Meeting the challenge of the universal charge standard in mobile phones
Who could have thought that the mobile phone industry could have an impact on the environment? When you think about reducing your ecological footprint, you think about changing your car or using green energy, which has nothing to do with a mobile phone.
However, mobile phone chargers do have an impact on the environment, and mobile phone industry stakeholders have started to address it through the universal charging solution (UCS). UCS will change the way mobile phone makers will design handsets, and we will analyze the trade-offs they need to cope with to implement a safe charging interface.
Pushing for initiatives
A mobile phone user generates around 17kg of carbon dioxide per year, equivalent to 111km by car. It is not much, and it does not seem to be a priority in the fight for the environment.
If you change your point of view, however, note that last year, 1.2 billion handsets have been shipped all over the world, each of them with a dedicated charger. Out of these 1.2 billion mobile phones, we can estimate that 500 million are replacement phones.
It is always exciting to get a new upgraded phone, but people do not have any interest on changing their charger. When you realize that mobile phones average turnover is 18 months and that most of mobile phones have a specific charger (including within the same brand), it is not infrequent to get three or four useless mobile phone chargers at home. Indeed, the probability that your former charger fits your new mobile phone is around 10 percent.
That's why we've been seeing initiatives coming from governments, institutions and key players of the mobile phone industry to reduce this waste. China's Minister of Information and Industry has issued in December 2006 a new regulation (YD/T 1591-2006) aimed at standardizing the wall charger and the connecting cable. Each new mobile phone launched in the China market will have to be compliant with this regulation to be authorized in China.
Another major step has been achieved during the last Mobile World Congress in February 2009 in Barcelona, with the agreement of the GSMA (including the five biggest mobile phone makers in the world) and 17 mobile phone operators to provide in 2012 UCS through USB using a micro-USB connector.
This initiative could help to eliminate up to 51,000 tons of useless mobile phone chargers. Assuming that the production of mobile phone chargers will be cut by two each year, the industry can expect to decrease the greenhouse effect gases from 13 to 22 millions of tons per year.
On top of the clear ecological impact, you will not need to take two or three chargers when you go on a weekend with your family. You will have no problem to find someone to loan a charger that fits your mobile phone.
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