Tuesday at Mobile World Congress 2009 in Barcelona, Spain, several "leading mobile phone manufacturers" have announced an agreement "to produce a standardized charger for the [cell phone] industry in a move set to save time for consumers and reduce waste," called the Universal Charging Solution (UCS) initiative.

All the major handset makers, including, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson, have agreed to use the Micro-USB technology as the common universal charging interface, Rob Conway, GSMA CEO, said during the opening keynote speech Tuesday. By 2012, the GSMA promises, most cell phones will use the same kind of connector to charge their batteries.

Operators such as AT&T, Orange, Telefonica, T-Mobile and Vodafone are also part of the initiative.

The chargers will boast a 4-star or higher efficiency rating in order to be three times more energy-efficient than an unrated charger and consume 50% less stand-by energy. The GSMA estimates greenhouse gas reduction by 13.6 to 21.8 million metric tons as the replacement rate for existing chargers decreases.

Last year an estimated 1.2 billion cell phones were sold, according to University of Southern Queensland data reported by the GSMA, of which handsets accounted for between 50 and 80 per cent. That equates to between 51,000 and 82,000 tones of chargers.

Noticeably absent from the list are Apple and HTC, although HTC currently uses mini-USB for device charging and connectivity. Apple’s ubiquitous dock connector was introduced on the third-generation iPod in 2003 and has appeared on every iPod and iPhone since. By the time of the 2012 deadline, the dock connector will have been around for almost a decade.