier operates using as little as 4 watts of electricity at low speed and only 50 watts at maximum performance, significantly reducing energy consumption over years of continuous operation.
Perhaps most importantly, both Atem Earth and Atem Eco are designed with a 25-year repairability guarantee. Rather than assuming products will eventually become disposable, we engineered them to remain serviceable and operational for decades.
To us, that is what sustainability looks like.
This philosophy isn't limited to air purifiers. It represents an opportunity for the entire consumer technology industry.
Imagine if more companies measured success not by how frequently customers upgraded, but by how long their products remained useful. Imagine if repairability became as important as processing power. Imagine if software support reflected the physical lifespan of the hardware instead of marketing cycles. Imagine if a product’s useful life became one of the industry's primary environmental goals.
Consumers are already moving in this direction. Around the world, they're placing greater value on durability, repairability, and long-term reliability. Policymakers are responding with Right to Repair legislation and eco-design requirements that encourage longer product lifespans and easier maintenance.
The future of sustainable technology won't be defined solely by recycled materials or carbon accounting. Those efforts matter, but they address only part of the equation.
The next generation of sustainable products will be those designed to stay in homes longer, consume less energy over their lifetime, use fewer raw materials, remain repairable, and reduce the need for replacement altogether.
In other words, sustainability should no longer be measured only by how products are made. It should be measured by how long they last.
As an industry, we have become very good at greenwashing and talking about sustainability. The harder challenge is designing products that genuinely reduce consumption over decades instead of a handful of years.
At IQAir, we believe that's the standard consumers should expect from every technology company.
Because the greenest product isn't necessarily the newest one.
It's the one that's still doing its job 25 years later.
