The annual Nokia World conference held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands earlier this month saw the Finnish company outlining its long heritage in addressing environmental issues in the mobile industry.

Nokia Corp’s president and chief executive officer Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said the company has been at the forefront of driving environmental initiatives for more than a decade and is committed to drive new initiatives in the mobile industry in areas such as energy efficiency, materials used in products, recycling and packaging.

“We believe that it makes good business sense to consider the environment in the way we work, engage employees, create our products and manage our operations. In this way, environmental work is integrated across our business activities and is a part of our company culture.

“We look at the environmental impact of our products and operations at each stage; from the materials used, the energy consumed, and how products can be safely recycled at the end of their life,” Kallasvuo said in his keynote address at the event.

Words into action. According to Kallasvuo, 65 to 80 per cent of a Nokia mobile phone can now be recycled.

“We have collection points for recycling used mobile phones and accessories in 85 countries and engage in collection campaigns with retailers, operators, other manufacturers and local authorities around the world,” he said adding that the company works with qualified recyclers around the world to ensure proper end-of-life treatment of used devices.

On the energy-saving front, Nokia has been working on ways to reduce this.

“Two thirds of the energy consumed by a mobile phone during its usage is lost when the phone is fully charged and unplugged but the charger is left connected to the mains – “no-load” mode. Over the last nine years, we have reduced by 90 per cent the amount of no-load energy used by our best-in-class chargers. In May 2007, we became the first mobile manufacturer to put alerts into phones encouraging people to unplug their chargers,” said Kallasvuo.

Nokia began with three new mass market phones and the alerts will be rolled out across the product range. The power that could be saved globally by all Nokia phone users unplugging their chargers when no longer needed is equivalent to enough energy to power 100,000 average-size European homes.

“Our newest chargers go beyond the Environmental Protection Agency (US) energy efficiency targets, using up to 94 per cent less energy than its Energy Star requirements, and also meet the highest European Union standards. During 2003 to 2006, we improved the energy efficiency of Nokia facilities around the world reducing the amount of energy we use by 3.5 per cent.”

Nokia aims to reduce no load power consumption (the power wasted when a charger is left in a live power socket) by a further 50 per cent by 2010 with the best-in-class chargers using close to zero.

On the physical side. To monitor all substances in the production of a device, Nokia identifies all of the materials that go into Nokia products rather than just focusing on what is not put into them.

Nokia’s first phone to be compliant with new European legislation Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances (RoHS) outlawing the use of certain materials – the Nokia 5140i – was on the market a year before the new law came into force. The company has removed PVC from all its mobile phones.

“In Feb 2006, we created smaller packaging that uses 54 per cent less materials. By end of 2007, we would have shipped 250 million phones using this compact packaging, resulting in 5,000 fewer trucks being needed to distribute our products around the world and creating financial savings of €100 million (RM480 million),” said Kallasvuo.

Accessories packaging has been developed to reduce by 60 per cent the amount of plastics used and cardboard in packaging has been made thinner and more recycled materials used.

Nokia continues to invest in research to find increasingly environmental-friendly materials and investigate ways to remove other substances from its products. The Nokia 3110 Evolve launched at Nokia World 2007 is the latest in a series of environmental initiatives from the company.

Nokia 3110 Evolve is a mobile device with bio-covers made from more than 50 per cent renewable material. The device is presented in a small package made of 60 per cent recycled content and it comes with Nokia’s most energy-efficient charger yet, using 94 per cent less energy than the Energy Star requirements.

Environmental goals – the future. Kallasvuo said Nokia is looking to the future, setting new and ambitious goals for its products and the way it does business.

“We are also continuing to invest in finding new and innovative ways that mobile technologies and applications can deliver environmental benefits to help us reduce our footprint.

“We are working to make it easier for people to safely recycle their phones by providing more information and building access to collection points in all of the markets where we do business,” Kallasvuo said.

On its part, Nokia currently uses 25 per cent green electricity in its facilities and have a global target to increase this to 50 per cent in 2010.

“From 2003 to 2006 we made energy savings in our facilities around the world of 3.5 per cent. We are targeting further progress in this area, aiming to achieve cumulative savings during 2007 to 2012 of five to eight per cent of our annual facilities energy consumption.”

By end of next year, Nokia we will have rolled out state-of-the-art video conferencing facilities in more than 100 office locations around the world. The company is are also increasing remote working and providing more eco-efficient ways for people to travel into work.