Vodafone and WWF have celebrated reaching their target of collecting one million phones for the planet as part of their wider programme to promote a shift towards a more sustainable circular economy.
The One Million Phones For The Planet campaign has raised £1 million towards international WWF conservation projects focused on addressing the climate and nature crisis, with Vodafone donating £1 for every phone collected.
Launched in November 2022, the campaign encouraged Vodafone customers and the public across Europe and Africa to give up unused phones via trade-in, donation or responsible recycling – supported in 2025 by the playful “We Need The Phones You Don’t” creative featuring animated animals rummaging through homes.
By partnering with WWF, One Million Phones for the Planet made participation simple while reinforcing the environmental value of reuse, recycling and reducing device waste.
Joakim Reiter, Chief External and Corporate Affairs Officer at Vodafone Group said: “Collecting one million phones for the planet shows just how powerful change is possible through small, everyday actions. Our partnership with WWF has turned unused phones into funding for conservation and is a practical example of the circular economy in action. We are incredibly grateful to our customers for backing our campaign with WWF and together showing how technology can help drive a more sustainable future for the planet.”
Tanya Steele, Chief Executive of WWF-UK, said: “Our partnership with Vodafone shows what we can achieve when technology and conservation come together. The One Million Phones for the Planet campaign has helped turn small individual actions into global impact, helping protect wildlife and support communities across Europe and Africa. We want to say a huge thank you to Vodafone customers for supporting this campaign and generating donations which protect wildlife such as tigers, black rhinos and loggerhead turtles and habitats around the world.”
Over the past three years, Vodafone’s support, as part of wider unrestricted funding, has contributed to WWF’s efforts to safeguard species and habitats across vital landscapes, rivers and oceans to support conservation work across Europe and Africa.
UK: WWF has returned oysters and seagrass to the Firth of Forth for the first time in 100 years, training hundreds of volunteers and restoring habitats that improve water quality, reduce erosion and support marine life.
Kenya: WWF is working to improve coexistence between people and wildlife in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, using monitoring technology and interventions to safeguard people’s lives and livelihoods, and protect wildlife such as lions and elephants from retaliation.
Greece: WWF has strengthened Marine Protected Areas, driving an increase in loggerhead turtle nesting and expanding citizen science to support marine conservation and sustainable fisheries.
Germany: WWF is strengthening nature protection laws and supporting rewilding in the Caucasus, including the return of European bison to the region after a century of extinction in the wild.
South Africa: WWF is protecting endangered species, expanding protected land and empowering coastal communities, including relocating black rhinos, growing conservation areas and supporting community led fisheries with mobile enabled digital platforms and AI driven monitoring.
In addition to the impact enabled by these projects, the £1 million raised is supporting WWF’s wider conservation work around the globe. These include:
A new national park established in Colombia’s Serranía de Manacacías National Park, helping secure protection for 30% of Columbia’s land by 2030 and protecting some of the world’s richest biodiversity, including jaguars.
An Earth Engine App developed in Brazil that displays real-time environmental data, such as water temperature, pH levels, and pollutant concentrations, to help mitigate heat and drought impact on river dolphins.
WWF’s conservation efforts have helped wild tiger numbers to increase in several countries, taking their numbers from as few as 3,200 in 2010 to an estimated 5,574 in 2024.
Supporting 327 women in Tanzania with training to promote sustainable fishing practices and protect the rich freshwater biodiversity of the Mara wetlands.
Vodafone’s circular economy approach for mobile devices
Across its international footprint, Vodafone is supporting customers to give mobile phones a longer life cycle through repair and recycling, and, in some markets, through refurbishing and re-selling devices with partners like Recommerce.
Purchasing a refurbished smartphone instead of a new device helps to avoid around 50 Kg CO2e of greenhouse gas emissions. And the climate impact of a refurbished phone is 20% or less that of a newly manufactured smartphone – and removes the need to extract over 70 Kg of raw materials.
Vodafone believes business success should not come at a cost to the environment and is committed to reducing the impact of the company’s activities. Digital connectivity provided by Vodafone’s networks is enabling technology solutions that can help address climate change by saving energy, using natural resources more efficiently and creating a more circular economy.
More widely, Vodafone is working to reduce its environmental impact to reach ‘net zero’ carbon emissions across its full value chain by 2040. Together with our partners, Vodafone is also driving action to reduce electronic waste and increase the proportion of materials recovered during e-waste recycling, to help build a more circular economy for devices and network equipment.
