Ethical Laptops

How to find an ethical and environmentally-friendly laptop

In this guide we rank the biggest brands in the laptop market according to their ethical policies and performance, along with other brands which are becoming more available in the UK.

The sector is dominated by a few major companies, with around 50% of UK laptop ownership split evenly between Apple and HP, closely followed by Dell, Acer, then Lenovo. 

The smaller, US-based Framework is something of an outlier in an industry dominated by multibillion-dollar conglomerates, and its fully modular, repairable products have not significantly dented the UK market yet.

However, the repairable design principles that Framework champions are increasingly shaping debates in the industry, and there are signs that major companies are taking some steps in this direction. 

Are there any high scoring ethical laptop brands?

Technology continues to innovate and evolve at apparently exponential rates, yet public distrust in technology companies is perhaps growing even faster. Maybe some of that is due to the lack of movement on many ethical topics.

Although the laptop brands in the guide are not as high scoring as some brands in our other shopping guides, there is a clear difference between those at the top of the list and those at the bottom. Some brands failed to score even 10 points (out of a total of 100), which is seven times less than the brand at the top of the scoretable. 

What makes a laptop sustainable and ethical?

The most sustainable laptop you can buy is a secondhand or refurbished one, but if you do choose to buy new there are some key issues to consider. These include: 

• materials used e.g. conflict minerals, recycled materials, toxic chemicals
• repairability – the vast majority of a laptop or tablet’s carbon footprint comes from its manufacture 
• tax conduct
• workers' rights
• connections with less ethical sectors e.g. fossil fuels, the military

Sustainability extends to end-of-life too – this includes recycling and e-waste. 

We cover all these issues in this ethical shopping guide to laptops.

Where do a laptop's carbon emissions come from?

We might not think of everyday tech as being harmful to the environment, but phones and laptops are produced through complex supply chains and produce emissions at every stage of their lifecycle: resource extraction, multiple stages of manufacture, transportation, usage, and disposal.

The production stages are by far the most carbon intensive of a laptop’s lifecycle, so for individual consumers the key takeaway is to purchase fewer laptops and to get as many years of life from each product as you can.

Higher-quality laptops may have a slightly higher manufacturing footprint, but this is often negated by their longer lifetimes.

Buying refurbished or secondhand will always be the lowest-carbon option.

The carbon footprint of a laptop

The carbon footprint from a year's use of a mid-range MacBook Pro, assuming it lasts 4 years with an average use of three hours/day, has been calculated by writer Mike Berners-Lee as: 

• 83% carbon embodied in the laptop
• 15% network and data centres
• 2% electricity use (data from Mike Berners-Lee's book, How bad are Bananas?)

(see pie chart below)

Is it worth upgrading to a more energy efficient laptop?

Given that over three quarters of a laptop's carbon emissions come from its production, it's not really environmentally friendly to buy a new laptop simply because it is more energy efficient than your current one. 

The efficiency gain will never cancel out the emissions required to produce the new laptop. 

Laptops can last a lot longer than four years – ours at Ethical Consumer are all secondhand and most are at least six years old.

The additional emissions released during refurbishment are minimal in comparison with buying new. Circular IT company Tier1 claims that the carbon savings of refurbishing a device versus buying new are 225kg CO2e per device, a 75% reduction in carbon footprint.

How sustainable are laptops and laptop brands?

Our new tech sustainability rating looks at companies’ approaches to repairability and longevity, and also assesses their use of recycled materials.

Home repairability of laptops

The repairability element of our rating is based on scores from iFixit, which describes itself as “the world’s largest free repair manual” and assesses whether tech products have been designed with repairability in mind.

iFixit takes devices apart to assess their repairability, considering how easy key components are to replace and whether manufacturers provide repair guides. We collected iFixit’s product scores to calculate a mean average score for each company. We supplemented this data with our own research in a few cases, where a company had yet to have any products rated by iFixit.

The highest marks were available for companies that placed repairability at their core, such as Framework, which had an average score of 10/10 on iFixit. 

Apple and Microsoft had the lowest scores, averaging 2.5, and 2.8 on iFixit.

Our overall tech sustainability score reflects a company’s approach to repairability as a whole, so is not necessarily a guarantee that all of its products will be repairable. We’d recommend looking up individual products on the iFixit website.

Campaigning for better repairability of tech equipment

The UK’s ‘Right to Repair’ bill currently only applies to dishwashers, washing machines, washer-dryers, fridges, televisions and electronic displays. But groups like the Restart Project are campaigning to extend its scope and strengthen its regulation.

View the Repair and Reuse Declaration, and find out how to influence your MP via the Restart Project’s website. 

Recycled materials in laptops

We awarded companies up to 30 additional marks based on the amount of recycled materials they were using.

