Nokia wins the Green Awards 2008 Grand Prix and Best Green Internal Communications with the ‘Power of We’

Nokia won the Best Green Internal Communications category with the ‘Power of We’ campaign, and subsequently the overall Grand Prix award at the third annual Green Awards for Creativity and Sustainability. The Green Awards were established to emphasise the importance of informing people about green issues, products and lifestyle choices, and to recognize creative work that communicates the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility, sustainable development and ethical best practices.Nokia’s ‘Power of We’ was nominated for its internal communications campaign which encourages a wider discussion about environmental issues within the company. “We wanted to raise awareness around our environmental performance, also internally to encourage debate and discussion around our future targets, and to engage an increasing amount of our employees in environmental actions and practice in everything we do” says Kirsi Sormunen, VP of Environmental Affairs.

“To bring this approach to life, we created the concept called the Power of We which represents Nokia’s attitude towards environmental issues and brand approach. We believe in the power of the individuals together to make a real change and help the environment, starting from ourselves as employees of Nokia”, says Anastasia Orkina, Director of Environmental Marketing.The campaign set the target to inform at least 50% of Nokia’s global workforce about Nokia’s environmental programme, and to engage a minimum of 1,000 people as active environmental champions during its first year. As environmental issues at Nokia are imbedded in everything we do, five main pillars were created to illustrate the ‘Power of We’ in more concrete ways– we:evolve, we:create, we:energise, we:recycle, and we:support. In addition, Nokia’s internal environmental website was renewed to support the campaign and became the core communication hub surrounding Nokia’s internal discussion on environmental affairs.

The ‘Power of We’ campaign has had concrete impacts at Nokia as well. The recycling rate of used phones and accessories among Nokia employees has increased 600% compared to previous efforts. Over 1200 we:champions have signed up and helped organize local events/eco actions, and Nokia employees worldwide have already made 4000 eco-pledges on their own actions with the number growing each day.“This award is very encouraging for us as there is a strong commitment to continue building internal and external engagement around environmental issues - we are definitely on the right track now” says Anastasia.