Great tech shouldn’t cost us the Earth.
We set up reboxed with one thing in mind – to fight e-waste the worlds fastest growing waste stream, It’s our entire reason for being. We want to change not just the way people buy and sell tech, but their whole mindset.
We know we can’t do that alone. And we don’t pretend to have all the answers. We want to collaborate with other like-minded partners to create positive, meaningful change.
Our circular business model – rehome, rebox, repeat – isn’t just designed to give our members better value, but make a positive impact on the environment and society.
And above all, we want to be a force for a good in the world.
From the joy of unboxing. To the joy of reboxing.
Consumer electronics is one of the world’s most polluting industries. That’s because it’s a linear system: buy it, bin it, buy it, bin it. It’s a throwaway approach that encourages and rewards people to upgrade long before they actually need to – and little to no incentives to re-sell.
Millions of mobiles end up going to waste every year -– lying unloved in drawers long before their time, before eventually ending up in landfill. And every single one of those devices has taken precious earthly materials to create, at great cost to the environment and local communities. Just one iPhone X will create 79kg of CO2 in its lifetime, roughly the same as burning 9 gallons of petrol. And 80% of those emissions happen before it’s even left the factory.
Our five-point plan to a greener future.
1. Measure
We know the carbon footprint of our products because Apple themselves publish those figures in their environmental reports. They measure the carbon of everything from the raw materials to end of life. And according to their reports, the average lifetime CO2 emissions for the iPhone X is 79kg – roughly the same as burning 9 gallons of petrol. And 80% of those come from the manufacturing process. So every time we rebox and rehome a phone, we reduce its footprint dramatically.
2. Reduce
Every time we rebox a phone, we’re already helping reduce both waste and carbon. But we also plant 10 trees every time we buy or sell a phone, to help offset even more CO2. You can track how many trees we’ve planted here. And we also pay to offset each phone’s lifetime CO2 emissions, which helps to fund a whole range of projects to reduce waste and CO2 emissions. Our goal is to try and make every phone we rehome not just carbon neutral, but carbon positive if we can.
3. Reuse
At reboxed, we don’t want you to buy more. We want you to buy less. We want to help you make better choices and keep your device for two, three, or even five years before you need a new model. So we reward you and the planet for every time you rehome or refresh your reboxed device.
And when you’re well and truly ready for an upgrade, we guarantee to buy yours back off you for the best price and rehome it again. You can even re-use the same box we sent it in to return it.
4. Recycle
We’d love to rehome every phone, but some can’t be saved. If a phone can’t be reboxed, we’ll safely wipe all the data from it and send it to our recycling partner, so we can save more precious materials and take less from the earth.
On top of that, our packaging is made from recycled SGS approved-paper, wherever possible. And our phone case is 100% biodegradable, saving 1kg of plastic for every 10 phones we sell.
5. Offset
We believe that we – and all businesses, really – should be held accountable for our environmental impact. So until we reach our goal of being carbon neutral, we’re taxing ourselves for the carbon we do emit.
Our self-imposed Earth tax, 1% for the Planet, helps fund environmental non-profits working to protect our air, land, and water around the globe. That’s on top of offsetting the carbon emission for every reboxed phone we sell.
Committed to doing better.
We're a registered to B-Corp (a ‘Better Corporation’); an alliance of companies that believe businesses should be a force for good.
We see the environment as a stakeholder here, and how we treat it is just as important as our bottom line. Being a B Corp encourages us to take a step back and see how we can build circularity into every part of our business.
Making an impact, inside and out of the box.
Unfortunately, we don’t actually make what we sell. But we hold our partners (and ourselves) to the highest social standards and have our own in-house checklists to make sure we’re always making socially responsible decisions.
We’re developing our social responsibility program right now and look forward to announcing some key commitments to the local community and our workforce very soon. Watch this space.
Anything else you want to know?
Any bright ideas or potential partnerships you want to discuss?
