Carphone Warehouse saves the world, one charger at a time

Sounding very similar to the O2 charger we featured back in December, Carphone Warehouse has announced it's doing its bit for the environment by launching an eco-friendly mobile phone charger called, appropriately enough, the Eco Charger.

Costing £22.99 it claims to be 90% more efficient than a bog standard charger in stand-by, thus using less electricity, saving you money and saving the glaciers, baby seals and world rainforests all in one go. It works by switching itself off whenever a phone is disconnected or reaches full charge, which seems sensible to us.

It comes hot on the heels of the GSMA's announcement of a similarly energy efficient but universal charging standard. Rarely has the phone charging world seen such a month of exciting news.

Press release:

PLUG IN AND GO GREEN
The Carphone Warehouse launches its first eco-friendly mobile phone charger

The Carphone Warehouse, the UK’s largest independent mobile phone retailer, is today announcing its first ever environmentally friendly mobile phone charger. Priced at just £22.99, the Eco Charger reduces the amount of energy needed to power a mobile phone more than any other on the market. It will be available in over 820 stores from 3 March 2009.

Each year, about 95% of energy used by all mobile phone chargers is lost because they are left plugged in when not being used*. Now, The Carphone Warehouse has announced it will be offering its customers an energy saving device to help reduce this amount. The Eco is the only charger available on the High Street which shuts itself down as soon as it has charged the phone, or the phone becomes disconnected. Its standby drain is therefore the lowest of all the eco-friendly chargers**, a claim which could save the UK approximately 217 million kWh of electricity per year – the equivalent to the annual energy consumption of almost 66,000 households.

Andrew Harrison, UK CEO at The Carphone Warehouse said; “Whilst looking for the cheapest deals, we’re also aware that our customers want more than just a product that works well. Increasingly, concern over global climate change is becoming top of everyone’s agenda, and that’s why I’m thrilled that we’re now able to offer a device that will not only will save our customers money, but help them to be energy efficient too.”

Priced at just £22.99, the Eco works exactly like a standard charger; plugging into the wall to charge a mobile phone. On the front is a button which can be pushed to turn the Eco on and that glows blue when operational. When the phone is fully charged or disconnected, the Eco switches off - making it up to 90% more efficient on standby than any own brand mains charger*** and 88% more efficient on standby than an Own Brand High Efficiency mains charger****. So, now it’s possible to enjoy the full capacity of your mobile phone and look after the environment at the same time.

-ENDS-

Originally published on www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk, now incorporated into Broadband Genie
© Dennis Publishing

 

 

 

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