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We are committed to reducing environmental impacts from our products and services throughout their lifecycle – from design and manufacturing through marketing and sales to use and disposal by our customers. Vodafone does not have direct control over some of these impacts, but we can use our relationship with suppliers and customers to raise awareness and influence change.

Our focus is on developing and marketing products and services that help customers choose products and communicate more sustainably. This also enables us to meet growing demand for ‘green’ products as consumer awareness of environmental issues increases.

Design for environment: low impact handsets and accessories
We want to reduce the impacts of all the devices we sell. Our Environmental Principles encourage manufacturers to meet minimum standards and move towards best practice by taking a holistic approach to managing and reducing environmental impacts of mobile phones and accessories. This includes:

• Choosing materials to avoid hazardous substances and make use of recycled content where possible
• Improving energy efficiency in the manufacturing, use and disposal of products
• Reducing resource use and sourcing materials sustainably
• Cutting environmental impacts of packaging.

Vodafone has also signed up to an industry-wide commitment to introduce a universal, energy-efficient charger that can be used with a variety of different phones. A universal charger significantly reduces electronic waste by eliminating the need for customers to replace their charger every time they replace their handset. New Vodafone-branded handsets meet European Union specifications for a universal charger.

In addition, we continue to develop and market bespoke ‘green’ products and accessories, ranging from solar-powered car kits to handset cases made from renewable materials.

Packaging
Packaging is needed to ensure products reach our customers in pristine condition. Our Environmental Principles include the following approaches to reduce impacts from packaging:

• Avoiding the use of virgin paper, pulp and plastic, opting for recycled materials where possible
• Reducing the size of packages to cut transport impacts by fitting more products on each pallet
• Cutting the amount of materials used and choosing recyclable materials to minimise waste that customers must throw away.

Retaining, reusing and recycling mobile phones
Many customers replace their handsets regularly, especially in our mature markets.

Some of our local markets offer customers incentives to keep their handsets for longer through, for example, a SIM-only tariff that offers a lower monthly subscription rate for customers who continue using their existing phone rather than upgrading.

When customers do decide to upgrade, we collect used mobile phones and accessories for reuse and recycling. Where equipment cannot be refurbished and resold, we work with specialist contractors to separate and recycle the components.

We encourage customers to return their unwanted handsets and accessories to a Vodafone store, by:

• Raising awareness about our recycling programmes through posters, leaflets, in-store collection points and prepaid envelopes with new handsets
• Offering incentives to return equipment, such as discounts on new handsets, charity donations or cash through our buyback schemes (in the UK , for example) – even jewellery made from recycled electronic waste in the Czech Republic
• Providing resources for corporate customers to encourage handset recycling among their employees.

We also collaborate with others in our industry to improve capacity for managing end-of-life mobile phones and other electronic waste in emerging markets, which often lack appropriate facilities (see managing electronic waste).

Paperless billing
We encourage customers to save paper by opting for online billing, which also cuts costs. Many of our local markets offer incentives to switch, such as charging for paper bills, offering online bills by default, or planting a tree each time someone chooses online billing.

Reducing impacts from retail stores
We aim to reduce environmental impacts from all aspects of our customers’ experience with Vodafone. Our retail stores give us the opportunity to showcase ‘green’ products and highlight other environmental issues. Our local markets are raising awareness and reducing impacts of stores themselves through a range of initiatives. These include installing low-energy lighting and offering ‘green’ travel incentives for customers to get to stores. In the UK, for example, stores took the bold commercial step of closing their doors to reduce energy use from heat loss and air conditioning, with no significant decline in customers entering stores.