Sony Ericsson: No Plans For Solar Powered Handset In 2009

One of the most prevalent recurring themes throughout Mobile World Congress this year was one of ‘going green’.

Many manufacturers introduced their initiatives to reduce the harmful effects that mobile phone production has on the environment, whilst Motorola, LG and Samsung have all announced new handsets which are solar-powered.

Charging the device is performed through panels on the rear, offering a great solution to people around the world with little or no access to electricity, as well as allowing people in the developed world feel as though they are playing their part in saving the planet.

Sony Ericsson, however, has other ideas.

Speaking to Mats Pellbäck-Scharp, head of corporate sustainability for Sony Ericsson, he mentioned that adding solar panels to a phone can in fact have a net negative effect on the environment.

How so? He explained that most of the environmental impact in a phone is from silicon production. Melting sand into glass takes a lot of energy, but it is a necessary feature for the production of a handset’s internal architecture.

However, when more silicon is added for features like solar panels, the detrimental impact to the environment rises by much more. In order to cover the environmental costs of production when adding solar panels to a handset in fact would take three years of usage to pay it back.

As the average lifecycle of a handset is the twelve or eighteen month duration of a contract, that phone will actually have contributed a net loss, damaging the environment. So they opted out of pursuing it in their handsets at present, but are open to the concept if production costs fell to within the phone’s lifecycle.

Sony Ericsson has actually dabbled in before, making an solar panel cover for the ancient T28i back in 2002, but will not be returning there for now.

Even the practicality of a solar panel on a device which spends most time in your pocket (or under grey skies in the case of those in the UK) was brought into question.


greenheart_packaging

He postulated if the solar portion was a base unit that stayed in the sun and was connected to many swappable phone batteries, maybe that would be more interesting. This is just one example of the forethought, the research and the investment that Sony Ericsson has paid into the environmental sector, rather than the gung-ho approach adopted by some.

The Sony Ericsson approach to making changes is a refreshingly different one, and also one which highlights the ways in which other manufacturers might be attempting to garner column inches as opposed to providing real environmental solutions.


greenheart_phone

It is also one which has been in progress for over ten years, yet Sony Ericsson has had no cause to make noise about it…until now. Halving their carbon footprint in terms of production and removing almost all harmful elements since 1998 makes Sony Ericsson’s commitment to green issues arguably the best in the industry, and one of their “best kept secrets”.

With a tag-line of “life is full of greener choices,” the GreenHeart initiative elaborates far beyond the initial concept phone which they revealed in September of last year. It has blossomed into a process which will see new advancements and inroads for sustainability continue well into 2009.

The GreenHeart name intends to evoke the Sony Ericsson ethos of going green being an action which begins from the core (hence ‘heart’) and subsequently spreads outward, in their case across the entire portfolio of mobile phones. “What is the point of releasing one green phone, what would all the other phones be? Not green?”

Demonstrating GreenHeart for us on the original concept device rather than the forthcoming real deal, Pellbäck-Scharp was insistent that the rollout would begin with a single handset, replete with planet-saving features that many others may have overlooked…


GreenHeart e-manual

Moves such as a bio-plastic housing, recycled plastic keypads, a charger which uses only 3.5mW of power on standby, an HTML based ‘e-manual’, and environmentally aware packaging are all indicative of GreenHeart’s intentions.

That’s not to say that the GreenHeart will be a low-end environmentally friendly handset first and foremost. It will still possess market leading music or camera features, but with the added peace of mind that it is definitely playing it’s part in healing the planet.

We hope to see the first GreenHeart phones in the first half of 2009, and an announcement regarding them later in the week.

Granted, it also makes good business sense as a cost cutting exercise, but at least it proves Sony Ericsson’s heart is in the right place.

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