HMD and sustainability

madbilly · February 2018

Hi everyone,

I recently the "greener electronics guide" from Greenpeace. Any idea where HMD sit for use of energy, resources and chemicals? I would hope at least C, but since manufacture is by Foxconn we'd have to include them in the assessment too, and I'm not sure they'd be so green...

If anyone knows anything please join in.

Cheers

madbilly · July 2018

I looked into this a bit more and l fin found some other rankings which give the HMD/FIH/Nokia partnership for Nokia phones quite a good score:
http://www.thegoodshoppingguide.com/ethical-mobile-phones
http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/scoredetails.aspx?ProductId=1388163

However I'm not convinced the are very well researched yet, since the new Nokia phones partnership is quite new.

Another thing I learned is that Foxconn actually assemble iPhones for Apple, and Apple gets good rating in the Greenpeace report wh which is thereforea good indicator for the new Nokia phones.

Henk Spaan · April 2019

Too bad there are not any replies to your message until now .. I looked for an Android alternative for my buggy FairPhone 2 .. as it is discontinued I don't want to spend on replacement parts without knowing the exact cause .. so I hope Nokia can fill the gap for some time.

Nokia, please continue to open up and disclose your commitments and actions on sustainability ..

Moreover open up to people who want to get more out of their device and enjoy open source OSes .. if people are made aware of implications and limited warranty, supportiing this should not be too difficult .. if you want a living community, you need to give them control.

madbilly · April 2019

Hi @Henk Spaan! Well thank you for your reply, much appreciated! I've written a few more posts elsewhere in the forums on this topic, I think you'll probably find them by searching "environment" or "conflict".

HMD recently released environmental profiles for some of it's phones, which you may find useful: https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/environmental-profiles

I read elsewhere that Ethical Consumer are updating their report on smartphones and it will hopefully be released in the next month or so, which I'm looking forward to reading.

Great to hear you have a Fairphone. I was tempted when I looked almost 2 years ago but to be honest the spec and high price put me off, plus I already had a working phone. However, I hear they have a new model coming out later this year which I am very keen to see, I have high hopes.

HMD try to emphasise that the new Nokia phones are European designed and made with European values in mind. I'm not suggesting that environmental and socio-economic responsibility (nor respecting privacy) are only European values, but they I believe they are held stronger here than in most other areas of the world. I agree that HMD could do more to show the world what they are doing, why it is one reason their phones are better than those of other brands and why customers should choose them.

On the open-source point I also fully agree, HMD could do a lot more here but I fear that the issues is currently to do with their supply chain (who make their software) so is not so easy for them to fix without changing suppliers, which until recently was not a feasible option - I have high hopes for what hay happen in the future though.

madbilly · August 2019

I see that HMD now have a page dedicated to the environmental impact: https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/environment

It says they have an EcoVadis Silver Medal (never heard of that before but I presume it's good, but not excellent!). I can't find HMD's EcoVadis report, but silver means they are in teh top 30% of companies who have gone through this process... so, better than average. However, Silver also means a score between 46 and 61 out of 100, so in fact their score could be lower than 50/100! Well, I can only assume that the EcoVadis rating system is very challenging.It would be interesting to know what HMD is going to work towards a gold medal.

The page also links to the environmental profiles but nothing has been added since the page was created a few months ago.

madbilly · October 2019

Environmental profiles for the recent keypad phones have been added (800 Tough, 2720 Flip, 220 4G, etc) but no touchscreen phones since the 5.1... strange

madbilly · October 2019

And now added for the 6.2 and 7.2

Philip_05 · October 2019

HMD Global and Google Cloud data collection center in Europe

“As Google matches 100% of its global, annual electricity use with renewable energy, the Google Cloud Platform doesn’t just meet HMD Global’s software and data needs, it also ensures the solution is fully sustainable, deepening our investment in the future,” adds Eva Fors, Managing Director, Google Cloud Northern Europe"

https://www.hmdglobal.com/press-releases/hmd-global-cgi-and-google-cloud-in-partnership

https://www.blog.google/around-the-globe/google-europe/unleashing-digital-opportunities-europe/

Nokia

https://www.nokia.com/about-us/news/releases/2019/09/23/nokia-steps-up-commitments-to-limit-global-warming-to-15degc/

madbilly · October 2019

Hi @Philip_05,

True, if Google are using 100% renewable energy for their data centres which HMD pays to use then this is an improvement on the previous situation (when I think they used AWS).

Your last link is for Nokia, not HMD, so I'm not sure how much it affects HMD (probably very little).

Cheers