At the Mobile World Congress that was held in Barcelona this week, seventeen mobile companies agreed to adopt a “Universal Charging Solution” (UCS) by the year 2012, with regards to using USB as the standard charging interface.

The companies that decided to adopt the USC are 3 Group, AT&T, KTF, LG, Mobilkom Austria, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile and Vodafone.

The measure to use USB as the standard charging interface was also prompted by the desire to  reduce standby energy consumption and the production of duplicate phone chargers.

GSMA Chief Executing Officer (CEO) Rob Conway stated that the mobile industry played a major part in approaching environmental issues, adding that the program was a vital step towards saving resources.

Moreover, Conway said that the industry could also help people live and work in an eco-friendly manner, for which purpose the seventeen companies’ initiative was a means to ease the way.

Having a common standard for chargers would entail that cellphones could come to be shipped without a charger unit, which would in its turn save money where power bricks production is concerned and it would also decrease packaging size and weight and thus offset the cost of transportation.

As for customers, adopting the micro USB standard would mean that any charger would work on their phone, irrespectively of the manufacturing company.