19 Nov 2011

Motorola's Next Phone Will Be Made by the Wind

Motorola wants a little wind beneath its wings. 
The American telecommunications giant, along with over a dozen other companies including Bloomberg, the World Wildlife Fund and LEGO, has teamed up with Belgian non-profit WindMade and pledged to procure at least 25 percent of its power from wind energy.

"It is Motorola Mobility's intent through our participation in the WindMade initiative to encourage greater use of renewable energy sources like wind and solar around the globe,” said Bill Olson, director for the office of sustainability and stewardship at Motorola Mobility.

The nonprofit consortium on Friday, Nov.18, released its new label -- something Motorola and pals should be proud to display on their products. The group wants consumers to consider it certified proof that a percentage of the energy behind the production of a product came from wind power.

“What's unique about WindMade is it's the first time that you have a truly global standard that is accepted across the landscape for how corporations should procure clean energy,” said Bragi Fjalldal, director of emerging segments, global marketing, and customer insight for WindMade.

“It’s also unique in that it’s the first label that really kind of focuses on being intuitive," he told FoxNews.com. "You can apply it to corporations as a whole; you can apply it to parts of your operation," he said. "And next

year, when we launch the final version of the label, it will also include products.”
A wind-built Motorola RAZR may be in the wings, in other words.
The rules are strict, Fjalldal told FoxNews.com, and companies have to show detailed proof that they are procuring their power from wind. There is also a competitive aspect, to encourage companies to go above and beyond.

“When you use the label, you need to expose exactly what the percentage is,” Fjalldal told FoxNews.com.
“If you, for example, have procured fifty percent wind energy, the fifty percent would be in the label. We believe that creates an incentive among companies of the same industry to try to beat each other and be the one that does the most. Several of the companies that are committing now are planning to do 100 percent.”

And it’s not just the companies that want to do more. In preparation for the label’s launch, Vestas Wind Systems, a major wind turbine manufacturer as well as the lead sponsor for the WindMade initiative, conducted a global consumer wind survey of 31,000 consumers worldwide to gauge public interest in the utilization of wind energy.

The results were overwhelmingly positive -- 90 percent of those surveyed wanted more renewable energy.
“Consumers are ready to act. Sixty-seven percent of 31,000 consumers globally have told us they would favor WindMade products, even at a premium,” said Morten Albæk, a vice president at Vestas. “WindMade empowers people to choose brands that choose wind.”

While Fjalldal says it’s too early to tell how much power consumption will be saved by the endeavor, he estimates the results will have a huge quantitative impact that will forever grow.

“If you take the average of the big companies, the amount of certified wind energy is in the hundreds of thousands of megawatt hours,” Fjalldal said. “We’re talking tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of households worth of annual power usage just in the companies we’re signing up today.

“And this is only the start,” Fjalldal added. “Really the ambition level for WindMade is not to have 50 or 60 companies. This is going to move into the hundreds and the thousands."
| FoxNews.com
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