Green Company OF The Year : Green Champs

Ever imagined that your handset-that seems inseparable from you-can continue
to exist in some other form, even after it conks off? It can-courtesy green
practices adopted by the telecom industry the world over. The industries have
begun spotting a business case in sporting a green heart. Nokia's green movement
has earned it several accolades on international platforms. With VOICE&DATA's
Green Company of the Year Award 2009, the handsets manufacturer has added a new
green leaf to its success story.

The Finnish manufacturer is a market leader in the Indian handsets space.
Thus it comes as an unsaid responsibility that the company should make efforts
to reduce the environmental impact of its products, solutions, and operations.
The company moved into this calendar year with an aspiration of achieving
environmental leadership, which includes minimizing its own environmental
footprint. With the expansion of mobile communications, this becomes all the
more important. Hence, Nokia is striving to reduce its environmental impact. It
is also collaborating with suppliers across the world to improve the
environmental performance of the supply chain.

Nokia says its approach is to continuously improve its environmental
sustainability in all its work. Hence, it has designed its environmental
activities around life-cycle thinking, which means adopting the following
measures:

• Using approved, tested, and sustainable materials and substances in its
  products
• Improving the energy efficiency of devices, applications, and enhancements
  including chargers
• Develop smaller and smarter packaging
• Involve the people who use Nokia phones via eco-software and services and
  recycling

Before running a pilot of the take-back project in India, beginning January,
the company had conducted a consumer survey covering 6,500 respondents in
thirteen countries, including India. It showed that despite the fact that people
on an average have each owned around five phones, very few of these are being
recycled once they are no longer being used. Only 3% said they had recycled
their old phones. Instead the majority-44%-of the respondents have simply kept
their old phones at homes which are never being used. Others said that they are
giving their mobile phones another life in different ways such as passing on to
friends or family or selling them.

Globally, half of those surveyed, didn't know that phones could be recycled.
Awareness levels are lowest in India at 17% and Indonesia at 29%, and highest in
the UK at 80% and 66% in Finland and Sweden.

The company says the nationwide rollout of the take-back campaign is a
reaffirmation of its commitment in protecting the environment and encouraging
customers to inculcate responsible mobile waste management practices. The
campaign aims to increase awareness of the concept of recycling. If people no
longer need their mobile devices, they can bring it back to Nokia for recycling
and it can put it to good use. 100% of the materials in the phones can be
recovered and used to make new products or generate energy.

The pilot began in cities of Bengaluru, Delhi, Gurgaon, and Ludhiana. The
program was supported through a consumer awareness campaign in the print media,
radio, and through resident welfare associations that created visibility on the
concept and urged people to recycle phones that were no longer in use. The
campaign received a tremendous response from the public and collection exceeded
three tonnes of waste including 10,000 handsets within the first forty-five days
of its launch.

From July onwards, the campaign was to be rolled out in Chennai, Coimbatore,
Hyderabad, Pune, Ahemdabad, Mumbai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Bhuvneshwar, Chandigarh,
Jaipur, and some other places. Recycling bins have already been placed at over
1,300 Nokia Priority Dealers and Nokia Care Centers nationally. For planting
saplings, Nokia has signed agreements with Ahimsa, Chennai and Rotary Bengaluru
Midtown to plant in these two cities; and will explore similar partnerships
across the country.

Nokia believes better mobile waste management will contribute to a greener
tomorrow for people around the world. According to a study by Nokia, if every
Nokia user across the world recycled just one unused phone at the end of its
lifecycle, together it would save nearly 80,000 tonnes of raw materials.

All new Nokia devices are free of PVC, lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent
chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB), and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE).
Starting from 2010, the list will also include all brominated and chlorinated
compounds and antimony trioxide.

On the packaging side, during the years of 2006-08, Nokia has been reducing
much of the packaging size and also used recycled materials in those. By only
doing this, the company has been able to reduce the use of paper based materials
by almost 1,00,000 tonnes which equals not only the savings of 474 mn in costs
including paper based materials and transportation, but it has also been able to
take at least 12,000 truck loads off the road. Accessories packaging has been
developed to reduce 60% of the amount of plastic used. Cardboard in packaging
has been made thinner and more recycled materials are being used.

Nokia also launched a unique SMS campaign wherein customers can get to know
about the nearest Nokia mobile waste collection point by simply sending an SMS
'Green' to 55555 from their handsets.

Also, the company is supporting 'Lighting a Billion Lives' (LaBL) initiative
of TERI. The campaign aims to bring light into the lives of 1 bn rural homes by
replacing the kerosene and paraffin lanterns with solar lighting devices.

All these initiatives are only some yards covered of the multi-mile journey,
and the company must quicken its steps as other players in the industry have
woken to the priority of saving the planet. Unfortunately, most of the
initiatives are focused on developed countries. The Government of India has
expressed its commitment to support green measures. It is important that
companies tailor their plans in a way that consumers can see some tangible
benefit in putting their old gadets in recycle bins.

Heena Jhingan

heenaj@cybermedia.co.in