Opinion Sur Joven

Many times they’re seen as two opposites; they seem to run in parallel directions, and if their ways meet they apparently destroy each other. Technological breakthroughs and environment care tend to be distant from each other in people’s minds: the more products are artificially created with natural resources, the more we destroy the ecosystem. But that’s not always the case.

Some countries’ laws and many societies’ awareness are gradually forcing companies to modify their manufacturing processes to make them ecosustainable, and to make products attractive to buyers specifically for being ecofriendly.

Electric cars, houses with solar panels and even ozone-safe spray deodorants are examples of that. But time passes and consumers’ taste gets more complex. Today very few people live without a cell phone by choice. And now there’s an ecofriendly choice in this matter.

Carbon-free

Motorola, one of the most important multinational technology companies in the world, has recently launched in the United States (more specifically, at the International CES in Las Vegas) the world’s first carbon neutral phone, that is, a product that will no damage the environment with carbon.

The new device, called MOTO W233 Renew is the first telephone made from plastics comprised of recycled water bottles. Its plastic housing is entirely recyclable, and designers were also thinking about the environment when they decided to reduce the packaging size by 22 percent. What’s more, the material included in the box was entirely printed on recycled paper.

For now, Latin America will have to way a bit longer to have it: a version of the product will be available over the next months. But it’s already for sale in the US, and there the box of the phone includes a postage-paid recycling envelope to help buyers easily return their old mobile phones for free recycling.

But where did this idea come from? Andrés Laudanno, marketing manager at the Argentine subsidiary of the company, explains to Opinión Sur Joven that “along with the cell phone industry growth, Motorola has progressively eliminated over the last two decades the use of certain contaminating materials, such as lead. And the aim is to stop using certain components that are still contaminating. The Motorola W233 mobile phone is an example of this trend”.

Thanks to an alliance with the American non-governmental organization CarbonFund.org, Motorola offset the energy necessary to manufacture, distribute and operate each phone with investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation. After a thorough assessment of the product’s life cycle, the phone obtained the CarbonFund.org’s CarbonFree Product Certification.

CarbonFund.org’s goal is to make it easier for individuals and companies to erase their carbon footprint (the total amount of gases directly or indirectly emitted by a product) and thus lead economy to a future of clean energy.

Therefore CarbonFund offers to issue its CarbonFree certificates -after analyzing the products- and thus encourage companies to generate eco-friendly products, which closes a virtuous and -even better- profitable circle. That’s what Motorola did.

In that sense, the largest environment care NGO in the world, Greenpeace, has published a scorecard that could make technology companies cheer up or blush: the Guide to Greener Electronics.

This guide was first elaborated in August 2006, and ranks the largest technology-manufacturing companies in the world.

Greenpeace analyzes their practices regarding the use of toxic chemicals, recycling programs and climate change in a scorecard that rates them from 1 (the worst ones) to 10 (the best ones). And the result of the latest study (last November) favored Nokia (6.9 points), Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Samsung (the three of them were rated 5.9). The least eco-friendly ones are Nintendo (0.8) and Microsoft (2.9).

Efficiency vs. Ecosystem

Releasing a mobile phone to the world as an entirely eco-friendly product may lead people to think that lacks technological efficiency.

Bibiana, a 31-year-old economist, said that, if she had the chance, she would definitely buy it: “Cell phones are now one of those things you can’t stop using, it’s already a part of our everyday lives. And if the environment is in as much trouble as they say, it’d be better if a product we use everyday stopped worsening the situation”.

From a different point of view, Mariano, a 27-year-old lawyer, thinks the product is only for ecology activists. “I’m addicted to my cell phone, I use it in the morning as an alarm, and even at night to remind me of a dinner. And the truth is that, if it’s less efficient in order to take care of the environment, I don’t think I’d buy it. I’d rather use less deodorant to compensate”, he argues laughing.

However, Laudanno denies this false dichotomy: “The W233 mobile phone has no technological lacks for being eco-friendly; it’s an affordable product, designed to be attractive to all users. Non-contaminating material development for cell phones has evolved so much that today eco-friendliness is not an impediment to include the latest technologies in our products”.

Furthermore, Laudanno says Motorola has planned other programs to foster environmental care. “We have voluntarily released ECOMOTO, a worldwide campaign to promote collection, recycling and proper final disposal of cell phones, batteries and old accessories to minimize the environmental impact produced by the inadequate disposal of these materials. It’s present in more than 73 countries and represents an opportunity for the users to get rid of their old electrical and electronic products in a responsible manner. For instance, in Argentina the program is present since January 2008, with collection boxes in 39 locations all over the country”, he explains.

As we all know, the market isn’t prone to stimulate eco-sustainable company policies. But maybe that’s not entirely true either. In this specific case, we can see how a powerful company and a non-governmental organization imagined a product that makes a positive impact on the environment.

User awareness on this issue was probably not ignored by Motorola’s decision-making authorities. Having this in mind is always good to demand the same behavior to the competition, and then to other sectors, until the whole industry joins the cause. Because no one loses anything, and we all win something.