How start-up Mint Innovation is mining scrap gadgets for gold | World Economic Forum

It also estimated that, by 2040, carbon emissions from the production and use of electronics, including devices like PCs, laptops, monitors, smartphones and tablets (and their production) will reach 14% of total emissions.

Its unique hub-based approach – launched this September – is designed to prioritize circular innovation while fostering communities that allow innovators from around the world to share ideas and solutions. Emerging innovators from around the world can connect and work together ideas and solutions through the UpLink, the Forum’s open innovation platform.

“Globally, society only deals with 20% of e-waste appropriately and there is little data on what happens to the rest, which for the most part ends up in landfill, or is disposed of by informal workers in poor conditions,” the Forum says.

Changes in technology such as cloud computing and the internet of things – the world of connected devices – could hold the potential to “dematerialize” the electronics industry, the report finds.