telecoms - carbon footprint

Telecoms operators play the green card

As energy prices hit an all-time high, the importance of environmentally friendly business practices has really sunk in for network operators. After all, the information and communications technology (ICT) industry, which includes telecoms and the internet, is one of the world’s largest consumers of electricity.

With this in mind, in June BT announced a goal to cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2020, setting one of the most aggressive corporate emissions reduction targets worldwide. BT is one of Britain’s biggest users of electricity, with an annual requirement of around 0.7% of the country’s entire consumption.

The UK operator says it intends to meet the 80% reduction target through a continued combination of energy efficiency, on-site renewable generation and purchased low-carbon electricity.

BT had previously announced in October 2007 that it planned to develop wind farms and has earmarked £250 m (€315 m) for the project. The operator is currently identifying high wind yield sites on or adjacent to BT-owned land for development. It hopes that its wind farms will generate a total of 250 MW of electricity from 2012 onwards — enough to meet the power needs of 122,000 homes, or about a quarter of the company’s current UK electricity requirements.

Over in the US, network operator Verizon is tackling carbon emissions from a different direction, by demanding more energy-efficient telecommunications equipment from its suppliers. The US network operator has established its own series of Telecommunications Equipment Energy Efficiency Ratings, which will be applied to certain types of equipment purchased after 1 January 2009. The target provided for manufacturers of such equipment is 20% greater efficiency than today’s products. Equipment to be tested and rated includes optical and video transport systems, switches and routers, DSL access multiplexers and optical-line termination gear, as well as switching power systems, data-centre servers and power adapters that operate customer equipment.

These initiatives put BT and Verizon in a win-win situation. Both approaches provide the carriers with the means to cut costs while also showing themselves as good corporate citizens.

Even better than that, a study just published by Insight Research concludes that the ICT industry stands to make $1 tn over the next five years from new applications like telecommuting and telepresence, as well as existing services that allow their customers to conduct business in a more environmentally conscious manner.