Sony Ericsson embarked on a concept design study to address impacts at every stage of the life-cycle.

The result, launched in 2008, is the GreenHeart phone. The phone features both bio-plastic housing and recycled plastic keypads. The phone’s charger reaches new levels of efficiency for the industry, in part because of its extremely low standby power of 3.5 mW, a fraction of the industry average. At end-of-life, the phone can be recycled in a number of ways, including through the company’s global recycling program.

GreenHeart also eliminates the printed user manual, and instead features an HTML guide embedded in the phone. This feature reduces paper and ink from the production phase, and eliminates CO2 emissions during transportation. The paper manual accounts for nearly 54 percent of the weight of new phone kits. By eliminating the manual, almost as much CO2 as in the transportation phase can be saved.

Although the GreenHeart will not be made available commercially in the concept form, the concept will influence the entire product line. During 2009, products will be launched which bring major parts of the concept to market.