The Samsung GALAXY S 4 has received the TCO certification. Perhaps key here, the GALAXY S 4 marks the first smartphone to achieve such a certification. A bit of background on the TCO certification, this actually comes by way of TCO Development and it touches on sustainability certification for IT products. In this case, the GALAXY S 4 was awarded the certification for eco-friendliness.
TCO Development takes a few items into consideration when awarding the TCO certification. Some of what they look for includes the manufacturing as well as the “use and recycling of IT products are carried out with regard to environmental, social and economic responsibility.” When considering smartphones they touch on several criteria including social, environmental and economic viability.
“TCO Certified Smartphones are designed to make it easier for smartphone buyers to choose products that have been designed with sustainability in mind. By certifying their smartphones, leading brands such as Samsung have a real opportunity to demonstrate that their products are helping advance more sustainable mobile solutions,” said Sören Enholm, CEO TCO Development.
In the case of Samsung, they were said to have demonstrated that they are committed to socially responsible manufacturing and that they are compliant the with the United Nation and the International Labour Organization. Looking at the environmental category and the GALAXY S 4 was shown to be free from many hazardous materials such as nickel, beryllium, and mercury.
Of course, had those been present, this would have meant the GALAXY S 4 would “severely restricted its potential to be recycled at the end its lifecycle.” As for the economic viability, in this regard Samsung received praise for the power efficiency of the charger as well as the industrial design which “boosts reliability.”
Looking back, Samsung also received some praise for the GALAXY S 4 last month when they were recognized by the Underwriters Laboratories for the retail packaging. Otherwise, in other Samsung related news, they are now reconsidering their earlier stance on the available internal storage on the GALAXY S 4. Plus, we also saw a bit of GALAXY S 4 news coming out of Google I/O yesterday. For those who missed that bit, we saw the introduction of an unlocked GALAXY S 4 that will arrive running vanilla Jelly Bean.
SOURCE: SammyHub
