Environment

Nokia has worked in partnership with WWF to raise environmental awareness among our employees and on a number of other environmental activities since 2003. In 2007, we collaborated with WWF on a campaign to boost the number of handsets returned for recycling in Finland. We also joined WWF's Climate Savers Program.

See environment for more information.

Accessibility

In 2007, we held an innovation summit with experts and stakeholders to prioritize long-term initiatives to improve accessibility. Participants included representatives from regulatory authorities, academia, Nokia and disability organizations worldwide, such as the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired (FFVI) and European Older People's Platform (AGE).

See accessibility for more information.

Society

We work with a number of NGOs specializing in community and youth development projects around the world. For example, we support the Grameen Bank foundation on the Village Phone project to bring mobile access to unconnected communities across Africa through microfinance.

See mobile technology for development for more information.

Our partnership with the International Youth Foundation continues, with new programs launched in Belgium in late 2006 and Italy in 2007. We also continued to work with international children’s organization, Plan International, to use ICT to raise children’s awareness of their rights and opportunities. In 2007, Nokia teamed up with Plan International and Sony BMG to run a talent contest for street children to engage this marginalized section of the community, who often survive by working as street musicians.

See youth development for more information.

Supply chain

Several non-governmental organizations have recently published reports on supply chain issues in the ICT sector.

A report issued by Dutch research group SOMO in December 2006 made a series of allegations claiming that poor working conditions existed in factories producing components for mobile phone makers, including Nokia. We co-operated with SOMO, sharing information and answering their queries, but the final report still included significant errors in its claims about Nokia. We investigated all the claims made in the report about our suppliers. Our investigations found that the large majority of the report findings were inaccurate. We have identified a small number of areas for improvement and have visited the factories subsequently to check these were made. These investigations were conducted in addition to our regular supplier assessments against the Nokia Supplier Requirements.

See supply chain for more information.

Our dialogue with SOMO continues on these and other issues, both directly and through the joint industry Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI).

Read Nokia's response to the SOMO report.

The Centre for Reflection and Action on Labour Issues (CEREAL) published a report on working conditions in the Mexican electronics industry in October 2007, citing Nokia and its suppliers among others. We contacted our suppliers to verify the claims and are working with them to ensure the issues raised have been addressed. Both Nokia and its suppliers engaged with CEREAL directly and through GeSI.

A group of European NGOs issued a report in December 2007 criticizing the electronics industry for not doing more to address poor labor and environmental conditions in the mines that supply metals for electronic components. We welcome this report into an issue we are already concerned about. Nokia does not accept or support any illegal activity or abuse of human or animal rights. Our suppliers must meet our social and environmental requirements and apply these to their own suppliers. We monitor this through supplier audits and provide training for suppliers to help raise standards where necessary.

In addition, GeSI together with the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC), has commissioned a study to improve our understanding of how metals are mined, extracted, recycled, purchased and used within the electronics sector. The study is also benchmarking efforts by other industries to positively influence the conditions in the extractives industry. Nokia is a member of GeSI and participating in this research.