Dell has committed to using 50% recycled content across its products by 2030, with many already containing 20-25% materials. 

Lenovo and Framework both provide percentage breakdowns of material use in their reporting – Framework also makes product life cycle assessments publicly available on its website.

Although Apple fared poorly on repairability and warranties, it has made impressive progress on recycled materials and received the maximum 30 points in this section.

How did laptop companies rate overall for tech sustainability?

Framework scored 100/100 for our tech sustainability category.

The lowest scorer for laptops was HONOR, which failed to gain a single mark. 

Samsung only scored 10/100; Huawei and Xiaomi each managed only 20/100, and Apple and Microsoft scored 30/100.

Where to buy secondhand and refurbished laptops

Back Market provides a marketplace for refurbished technology. It scored well when we rated it in our Ethical Online Retailers guide in 2023, but it's worth noting that the refurbishment is not done in-house – read reviews of individual sellers before you buy.

Tier1 is a business that’s focused on circular IT solutions and offers refurbished tech for businesses and individual consumers.

Are harmful chemicals used in laptops ?

Several substances used in the production of laptops and other electronic devices are known to be toxic to human health and the natural environment. These include polyvinyl chloride (PVC), brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and phthalates.

Phthalates are a group of chemicals often used as a softener in PVC. Over time, they leak out of plastic materials into the surrounding environment and have been linked to a wide range of health problems affecting the liver, kidneys, lungs and reproductive systems.

BFRs and PVC become particularly damaging after a device's disposal, releasing highly toxic and carcinogenic dioxins when burned in incinerators or by workers in informal recycling operations.

What can you do to avoid toxic chemicals in laptops?

Look for the TCO Certified label when sourcing a laptop. This label looks at a range of social and environmental factors in the lifecycle of a product. 

For a product to achieve the TCO Certified label, it must meet numerous criteria relating to both the design and manufacture including criteria on workers’ rights, conflict minerals, hazardous chemicals, user health and safety, durability, and recyclability.

Of the companies featured in this guide, Acer, ASUS, Dell, Lenovo, HP, LG, Microsoft, and Samsung offered some TCO-certified laptops.

You can find a list of TCO-certified products on the TCO Certified website.

How environmentally friendly are laptop brands?

We looked at laptop brands to see what they are doing, or say they will do, about climate issues.

Unfortunately some tech brands are doing very little in this area.

Worst laptop brands for climate: Huawei, Microsoft, and Xiaomi all received 0/100 under our climate category. 

The highest scorers were Framework, ASUS, HP, and Lenovo, which each scored 100/100.

Of these three, ASUS, HP and Lenovo had detailed carbon reporting, thorough discussion of past and future action to cut their emissions, and targets approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). ASUS was on track for its target to reduce suppliers’ carbon intensity figures by 30% between 2019 and 2025, and the company had reduced its overall emissions by 25% since 2019.

Framework lacked this level of reporting detail, but this was to be expected from a smaller company with a turnover of £2.1m compared to HP’s £43.5bn. By designing for repairability, Framework minimises emissions from processing materials like aluminium and steel, and from energy-intensive chip fabrication. The company’s ‘Factory Seconds’ models also minimise the emissions and waste in production.

Are there any alternative ethical laptops available?

In many of our shopping guides there are often a few super-ethical brands and products. 

But unfortunately, the short answer to whether there are any alternative ethical laptop brands is probably ‘not really’. 

The ability of smaller companies to offer genuinely alternative options is limited by bottlenecks and monopolies in the global supply chain. For example, with the exception of Apple, all laptops in this guide use processors made by either Intel or AMD, and the vast majority of laptops on the market are manufactured by a small handful of Taiwan-based original design manufacturers. Just one of these, Quanta Computer, produced over 25% of all the world’s laptops in 2023.

You could argue that tech companies have less direct control over their impacts than say, an oil company directly extracting fossil fuels or a fast-fashion brand outsourcing production to sweatshops. Even alternative brands such as Framework still use Intel processors and chips, and their laptops are manufactured by Taiwan’s Compal Electronic Inc., which also manufactures for brands including Acer, Dell and Lenovo.

But don't despair too much, because as we highlight in other sections of this guide, there are ethical choices which can be made, especially as there are some very low scoring brands in this guide which can be avoided. 

I can buy a fair phone, can I buy a fair laptop?

Fairphone faces ethical challenges in the mobile phones sector, but works directly with suppliers and sub-suppliers to ensure that its industry-leading standards are enforced throughout its supply chain. 

No laptop companies came close to Fairphone on these issues, so there’s no equivalent of a fair trade laptop at this stage.

A German company called Shift is making some promising moves in this space though, for example with workers' rights in its supply chain. It is currently crowdfunding the production of a new modular laptop that prioritises fair working conditions.

Are conflict minerals used in laptops?

