By Sustainability team
26th June 2009.
13:51
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LCA or Life Cycle Assessments are used to determine the environmental impact of products and services. The whole life cycle shall be taken into consideration and there are standards on how to do a LCA but even so different studies are not directly comparable without a great deal of insight. Selection of system boundries and assumptions influence results of the LCA. I have heard from a person doing LCA as a profession that “LCA is not a science it is an art” and I agree.
In a couple of places there has been comparisons between the C901 GreenHeart and competitor phones. In one article the C901 GreenHeart presented significantly lower CO2 footprint (which in this case definetly is true and flattering) the comparisons is however still not relevant. There are significant differencies in system boundries between these two studies. As soon as you start to present numbers people start to compare and this is one example of risk of presenting numbers from a LCA but at the same time these numbers are crucial for the scale and proportion of the environmental impact of the product.
Independent of the risks LCA is the ultimate tool to focus on right things in your strive to improve from sustainability point of view (environmental side of sustainability). Also bearing limitiations in mind LCA is also marvelous to compare different activities such mobile phone with a trip in your car or drinking water from the tap with water fron a bottle trnsported from far away.
Finally comparing results between two LCA conducted in same database with same scope and assumptions is also a very precise way of preseneting improvements in the way that we have been doing with the GreenHeart phone. Our LCA show that the total impact of a mobile phone is equal to 0.08% of the average person’s CO2, i.e., less than 0.1% of your personal CO2 impact (compared to global average person) comes from your mobile phone. This will be true independent of how your system boundires are selected. Note that in our study it includes materials extraction, production, transport, charging/usage, and waste handling of the phone and accessories inlcuded in the box.
Sony Ericsson sustainability work is all about making sure we introduce maximum environmental improvements. We have no intention to launch any niche “eco” or “green” products or to drive gimmick features that may appear to be environmentally friendly but prove to be the opposite. We will not either compromise on appearance or features.
One feature that we get a lot of questions about are solar cells. We have been evaluating and tracked developments in the area of solar cells for years.
As long as there is no breakthrough in manufacturing or efficiency it is not beneficial to put a solar cell on a phone from environmental point of view. Because:
Current solar cells placed on a phone will, in their life time not generate enough energy to compensate for the energy it took to produce them. They are made out of silicon and to produce them takes a lot of energy.
Current solar cells which are the size of a phone can not replace a charger. The the size vs. efficiency of best cells today makes it impossibe to generate enough energy.
Solar cells in general are however great and we believe that they have a future in mobile industry. In 2008 together with Ericsson we supplied solar charging stations for the Millenium Villages in Africa. These chargers use bigger solar panels with a buffer battery. They can charge 8 phones in parallel and up to 75 phones a day and are intended to be used in a refugee camp, at a school or a health station. This is a very good example on how solar cells are environmentally friendly and work to improve life in areas where energy is a big problem.
There may be several reasons to put a solar cell on a phone but at current state of technology environmental benefit is not one of them.
UPDATE
Just found this video from mobile world congress way back in February but it underlines the point nicely.
thanks to faircompanies for flagging this up
Since the UN report on tantalum was published in 2001 there has been a lot of debate over raw materials extraction and the role mobile phones especially in Congo (DRC).
Let me start by saying that Sony Ericsson welcomes these types of reports and share the concern for the conditions in the whole supply chain. Reports from authorities and organization highlight these topics that are important both to us and to our customers. We also consider this to be part of the GreenHeart work as an integral part of the whole area of sustainability. As part of Ericsson we developed and launched (as far as we know) the first supplier Code of Conduct in electronics industry back in 1998.
Sony Ericsson recognizes that we have responsibility for the whole supply chain. However, it is also true that the further away from a direct relationship the less impact we have. We can influence and work effectively with suppliers who have direct relationship. Sony Ericsson has also several times, in collaboration with first tier suppliers, worked with second as well as third tier suppliers but then mainly when our direct supplier requests support in explaining the issues and educating their suppliers. We are also participating in meetings with different organizations to try to understand and find more general solutions to the problems in the supply chain e.g. latest arranged by Good Electronics in Amsterdam in May (http://goodelectronics.org/)
The situation in Congo is complex and very difficult to influence. There is a wide spread poverty and corruption (144 place out of 155 countries according to Transparency International). Also conflicts and civil war that has been on and off for 50 years. Another problem to get control is traceability i.e. that it is very difficult even impossible to trace origing of metals and other basic elements when they are mixed. We believe that there needs to be industry common programs working together with independent organizations and authorities. This is also why Sony Ericsson has asked for industry common projects to be set up by associations such as GeSI and EICC where our parent companies are members.
