An invite from Nokia Singapore via Text 100 (Supriya and Clare) brought me to the Nokia Virtual Eco Roundtable on Sustainability & Development on 7 April 2009 (Tuesday) in Nokia Singapore. It is the first virtual eco-roundtable in Singapore where we used their video conference facility, Halo to listen to Nokia's global and SEAP executives to speak on environmental sustainability and development. The whole roundtable featured how Nokia as a corporation has navigated in making small changes through several eco-friendly initiatives - recycling, materials used for manufacturing and energy consumption. In fact, I am surprised that I did not know some interesting facts about how they are doing on sustainability and development in Southeast Asia.
On the event itself, all the invitees were brought to the Halo room in Nokia Singapore, a video conference room (see the 1st photo below - from Supriya - Text 100). As some of the speakers are based in the Nokia HQ (Helsinki, Finland), the executives addressing us from the European side are actually up pretty early. We started an introduction by Chris Carr (VP Sales, Nokia), followed by the first presentation on Nokia's global strategy on environmental sustainability and development by Markus Terho (Director, Environmental Affairs, Markets) followed by Francis Cheong (Regional Manager, Environmental Affairs, SEAP, Nokia) who give us a precise view on how Nokia is stepping up their efforts on this area in Southeast Asia. After the first two presentations, we are treated with specific presentations on Nokia's design philosophy and product packaging philosophy (and how it fulfils its corporate social responsibility) by Tlina Karhu (Environment Design) and Ulla Uimonen (Head of Packaging Design). We ended with a demo of the apps (we:offset and eco-zone) on a Nokia phone by a Nokia executive. Of course, I got a glimpse on the latest Nokia 5360 XpressMusic and get to fiddle a little with the new phone launching in the coming month (May 2009).
Here are the most interesting take away messages which I have distilled from the presentations:
- The Principle and Concept behind Nokia's corporate social responsibility towards the environment and sustainability: Corporate social responsibility is now the new buzzword for many corporations. How each and everyone approach it can be an interesting tale or business case study for many to learn. Specifically to Nokia, their principle is based on the concept that with a 40% market share (1 billion people) using their phones, the corporation taps on the potential to influence and make a difference. I thought that the key thing is that they try to integrate the concept to various aspects of their environment: both within their company (creating business solutions to adhere to the goals) and external (engaging their customers to be involved with their green initiatives). Within their company, they adapted design and packaging solutions offered to consumers in order to achieve their CSR objective. One of the interesting examples is from Ulla Uimonen's talk about packaging. Using the example of Nokia 2760 box, they redesign the box by compact packaging i.e. reducing the size from 83 grams per unit weight to 59 grams per unit weight and it allow to reduce the transportation of the same volume of products by putting 12,000 trucks off the road (which in turn reduce the carbon footprint), saving 99 tonnes of paper in user guidance material and 474M Euros from materials and reduced transportation costs from 2006 to 2008. It's a pretty pragmatic approach and tries to integrate business feasibility and environmental sustainability together. Another example which seems to be emphasized by various executives is the reduction of travel and adhere to the video conference system (Halo) in the company. Apparently, it reduced their travel costs and carbon footprint to a significant level (about 22% of their travel costs a year).
- Nokia Recycling Program in Asia (Singapore and Malaysia): This is something I hope that anyone who have read this blog can help spread the word pertaining to their recycling efforts. Have you ever gotten old and unused mobile phones lying around in drawers and tables that can be recycled but you do not know how to send them for recycling? Nokia's Public Take Back Program is available in Singapore. How it works is pretty simple. You can send your old and unused mobile phones as well as accessories/chargers/battteries via their Care Centres located all over Singapore. The most interesting part is that it does not limit to Nokia but mobile devices from all brands.
- The "we:offset" app on the Nokia Mobile Phones: Being a technologist, the more interesting part for me are the Eco-Zone apps they introduced on the Nokia phone. The one which caught my interest the most is the app called we:offset. It is a simple app which allows the user to purchase the carbon offsets such that the money are channelled to fund projects which absorb, reduce or avoid an equivalent amount of greenhouse gases being released elsewhere. It may be simpler if I offer an example. Suppose if I am flying to London from Singapore, I can use the app to calculate the amount of carbon offset through the app. The app will return a figure to me and I will pay the figure via the app to the ClimateCare. The amount of carbon offset I paid will be channelled via the app, which is available in 45 countries out there on the Nokia device. The app is developed in conjunction with ClimateCare, a program run by JP Morgan and you can see the list of projects they fund.
One of the issues which I thought most of us brought up is the amount of outreach done in Singapore from Nokia as compared to Malaysia and Thailand. While most of the initiatives in Malaysia and Thailand are on national level, the ones run in Singapore are only limited to educational institutions. Nokia has worked with NUS, NTU, SAJC, St Hilda Primary School & St Margaret Primary School under the 'Recycle A Phone & Adopt A Tree' program and has been trying to further its outreach to other educational institutions. Perhaps, it may be time to increase national awareness particularly, the recycling program which I thought that Nokia has done a pretty good job with should be broadcast to more people out there. What I liked about the whole event is that we did not hear about Nokia's new products and the conversation was centered on their corporate social responsibility programs on environment and sustainability.
Photo 1: All of us in the Halo Room, Nokia Singapore, and listening to the presentation done by Markus Terhu. You can see all of us are taking notes from the least technological (mainstream media) vs the most technological (social media).
Author's Note: Originally I have taken pictures about the event and also the Nokia 5360. However, I did the most stupid thing by forgetting to put the memory card into the camera and you can imagine the consequences. :(
Anyway, if you can, spread this message: Nokia's Public Take Back Program is available in Singapore. How it works is pretty simple. You can send your old and unused mobile phones as well as accessories/chargers/battteries via their Care Centres located all over Singapore. The most interesting part is that it does not limit to Nokia but mobile devices from all brands.
Hey Bernard, thanks for coming! Was good to see you again =)
Posted by: Supriya | April 13, 2009 at 11:23 AM