Companies come together to reduce the environmental impact of using mobile phones

COLLAB distinguished with the APDC / Siemens Innovation Award

A group of companies led by Nokia have come together to help reduce the environmental impacts of their products, throughout their life cycle. The initiative is part of a broader project by the European Commission and brings together equipment manufacturers, network operators, suppliers, environmental organizations and recycling companies around one objective: to increase the environmental performance of mobile phones and to play a more active role in recycling.

In addition to Nokia, the partnership includes companies such as Motorola, Panasonic Mobile Communications, France Telecom / Orange, Vodafone, TeliaSonera, Intel, Epson, Spansion and Umicore that join environmental and consumer organizations. Most manufacturers and operators already had their own environmental programs but are now expanding the scope with this initiative.

The group will carry out a set of initiatives in several areas that contribute to reducing the environmental impacts of using mobile equipment. In the area of ​​energy consumption, companies have agreed to equip mobile phones with warning devices that go off whenever the phone connected to the mains is fully charged.

According to calculations by the manufacturers, even though only 10 percent of the world population with a cell phone respects the signal and deactivates the charger when the warning sounds, this will be enough to generate energy in one year to supply 60,000 European homes for the same period of time.

In the case of Nokia, the first devices with this functionality will hit the market in the middle of next year, a policy that will be followed by the other manufacturers involved.

Eliminating the use of potentially hazardous materials is another of the commitments made by companies, as well as intensifying efforts to increase the recycling and return rates of end-of-life equipment.

In this field, the objective is to analyze the main recycling programs in force all over the world, a task that will unfold over the next two years, simultaneously with the design of new incentive programs for devolution to be implemented in several countries.

Companies are also committed to providing more information to consumers about the environmental performance of equipment, so that they can make more informed choices. The first step will be to investigate and understand what information is of interest to the consumer, to make it available later.

Related News:

2006-08-30 – Dell and Nokia lead the ranking of manufacturers with greater environmental care