by Brianna Crandall — January 25, 2012—Recently earning the No. 3 spot on Newsweek’s 2011 Green Rankings, U.S.-based telecommunications giant and global Internet provider Sprint has updated its environmental scorecard evaluation criteria for phones and packaging for device manufacturers and vendors. The scorecard is revised each year to ensure continuous improvement of sustainable design considerations across Sprint’s portfolio.
Upping the ante on sustainability for the wireless industry, Sprint’s environmental scorecard now requires all phones to go through the UL Environment certification process starting January 1, 2012—an industry first. It also requires specifications to improve reparability, and criteria that will drive more sustainable packaging. The changes are expected to ultimately reduce the company’s overall impact on the environment and save the company money.
Regarding product certification, in 2011, Sprint announced its partnership with UL Environment — a subsidiary of one of the world’s most trusted third-party testing and certifying organizations, Underwriters Laboratories (UL) — to produce the first environmental standard for mobile devices across the entire wireless industry: UL-ISR 110. The first mobile phone to achieve UL Environment certification to UL-ISR 110 was Samsung Replenish from Sprint, which received Platinum certification, the highest level.
The standard also provides guidelines for: sensitive materials usage, energy management, manufacturing and operations, impact to health and environment, product performance, packaging, product stewardship and sustainable innovation. Sprint will now require that all postpaid and prepaid handsets go through the UL Environment certification process.
As to Sprint’s newly strengthened packaging standards, new criteria for packaging within the standard will also drive more sustainable solutions. These new standards are expected to encourage the reduction of packaging volume and size; improve the material composition and structure; and minimize the use of glues, inks, labels and plastics. There will also be an increase in recycled fiber, post-consumer waste, and chlorine-free bleach in paper packaging materials.
Additional packaging standards include: the elimination of plastic laminate; the use of vegetable-based or low VOC (volatile organic compound) inks; and the use of water-based or other environmentally friendly adhesives.
Concerning the improved reparability of Sprint phones, manufacturers will be encouraged to increase their use of modular design for devices, which will ultimately improve both the reparability and recyclability of the device. For example, a phone’s LCD (liquid crystal display) screen is sometimes glued to the plastic cover, making reparability and recycling more difficult. If one of the components breaks or malfunctions, the entire part needs to be replaced instead of just the non-working component.
By using a modular design, only the non-working part is replaced, thereby reducing waste and expense so that Sprint can repair the phone instead of just replacing it, explains the company. It also allows for better recyclability of all components when materials like plastics, metals and glass can be separated easily into clean fractions.
Through its requirement for wireless phones to go through the UL Environment certification process, Sprint expects to accelerate adoption throughout the wireless industry of a similar requirement. To learn more about Sprint programs that protect the environment, visit Sprint’s Corporate Responsibility Web site.