All laptops use minerals, commonly referred to as 3TG: tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold. These build the components of laptops, mobile phones and other electronic devices. A large percentage of these minerals are sourced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which has seen low-scale conflict for decades, leading to the term 'conflict minerals'.

Our article on conflict minerals has more detail about the issues involved, including environmental concerns and workers' rights.

How do tech brands rate for workers' rights?

Unfortunately ethical supply chain management in the tech industry is hard to find. Workers’ rights abuses in the supply chains of big tech companies are well documented, whether it be the sourcing of essential materials, or the assembly of electronic devices.

When we are rating brands for their supply chain, we not only look at their policies but also at external reputable and significant reports published within the past five years. 

Many of the smaller companies scored poorly because they lacked suitable policies. Some of the bigger companies had some policies in place but lost marks because we found reports of actual workers’ rights abuses in their supply chain.

Only six companies in this laptop guide scored more than 0/100 for workers' rights. 

However, none of them score more than 20/100 in this category. These, marginally better, brands are: ACER, ASUS, HP, Lenovo, LG, and Samsung. 

A separate article has more detail about workers' rights in the tech industry.

Price comparison of laptops

The more repairable brand Framework, has laptops which currently start at £419 for their ‘Factory Seconds’ DIY models, which are new systems that use excess parts. These do not come with RAM memory, storage, power adaptors, expansion cards or an operating system installed however. The cheapest ‘all-included’ Framework models start at £949.

There are plenty of reasonably high-powered laptops available for under £500. 

ASUS’s TCO-certified Expertbook range start at around £390, and are apparently built for ‘military grade’ durability. Acer’s Chromebook 314 is also TCO certified, and was available for £250 on Curry’s at the time of writing. 

One of the best ways to get value for money of course, is to buy secondhand or refurbished devices, and it often makes financial sense to get a higher spec model that’s a couple of years old rather than a brand new but less powerful model for the same price. Check warranties if buying secondhand or refurbished devices.

Are tech brands paying their fair share of tax?

During the Covid pandemic, the charity Action Aid alleged that poorer countries are missing out on up to £2.2bn in tax revenue a year due to big companies including Google and Microsoft not paying their fair share. In 2024, Apple was ordered to pay Ireland €13bn (£11bn) in unpaid taxes by Europe's top court, with the European Commission accusing Ireland of giving Apple illegal tax advantages.

Tax avoidance is systemic

While companies do have responsibility to ensure they pay the right tax, the problem is also a structural one. In response to the 2024 ruling regarding Apple’s tax debt to Ireland, Tove Maria Ryding, a representative from the European Network on Debt and Development stated:

“our tax problem is more than just one rotten apple ... What we urgently need is a fundamental reform that can give us a tax system that is fair, effective, transparent, and predictable."

Company ethos rating for tech brands

Only six companies managed to score above 0/100 for Company Ethos. 

ACER, ASUS, LG, MSI, and HONOR managed to scrape a mere 10 points, whilst Framework was awarded 50/100. 

All companies bar Framework were marked down for either paying more than £1m in total compensation to their highest-paid director, or for not disclosing their remuneration figures.

A 2020 Greenpeace report highlighted Microsoft for its numerous contracts with oil and gas companies. It is one of our brands to avoid.

Are there any ethical operating systems for laptops?

While there is a range of laptop brands to choose from, there are fewer options when it comes to software that enables computers to run – the operating system (or OS). Broadly speaking, you have four choices of OS to consider for laptops:

1) Microsoft Windows is the most common. It comes pre-installed on most laptops, other than those made by Apple, and has the convenience of being familiar to most users.

2) Apple MacOS only runs on Apple-manufactured machines. It has a reputation for being less error-prone and less vulnerable to security issues than Windows, however, Apple’s machines tend to be expensive and difficult to repair when they break.

3) Google ChromeOS is a more recent addition to the market and is based mainly around the Chrome web browser, and the concept of being more simple and requiring less computing power than the other operating systems. However, it does not have such a range of programmes available to install. Laptops that run ChromeOS are known as Chromebooks.

4) Linux is a free and open-source operating system with a reputation for being powerful and secure. It actually comes in a wide range of ‘distributions’ (forms), which are built on top of the same core components. Linux typically takes a little more technical expertise to install and get to grips with (although this is becoming less true as it evolves). Two popular distributions for casual users and beginners are Ubuntu and Mint, which can be downloaded for free and installed on most computers also capable of running Windows; a great choice for those trying to escape the tyranny of the silicon-valley tech giants! (Plus buying a laptop without an OS saves you money.)

Tablets are typically more limited to the Windows/Apple iOS/Android (developed by Google) triopoly at the moment. Some Linux ports are available for Android and Windows tablets, but these generally require a fair bit of DIY tinkering.