By SE Sustainability team
14th February 2012.
12:26
Tag Archives: carbon footprint
This is one of the things that you can read about in our brand new 2011 Sustainability report just published on our website. In the report you will find more information about our GreenHeart™ credentials, how we work with critical substances, our carbon footprint, Lifecycle Analysis, Community Engagement activities and much more.
Today Greenpeace released the 17th version of its Guide to Greener Electronics. In the guide they have ranked 15 manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones and TVs according to the following categories; Energy and Climate, Greener Products and Sustainable Operations. Sony Ericsson was ranked 6th place, scoring 4.2 out of 10, placing us at the top amongst the Android™ smartphone players.
In this edition, Greenpeace has changed the scoring system, introduced tougher requirements and updated many criteria. New criteria were also added, raising the bar for the manufacturers. Overall, the new ranking has stronger focus on energy and climate issues. (more…)
Had the pleasure to participate in the presentation of the O2 report “tomorrows workspace” in the House of Commons this morning. My key take out was that by working with people and attitudes O2 managed to show that telecom and IT can improve the work environment, reduce environmental impact and improve work life balance for the people embracing flexible working.
Get inspired by the report and start to influence your own company to become a true 21st century office. Interesting enough on this web page (not linked to O2) there is a community where you can download an app to measure your own work impact, share results and good ideas.
I read an interesting article at Good about the difficulty of labeling also trying to educate on how to interpret labels. If it is difficult to understand a label on a “simple” product like skin lotion then how difficult would it not be to have it on a mobile phone?
We get the question why can you not have a label on the mobile phone for carbon footprint, or substances or why not Fairtrade. The complexity of electronic products and their supply chain makes it virtually impossible to have 100% control of the situation and status of all suppliers and their sub suppliers. To compare products based on a label without the possibility to provide full guarantees neither from the manufacturer nor from the one issuing the label creates great risks. The difficulty to get comparable data has been described on this blog before.
If we can get credible comparable data then we have the second question. What is most important energy or unwanted substances or is it the working conditions in the factory?
There are attempts to create labels for mobile phones and I hope the challenges will be possible to overcome. It is not easy to be a consumer but if we create more labels will it become easier or more difficult…..
Hi there. As some of you may have noticed in earlier blog post about climate goals, Sony Ericsson’s targets are based on absolute values rather than intensity based. The difference is that intensity targets define a reduction of emissions in relation to some other indicator, for example sales, while an absolute target define a pure level of emission reductions.
There is an ongoing debate about what type of target is to be preferred. An absolute target guarantees a real reduction of a particular quantity of GHGs, is more transparent and easier to evaluate for a third party, but it does not allow comparisons of GHG efficiency and it may reward companies for reducing its emissions even as a result of declining production. On the other hand, an intensity target reflect a company’s GHG performance independent of production output, but does not guarantee that the emissions of GHGs to the atmosphere will actually be reduced.
At Sony Ericsson, we chose to set absolute targets because we don’t think nature cares about how many phones we sell, or how much money we make. Nature cares about how much carbon we emit!
But to make it super clear for everyone, we will also let you know how we’re performing in relation to sales and production. That way, you can have the cake and eat it too. Enjoy!
More and more companies are recognizing that they have a responsibility to minimize the impact that their products and operations have on our climate. So do we at Sony Ericsson. In 2008 we decided to revise or climate related goals so that they not only include emission reductions from Sony Ericsson’s own operation, of which we are in control. Now they also include emissions from life cycle stages beyond Sony Ericsson’s sphere of influence. To reach that goal, we need to collaborate with our suppliers and customers, and influence them to also make reductions. Working together, both upstream and downstream the supply chain, is the only way if you substantially want to reduce the environmental impact of a product.
Emission distribution on mobile phone life cycle stages
So, Sony Ericsson’s goals are to:
- By 2015 reduce the total greenhouse gas emissions from Sony Ericsson’s internal activities with 20 % (base year 2008)
- By 2015 reduce the total greenhouse gas emissions from the full life cycle of Sony Ericsson’s products with 15% (base year 2008)
Are you curious about how we are doing so far? Since our goals are based on 2008 years performance, 2009 is the first year with a full follow up of these targets. The results will be communicated in our Sustainability report which is to be released very soon.
So stay tuned, and I’ll keep you updated on how Sony Ericsson is performing when it comes to cutting carbon!