October 06, 2008

Orange to give green rating for its phones

Mobile operator to list environmental impact of its products

By Peter Sayer, IDG News Service

Orange is to rate the environmental impact of the fixed-line and mobile phones it sells.

The company will publish eco-ratings for the first 30 products on its French Web-site in mid-October and will extend it to all the products it sells next year, it said.

Orange is the brand used by France Télécom for its mobile phone and Internet access activities in France, the UK and other European countries. The ratings initially concern its French stores and networks, and are based on five indicators, compiled by the company BIO Intelligence Service:

• CO2 assessment, a measure of the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the phone's manufacture and use;
• Energy efficiency, a gauge of the phone's power consumption and of any features that allow consumption to be reduced;
• Resource preservation, a broad rating of whether the materials used to make the product are nonrenewable or whether, like the gold and tantalum used in electrical connections and capacitors, they come from what Orange describes as "sensitive economic or social environments";
• Limitation of dangerous substances, a measure of whether the phone avoids the use of toxic chemicals -although the most dangerous of these are already prohibited by European Union law;
• Waste reduction, a rating of whether the device can be repaired and whether it or its packaging can be recycled.

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