Sustainable development

Adds: data centres, making devices, cooling water. Saves: journeys, heating, wasted generation.

Variable output cannot be scheduled, so balancing supply and demand needs continuous measurement and control.

Cheaper per use produces more uses, so a saving per use is not a saving overall — judge on the total.

Device lifetime and grid balancing. Individual behaviour is talked about most and measures least.

Take, make, use, discard — the default every device follows unless something intervenes.

Rank by how close each gets to the making stage, because that is where the footprint is.

Support ends, batteries are glued in, parts are unavailable, and repair is tied to the manufacturer.

It acts after the emissions have already happened — it reduces the next build rather than preventing this one.

It is labelled as working second-hand goods, and a share of it genuinely is working.

People who strip and burn devices by hand — they never owned them and gained nothing from them.

It is the one party the exporting country can reach, because it sells into that market and wants to continue.

The record follows the device, so relabelling waste as working goods no longer breaks the chain.