A brand-new category at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was Outstanding Environmental Contribution, and the first-ever mobile operator to achieve this honour was Nokia.
This was due to the company setting up its first recycling scheme for old or unwanted mobile phones back in 1997, which is now the largest voluntary scheme in the mobile space and runs in 85 countries around the world.
“Environmental sustainability is not just the right thing to do, it is the only thing to do. I have long maintained that doing the right thing for the environment also makes good business sense,” said Nokia’s CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo.
Aside from this, Nokia has also been instrumental in introducing simple but effective power-saving additions to their chargers by adding alerts to remind people to unplug their phone when it is fully charged. This initiative has reduced power consumption by 90pc.
In addition to this, Nokia has made sure that 80pc of all of its devices are completely recyclable, and has begun phasing out the use of harmful materials such as PVC.
Nokia also took top prize at the Mobile World Congress in the category of Best Mobile Internet Service for its Sports Tracker, which was first launched in July 2008 and has clocked up 2.5 million downloads to date.
By Marie Boran
Pictured: the Nokia 8208
