The impact of human activity on the environment and climate is incontrovertible. Global temperatures are rising abnormally fast, leading to drought and wildfires but also to heavy precipitation causing flooding. We are rapidly moving from climate concern to climate crisis.
Overall, the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector currently contributes to about 2% of all global emissions. However, the mobile ecosystem is in a unique position to help other sectors achieve major emissions reductions by developing new technologies that allow other businesses to run more efficiently and effectively.
According to the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI), the ICT sector, as a whole, can help companies and consumers to use and save energy more intelligently, potentially reducing 12.1 gigatonne of CO2 (GtCO2) emissions by a whopping 20% by 2030.
Mobile sector and emissions reduction efforts
So far, 29 mobile operator groups representing 30% of mobile connections globally and more than 50% of mobile industry revenues have committed to science-based targets, as of July 2020.
This means taking accountability for their Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and developing a plan to reduce them as far as possible. These emissions activities include mobile device production and disposal, power usage for computers and buildings, data storage in energy-consuming data centres, as well as travel for meetings and conferences.
Measure the impact of products
It is important to measure the impact of your different products and services through a complete lifecycle assessment. Try to identify any carbon-heavy or otherwise wasteful aspects of the product lifecycle, such as energy use and raw materials in the production or disposal of old devices.
By identifying wasteful or energy-intensive parts of the product lifecycle, we can often find innovative ways to reduce, reuse or recycle. Not only do these solutions help reduce our environmental impact, but they can also save the business money.
For example, one data centre found that they could recycle and/or reuse much of their old infrastructure in other areas of the business, rather than simply disposing of it.
One of MEF’s members, Pandas.io, is providing support to companies to trade-in their mobile devices for refurbishing. This is a good example of how a climate related product/service can become part of the company strategy.
Data centres also have a better potential to implement energy saving and other efficiency measures at a greater scale than individual offices. So, data offloading could be beneficial in the long term. In addition, our telecom consumers should all be made more aware of the impact of data waste. Everything stored in the cloud uses some energy, so regular file cleanups can be a great way to reduce emissions and improve efficiency.
Reduce carbon emissions
Using science-based targets, the next step is to define a roadmap for the continual reduction in emissions. Once you know what your current impact is and what your target will be, the scale of the task before you should be a lot clearer.
Emissions reductions of 50% may sound like an uphill struggle, but with the right steps along a logical plan, it is very achievable.
Of course, holding yourself to account for meeting those yearly reduction targets is on you. They don’t need to be perfect targets, but they do need to be visible and a priority. As Al Gore said during a recent INSEAD Climate online seminar during COP27: “It’s better to have targets that are 80% correct than not have any climate targets at all”.
Offset your unavoidable emissions
Once you have defined your climate plan and annual reduction targets, the final step is to start working on offsetting any unavoidable emissions. No one expects a company to suddenly cut all emissions. Change takes time and some emissions will always remain.
Carbon offsetting those unavoidable emissions means paying for the removal of carbon elsewhere. If you can’t avoid emitting 50 tonnes of carbon, pay someone to remove 50 tonnes of carbon through efficient, large-scale carbon removal projects. One example of a project is the Swiss company Climeworks. They build Direct Air Capture (DAC) devices that run on renewable geothermal energy in Iceland.
Supporting carbon removal projects will be an important part of the climate mix for years to come. This is because, even if we all managed to reduce our emissions to zero, we would still need to remove atmospheric carbon to mitigate our climate impact. Or, in other words, we need to clean up the mess we’ve already made.
Communicate your climate action
While it’s not a necessary part of the process, it can be really beneficial to clearly communicate your climate action. Sometimes businesses achieve fantastic things and then fail to communicate them. Not only is communicating your impact great for PR and marketing, but it also helps inspire others to take similar actions.
We will only combat climate change if (a) we believe that we can, (b) we feel motivated to make changes, and (c) we know how. Sharing the positive impact you’ve made will contribute towards all three.
