Developing a parametric model for Life Cycle Assessment of digital displays

The ICT sector has seen a rapid increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, rising by 30% over four years, accounting for 3,4% of global emissions in 2023. Given its growing environmental footprint, it is crucial to better assess and quantify these impacts, in order to then reduce them. At the core of IT devices are key sub-components such as wafers and display panels. Their environmental impact is significant. For instance, the display contribute to 28% of a laptop's total footprint (according to ResilioDataBase). However, due to industrial secrecy, an accurate evaluation of their footprint remains challenging. Currently, only one comprehensive and robust Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for display technologies (LCD and CRT) is available in the literature, but it was published over 20 years ago and is now outdated. This study aims to characterize the environmental impact of LCD and OLED screens throughout their life cycle and model them using a parametric LCA approach (excluding end-of-life), following the PEF 3.0 methodology. Sensitivity analyses highlighted that screen size is a critical factor influencing both manufacturing and usage impacts, while resolution significantly affects energy consumption during use. To better understand the repartition of the footprint, a case study was conducted using the parametric model. The results indicate that impacts are distributed between manufacturing and usage, with a slight predominance of manufacturing. The study also provides recommendations for improving the parametric model, particularly adapting it for OLED manufacturing, which was not possible within this study. One key takeaway is the need for further research to conduct an LCA on the production of core materials, liquid crystals for LCD and organic layers for OLED.