The Power of We  

John Grant, co-founder of St Lukes and the Abundancy Partners analyses how Nokia, the mobile phone giant is managing to engage with sustainability despite its size

Nokia seems to get how to engage with sustainability and community. I came across Nokia’s Power of We programme as a judge at the Green Awards (Where Nokia won the overall 2008 Grand Prix). It was clear from this that they are taking sustainability into the heart of their business.

“With more than a billion peole using Nokia phones globally, we feel we have a responsibility to make a difference. Even in these tough economic times, environmental sustainability is not just the right thing to do, it is the only thing to fo and makes good business sense,” CEO Oil-Pekka Kallasvio comments on the corporate website.

If you look into what Nokia is doing you see all the usual supply stuff. The company has set targets for CO2 emissions since 2006 and reports publicly how they are doing against these. Their phones are certified as free of conflict metals, such as tantalum from the Congo. Nokia has been named the number one electronics brand in Greenpeace’s Greener Electronics Guide. And it has won the phone industry first CEO award for Outstanding Environmental Contribution. Given all of this it’s pretty impressive that Nokia has not been shouting about their green credentials in advertising. Rather than claiming green they have been doing green. For instance, encouraging people to unplug their charger (in some popular models Nokia fitted a finished charging alert and putting recycling collection points into retail, including a major new push to establish this in India in 2009.

As far as green phones go, the Nokia Evolve is one of the best around, in energy, materials, and so on. I also like their Remade concept (made from old tine cans and other waste material). And another concept phone whose case is made from reclaimed wood. This brings the appeal of unique handmade crafts into a space which is almost the epitome of mass production. Nokia say they are also working on ways to make chargers use zero power except when the phone needs it. And developing ways for people to upgrade phones digitallym rather than buying new devices. A fascinating development us that their researchers may have found a way to do away with the phone charger altogether. Instead phones can draw waste power from ambient electromagnetic radiation (like WiFi and TV signals); a trickle but enough to keep a phone topped up. It’s a green benefit, which is also just a great consumer proposition; you never need to remember to charge a phone again.

It’s when you look on the demand side that I think their efforts are the most impressive; imagining how mobile phones can be part of a world working for the common good. For instance, mobile phones play a leading role in African development projects. And Nokia have been there since 2005 helping to ensure they can build an accessible mobile network in countries like Rwanda.

Nokia has also (like Google and others) been embracing open innovation; instead of assuming they have all the answers, they brief the world to come up with solutions too. They offered a $150,000 proze for phone apps that could improve life on this planet. One short-listed entry was a Green Phone app that hacked into Nokia’s operating system to manage settings on a phone to minimise its power use.

I like Nokia’s efforts because they have got the basics right. Despite being the biggest they are also one of the greenest. And they got there by helping every employee see this as a central part of their job, not an add-on – building a community of enthusiasm around their ‘Power of We’ internal change programme. Their focus externally is on innovation, education, community and great green utilities. And they are not too proud to partner, getting many of their best ideas from outside inventors, NGOs and consumers.

This article is an edited extract from Co-Opportunity by John Grant, published by Wiley, February 2010