AT&T joins course to help enterprises meet climate targets
AT&T has announced it wants to help businesses cut a gigaton of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2035. The move reflects enterprises’ growing demand for technology that supports their sustainability goals and comes amid new collaboration between European telcos and technology companies to address climate change.
07 Sep 2021
AT&T joins course to help enterprises meet climate targets
AT&T has announced it wants to help businesses cut a gigaton of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2035. The move reflects enterprises’ growing demand for technology that supports their sustainability goals and comes amid new collaboration between European telcos and technology companies to address climate change.
Fifty-five percent of Fortune Global 200 companies have established targets for the partial or total elimination of greenhouse gas emissions, according to AT&T.
“As businesses embrace climate change as a priority, our connectivity solutions can help them make progress to reach their goals,” said Anne Chow, CEO, AT&T Business in a report. AT&T lists IoT, 5G and AI as some of the enabling technologies.
Certainly, businesses are increasingly taking into consideration how green a technology is when choosing a supplier, according to IDC.
“IDC survey results show European organizations focus strongly on technology partners' circular-economy principles and capabilities in their vendor selection processes,” says Radoničić Göhner.
AT&T is far from being the only operator working to help customers understand and reduce their environmental footprint. Deutsche Telekom, for example, has published an “enablement factor” since 2014, which it says gives “the ratio between [the] savings potential for our customers and our own carbon footprint, allowing us to assess our overall performance – both positive and negative – when it comes to climate protection.” In its latest CSR report Deutsche Telekom stated that “in 2020, the positive CO2 effects enabled by our customers across Europe were 331 percent higher than our own CO2 emissions.”
Deutsche Telekom is also part of the European Green Digital Coalition, whose signatories include the CEOs of Ericsson, IBM, Liberty Global, Microsoft, Nokia, Orange, Proximus, TDC, Telekom Austria, Telefonica, Telenor, Telia and Vodafone. The coalition's 26 members have committed to investing in developing and using more energy and material efficient products and services; developing ways to measure the impact of technology and the environment and working with other sectors to create green digital transformation guidelines.
Other schemes target the general public. The Eco Rating labelling scheme, for example, helps customers of Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica Telia and Vodafone identify the most sustainable phones.
All these schemes point to the necessity of partnership and information exchange. AT&T, for example, is working with a range of organizations, including Microsoft, Equinix, Duke Energy, Texas A&M University and the University of Missouri to create new solutions. Collaboration is important because many of the answers lie beyond the network, according to IDC.
Nonetheless, CSPs will also have to address the problem of network energy consumption, especially as networks densify and 5G adoption increases.
“Power efficiency is a more critical challenge than ever with networks becoming more distributed and data traffic consumption increasing,” says, Radoničić Göhner, who adds that cost savings are the biggest driver of reductions in energy consumption, above social responsibility, regulatory compliance, or customer demand.
Fifty-five percent of Fortune Global 200 companies have established targets for the partial or total elimination of greenhouse gas emissions, according to AT&T.
“As businesses embrace climate change as a priority, our connectivity solutions can help them make progress to reach their goals,” said Anne Chow, CEO, AT&T Business in a report. AT&T lists IoT, 5G and AI as some of the enabling technologies.
Certainly, businesses are increasingly taking into consideration how green a technology is when choosing a supplier, according to IDC.
“The quantifiable impact of a technology offering on customers' sustainability goals is gaining traction as a metric when selecting technology partners,” says Dušanka Radoničić Göhner, Senior Research Analyst, Europe Telco 2025, IDC.
“IDC survey results show European organizations focus strongly on technology partners' circular-economy principles and capabilities in their vendor selection processes,” says Radoničić Göhner.
AT&T is far from being the only operator working to help customers understand and reduce their environmental footprint. Deutsche Telekom, for example, has published an “enablement factor” since 2014, which it says gives “the ratio between [the] savings potential for our customers and our own carbon footprint, allowing us to assess our overall performance – both positive and negative – when it comes to climate protection.” In its latest CSR report Deutsche Telekom stated that “in 2020, the positive CO2 effects enabled by our customers across Europe were 331 percent higher than our own CO2 emissions.”
Deutsche Telekom is also part of the European Green Digital Coalition, whose signatories include the CEOs of Ericsson, IBM, Liberty Global, Microsoft, Nokia, Orange, Proximus, TDC, Telekom Austria, Telefonica, Telenor, Telia and Vodafone. The coalition's 26 members have committed to investing in developing and using more energy and material efficient products and services; developing ways to measure the impact of technology and the environment and working with other sectors to create green digital transformation guidelines.
Other schemes target the general public. The Eco Rating labelling scheme, for example, helps customers of Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica Telia and Vodafone identify the most sustainable phones.
All these schemes point to the necessity of partnership and information exchange. AT&T, for example, is working with a range of organizations, including Microsoft, Equinix, Duke Energy, Texas A&M University and the University of Missouri to create new solutions. Collaboration is important because many of the answers lie beyond the network, according to IDC.
“Telcos are engaging with a wider set of business partners and stakeholders as most use cases require extensive development on top of the network,” says Radoničić Göhner. “The network is just an enabler. Everything else must then be built on top — industry standards, unique devices, new business models, new vertical platforms, new software solutions, and new solution architectures.”
Nonetheless, CSPs will also have to address the problem of network energy consumption, especially as networks densify and 5G adoption increases.
“Power efficiency is a more critical challenge than ever with networks becoming more distributed and data traffic consumption increasing,” says, Radoničić Göhner, who adds that cost savings are the biggest driver of reductions in energy consumption, above social responsibility, regulatory compliance, or customer demand.
