Mobile phone companies rated "greenest" in Greenpeace studyAt least a handful of "green" handsets were unveiled in the last three quarters. While most of these devices are still concepts or prototypes, their growing numbers compared with previous years point to a rising interest in environmentally friendly solutions.
Green is the new black In Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics released last month, Nokia was ranked as the greenest company due to the success of its take-back program for used phones as well as providing information to users on what to do with their discarded devices. Samsung garnered second position and performed relatively well on all criteria, while Sony Ericsson scored third for its toxic chemical management, let down only by a weak score on waste and recycling issues. Among the key phone-makers, LG's position dived (from 4th to 11th place) after delaying its commitment to remove PVCs and BFRs from all its products including TVs and monitors by end 2010. Now, only mobile phones will be free of these toxic substances from 2010. The study, begun in 2006 and updated every few months, ranks electronics companies based on their toxic chemicals and recycling policies, as well as how they deal with electronic waste and climate change. Agreeing on a common standardWhile this gives an estimate scale of how green a company is, it's worth noting that there is still no one agreed standard involving environmental and carbon footprint issues.Greenpeace International Toxics campaigner Tom Dowdall told CNET Asia in an email that there are several standards out there, among which is the widely used Greenhouse Gas Protocol for reporting a company's overall carbon emission. According to Dowdall, the carbon disclosure project started out in the US and Europe, with Asia including Japan and Korea recently joining the fold. Japan, for example, follows a different set of standards. He added that as there is no universal standard for measuring the actual carbon footprint of mobile phones in use, a gap exists between what is claimed and the effectiveness of these claims of cutting emissions from products in their lifecycle. The push for green handsets and a universal chargerAccording to Juniper Research, global shipment of green handsets may reach 485 million units by 2014.However, this will happen gradually over the next few years. Principal analyst at Juniper Research Dr. Windsor Holden, who is the lead author for the "Green Mobile Handsets & Applications: Strategies, Scenarios & Forecasts 2009-2014" paper said: "With manufacturers only now beginning to introduce green handsets, shipment volumes are relatively low in all cases. Moving forward, we should not expect to see production lines of completely green phones, but a gradual move to introducing green elements throughout devices." At the Las Vegas-based Consumer Electronics Show in January this year, Motorola announced the W233 Renew made of recycled water bottles and claimed that it's the world's first carbon-neutral phone. The size of the packaging has been reduced and in-box materials are printed using vegetable-based inks on recycled paper. A postage-paid envelope is thrown in so the user can return his previous handset for recycling.
Did you know:
A mobile phone has a carbon footprint of 23.5kg CO2 equivalents. This works out to a 150km drive in family car.
--Sony Ericsson Life Cycle Assessment of the W890i Walkman, 2008.
A month later at Barcelona's Mobile World Congress, LG and Samsung unveiled handsets with solar panels. When exposed to sunlight for 10 minutes, the solar panel on the back cover of the LG phone will generate enough power for a 3-minute call. The Samsung Blue Earth, on the other hand, takes about 15 hours to fully charge utilizing only the solar panel on the rear of the device. While specific technical details were scant back then, eco-friendly handsets were one of the talking points at the annual tradeshow. LG and Samsung weren't the only companies showing off solar-powered handsets at the event. Chinese manufacturer ZTE, too, launched a model of its own called the Coral-200-Solar. In June, Sony Ericsson announced two eco-friendly phones, the C901 GreenHeart and Naite. Nokia, the world's largest handset manufacturer, too, has shown off eco prototypes such as the 3110 Evolve (2007) and Remade (2008). While the overall numbers are not big, we are definitely seeing more of such phones being pushed into the limelight. On a more concerted scale, 17 major phone-makers and mobile operators agreed on using the micro-USB interface for handset chargers. This announcement was made a year-and-a-half later after members of the Open Mobile Terminal Platform said they would use the same connector as a common charger interface. The lapse was apparently due to the need to "toughen up the interface specification for regular mobile phone use". The initiative, driven by GSMA, will see the light of day worldwide come 2012. The mobile trade body also aims to reduce standby energy consumption by 50 percent with energy-efficient chargers. Vendor-driven green initiativesSeveral companies have embarked on initiatives geared toward environmental sustainability, from Sony Ericsson's GreenHeart to Nokia's we:recycle and LG's Life's Good When It's Green.In a snapshot, Sony Ericsson plans to reduce greenhouse gas emission company-wide by 20 percent before 2015 and 15 percent for the entire lifecycle of its products. Nokia, on the other hand, aims to remove brominated and chlorinated compounds and antimony trioxide from all its devices from 2010, as well as increase its use of renewable energy by 50 percent in the same year. Although LG did an about turn on its commitment to remove PVCs and BFRs from all its products by 2010, the decision stays on track for its mobile phones. According to Samsung, it is the only Asian company included in the Carbon Disclosure Leadership index, a report by the not-for-profit organization Carbon Disclosure Project. The Korean outfit aims to improve its energy efficiency by 40 percent over the next five years. It will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the product use phase by 84 million tons and greenhouse gas emissions by 2013, according to Irene Ng, director for Strategic Marketing, Samsung Asia, in an email to CNET Asia. Telco operators' stakeMobile phone manufacturers aren't alone in their green campaigns. Telco operators play an equally important role.A check with the three service providers in Singapore--MobileOne, SingTel and StarHub--revealed that the trio resell handsets which are traded off to second-hand retailers. "Currently, as per industry practice, we work with a third-party contractor for refurbishment and/or safe disposal of handsets traded in to StarHub", a StarHub spokesperson told CNET Asia via email. "We trade in old phones to a distributor which will 'recycle' these phones by refurbishing them and exporting them to other countries. We are also keen to explore the possibility of introducing 'green phones' when handset manufacturers are ready to introduce them in Singapore", SingTel said in an email response Higher up the chain on a government level, Dowdall noted that there's generally less regulation in Asia Pacific compared with Europe, with the exception of Japan. So government influence has a lesser impact on the green programs by the key mobile phone makers. Moving forwardIn the final analysis, there's still work to be done before mobile phone makers will commit fully to a green solutionAccording to Dowdall, some makers have yet to phase out toxic substances and all phone-makers need to improve on their very low reuse and recycling rates. For example, "the universal charger concept should be adopted by all makers to cut down the massively wasteful production of one charger for every new phone. "The biggest challenge is for all makers to move away from products designed for a short-term lifespan and produce longer-lasting, more upgradeable phones", Dowdall added. A shorter replacement cycle for handsets, coupled with a fashion accessory mentality that goes out of style every year, presents the biggest challenge for the entire industry. Tags: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Greenpeace, Cell Phone, Nokia Corp., Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications
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