Research shows that the majority of mobile users charge their phone whilst they’re asleep. Given that a typical phone charges in under an hour and most people sleep between six and eight
hours, means that’s a lot of wasted energy. With roughly a billion chargers in circulation, the motivation to create one that emits zero waste is huge.

Rhys Newman and the future product design team at Nokia have developed three basic concepts for chargers which emit zero waste.

The first uses a button to charge, so leaving it plugged in means it doesn’t draw power and the user needs to hit the (green) button to set the charge in motion. The second simply charges the device for one hour before switching itself off, whilst the third concept actually has a conversation with the device, where the device lets the charger know when it needs power, and when it’s all done.

All three concepts have been prototyped and are currently undergoing testing and evaluation.