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This year companies in the UK will buy 25 million desk phones, many of which will eventually gather dust and become landfill waste. It needn't be this way, though, claims UK telecommunications software company OnRelay.
OnRelay suggests that UK companies can reduce their environmental impact, as well as their financial outlay, by giving staff mobile phones to use instead. It might not seem like it, but landline telephones have a huge impact on the environment.
For large companies, the actual phones are just the tip of the iceberg -- there are thousands of metres of cables, routers, switches and servers running 24/7 to support the phone networks.
"Landline office phones are simply a waste," says Marie Wold, president and CEO of OnRelay. "High performance mobile networks exist in every corner of the world, and the cost to use mobile phones is dropping dramatically. Using public mobile networks is becoming far more efficient than building and maintaining a private phone network inside a company."
Of course, the company has a vested interest in convincing companies to eschew landlines and opt for mobile phones, as it provides software to help manage and run just those kinds of systems. OnRelay does have a point, though, as energy costs saved by not installing new cables and hardware are huge.
"Up to 38 separate chemical elements are incorporated into electronic waste items. By not buying desk phones, European businesses would thereby reduce the amount of toxic substances that this waste releases into the environment," Wold points out.
Conveniently, OnRelay does not mention the disposal of mobile phones. As far as we can tell, converting to mobiles won't eradicate electronic waste entirely -- it will only reduce it.
But using mobiles can save money as well as carbon emissions. For a company with 10,000 staff, the average phone network costs nearly 11 million Euros, significantly more than a similar mobile phone network may do.
It's also beneficial for businesses because staff with a mobile are contactable anywhere -- on lunch breaks, at home and even on the daily commute.
On second thought, maybe switching to mobiles isn't such a good idea after all....
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