To work on a solution for these problems and secure that no breaches to our code are taking place in the supply chain will take time. We are hopeful that knowledge, understanding and trust will lead to lasting change. But, as all change processes we are also aware that there will be positive and negative surprises along the way both at direct suppliers as well as further down the supply chain.
GreenHeart is our way of communicating with society about the whole of Sony Ericsson’s sustainability commitment and engagement. The major part of our impact on society comes through our products this is true both for environmental as well as for societal impact. Because of this we tend to communicate about sustainability more around our products than around our internal activities.
Pretty soon the first GreenHeart products will hit the stores. The whole philosophy around GreenHeart is that we do not compromise on the appearance or quality of the products. The first pioneer products to come to the market are the phone C901 GreenHeart and the headset MH-300 GreenHeart. They come together in minimized packaging without any plastic bags or extra documentation (we are forced to have a small document for legal purposes). Another unique thing is that they are not “ECO” or “green” products. Products are by definition not environmentally friendly but many of them definitely help to improve our society.
We believe that it must be easy to make a greener choice, that people shall not be forced to pick a weird looking product of less quality or with inferior features. The GreenHeart products are well designed products that are technically improved. Further more, what makes them GreenHeart is that they also bring new innovations from a sustainability point of view. When we have introduced the sustainability innovation launched with a GreenHeart then we bring our best innovations into the wider portfolio. This way all Sony Ericsson products have elements of the GreenHeart.
This is not new to Sony Ericsson. This is in fact something we have done since the start of the company. For example already the first Sony Ericsson branded phone – the T68i – was free from brominated flame retardants (BFR) in boards and casings (a set of substances that has been in focus from both authorities and environmental organizations around the world). Then this substance phase out was brought to the wider portfolio and for over three years now all new products launched from Sony Ericsson have been free from BFR in boards and casings.
Now with GreenHeart we will start to talk about our work. On this site we hope to open a platform for communication to answer questions from people interested in sustainability and communication.
C901 GreenHeart
The links below take you through to the official announcements for both the GreenHeartTM strategy and the first two handsets to carry the GreenHeartTM name. (If you’re viewing this on the front page of the site, click on the headline of this post to get the live links.)
In addition to the webcast later today, we wanted to provide people with an opportunity to put their questions and opinions to us in other ways. As part of this, we’ve hooked up with the the guys at ipadio to provide a phonecast which will run throughout the day. To get involved all you have to do is call +4420 3384 2144 (it’s a standard UK number so if you’re calling from outside the UK, there may be extra charges) and enter the pin number 2344. You’ll then be streamed live onto the site.
To hear what other people have been saying check out the player below.
Welcome to the GreenHeartTM launch webcast. If you’re reading this on the front page of the GreenHeartTM webpage, you need to click on the headline to see the webcast player. The player below will go live at 13:00 UK time on Thursday June 4th – you can watch the proceedings live and join in via the text chat below the main video part of the player. Enjoy.
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If you want to view the GreenHeart webcast all you have to do is visit the home page of this site page at 13:00 UK time (GMT +1) and click on the webcast headline, the webcast will automatically go live at the right time. You can watch everything as it happens and join in using the chat window at any time.
If you’d like to host the GreenHeart webcast on your own site, just visit our kyte channel, click the “get & share” button and copy / paste the code into a post / onto your homepage. It will automatically go live and you / your readers will be able to join the live chat with everyone else who is watching.
We want to make it as easy as possible to remember that the GreenHeart webcast is happening so here are a few suggestions:
Follow GreenHeart on Twitter, we’ll send you a message 10 minutes before it starts.
Add the event to your calendar – the link works with most calendars (30 boxes, outlook, google and anything that uses iCal files).
Add the yourself to the event on Upcoming.
Or just text “GreenHeart” to 81025 (texts cost 1 standard network rate text, you will not be charged when we text you) and we’ll send you a reminder beforehand.
Back in September last year we announced the introduction of something we called our “environmental warranty” which is a commitment to recycle phones which are handed in at designated Sony Ericsson collection points. We also showed a prototype environmentally friendly phone GreenHeartTM. Since then, we’ve applied key learnings from the development of the prototype and have fed these innovations to new products under development. The concept of GreenHeart has grown within the company and represents our commitment to bring to market more environmentally friendly products.
Soon, we’ll be announcing the first commercial handsets to have benefited from that process and will be supporting this online with an interactive video webcast on Thursday 4th of June, at 13:00 UK time. Stay tuned for more information on about how to link into the webcast and the spokespeople you’ll be able to address your questions to on the live interactive Q&A.