Greentech Lead Europe: Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia is contributing massively to reduce global carbon footprint.
Right from adopting energy-efficient manufacturing technologies to safe disposal/recycling of wastes to implementing energy efficient features in mobile devices, the company is actively engaged in environmental sustainable efforts.
The company continued to focus on the materials used, energy-efficiency, take-back of used products, the overall environmental performance of their activities and the supply chain.
Over the last decade, the greenhouse gas footprint of Nokia phones has been reduced by up to 50 percent. The company’s method of assessing their products’ greenhouse gas footprint has been externally audited.
In 2012, Nokia introduced four new Eco Hero devices, the Nokia 808 Pureview, the Nokia Lumia 610 and 820, and the Nokia Asha 311. These devices comprise multiple functionalities; for instance a digital camera, music player, web browser, navigation, as well as other features. This helps consumers reduce their own environmental footprint and avoid buying, using and charging several separate devices when one device can be used for many different purposes.
Mobile devices can be used for attending meetings and working remotely, reducing the need for travel. Car navigation services help to save fuel by finding the shortest route.
The HERE Transport (HERE Transit in the US) application offers mass transit route planning in hundreds of cities all over the world, demonstrating how mass transit can reduce the impact of travel on the environment.
Nokia also focused on enabling energy efficiency in mobile products. Since 2004 the company has reduced the no-load consumption of their chargers by more than 73 percent, and in their best-in-class chargers by over 90 percent. During 2012, Nokia introduced two new energy efficient USB chargers, the AC-20 and AC-50. Today, all new Nokia devices are shipped with four or five-star chargers.
Although the company has moved in lower price points to more energy efficient chargers we did not fully meet our reduction target for year 2012. The target for the average no-load was 0.07W and we reached 0.098W which is a reduction of 13 percent from last year.
Nokia’s mobile devices and accessories worldwide are fully compliant with the EU Directive on the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EU RoHS), and all national requirements of the same type as RoHS.
The company continued to improve packaging, increasing our use of renewable, paper-based materials to over 95 percent of total packaging materials. These packages are 100 percent recyclable and each part is individually marked with ISO standard recycle markings.
Nokia takes part in collective recycling schemes with other equipment manufacturers in Europe, Canada and Australia. The company also engages in local recycling awareness with retailers, operators, other manufacturers, authorities and various local partners in order to build a recycling culture around the world.
Nokia’s C02 emissions from air travel were 38 500 tons in 2012 which is a 54 percent reduction from 2011. In 2012, Nokia produced a total of 31 400 tons of waste, a 30 percent reduction from 2011.