A mobile revolution
Whenever I hear of the word manifesto, I think of revolutions, revolts, uprisings and serious radical (even violent) change.
In my last blog I said I’d provide an update on what the global mobile sector is doing to reduce its own and assist other industries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Well, the GSMA has just released its report, Mobile’s Green Manifesto, that brings together what the global mobile telecommunications industry is doing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Some might think the term manifesto is a little over the top. But I like it. A revolution in mobile technology, and the benefits it can bring, is what we are about to see. In fact the newly released GSMA report suggests that from carbon reduction perspective, it is already upon us.
The first point I have noted is that the global mobile communications industry is making commitments to reduce its own (direct) carbon footprint.
The number of mobile connections is set to rise by 70% to 8 billion by 2020 as the industry builds out a new generation of mobile broadband networks bringing billions of people into the information economy. Despite this growth, the mobile industry forecasts that its total emissions will remain constant at 245 mega-tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2e) – equivalent to 0.5% of total global emissions in 2020.
The mobile industry forecasts that it will reduce its total global greenhouse gas emissions per connection by 40% by 2020 compared to 2009. This forecast covers all emissions from energy sources under the control of the mobile operators, including energy consumption from the radio network, buildings, energy consumption and emissions from transport.
Some of the major power savings initiatives are:
- Designing low energy base station sites
- Deploying base stations powered by renewable energy
- Implementing infrastructure optimisation and sharing
- Reducing mobile device life cycle emissions through design and recycling
The second observation from the report is in the enabling role that the mobile sector has.
An extrapolation by the GSMA of results from the Carbon Connections and SMART2020 reports shows that the mobile industry can enable GHG savings of at least 1,150 Mt CO2e in 2020, or 2.2% of the global 2020 GHG emissions, in the “business-as-usual” scenario, provided the initiatives are rolled out worldwide.
Examples of the initiatives required to reduce GHG emissions include:
- Smart logistics solutions, including fleet tracking systems and load optimisation, synchronised traffic and notification systems, onboard telematics to encourage eco-driving, congestion management, routing and journey management optimisation, and road pricing
- Smart grids and smart meters solutions, including electricity network monitoring, and electricity and gas metering
- Smart buildings, which use mobile and other ICT technologies to deliver highly energy-efficient, low-emissions buildings both for new and existing building stock
- Dematerialisation, that is, the substitution of high carbon products and activities with low carbon alternatives, for example, substituting face-to-face meetings with video-conferencing, or home-working
Another way in which the mobile industry has a role to play is in monitoring and broadcasting weather and other environmental impacts. This will become a crucial element for successful adaptation to the changing climate.
The GSMA report is not just theory or the results of modelling. It describes 30 practical case studies all of which show how this enabling role is actually delivering these emission saving.
Related Blogs, Posts & Endnotes:
- Check out some other Australian blogs discussing climate change: climatechange.jempp.com.au;blogs.crikey.com.au; jennifermarohasy.com.
- Join in Jeremy Green’s Moving Waves blog on sustainable transport and ICT.
- See the Smart Grid Australia site.
- Read the new green IT book just published with a load of Australian case studies showing how to use ICT to reduce your carbon footprint.
Note: Some of the comments that readers made on my last blog were that I focused on the positive environmental benefits of mobiles, yet there are significant environmental impacts that I didn’t address. I acknowledge this and will pick these up in a future blog.
One way that the mobile industry is contributing to greenhouse gas emissions is though the production of mobile devices. Consumers are actively encouraged to replace their handset with the latest technology whenever their contract expires (or sooner) and often for free. More emphasis needs to be put on the efficient recycling of this mobile “waste”
I guess the point I was trying to get across Alan was that the industry is an enabler to assist emissions reductions.
The issue of emboddied energy including the waste of materials going into mobile phone manufacturing is problematic I agree and it is what customers and consumers are concerned about. Take at look at the results of a survey I ran in a previous blog and sure enough hanset disposal is the top environmental concern: To complete the survey (it takes about a minute), go to: Click Here to take survey.
Then check out the responses at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=5oFONk7Ycx7FYg11XjZRBUPKzBbnYytyJYx_2fpD6GEJM_3d
As an industry, we need to do more to llift handset recycling rates. Please let me know your views on HOW!
Turlough
http://au.linkedin.com/in/turloughguerin
http://twitter.com/Turlough_Guerin
I am not a big fan of mobile wastage. As Thurlough knows I have overseen the installation of 2G back as far as 1995 and again in recent years with 3G upgrades. The system is flawed as far as green house gases are concerned. The base station gear gets hot because it is a transmitter and chews power. The shelters do not yet have passive or semi passive cooling. i have long called for subterranean ducting for cooling utilising fans to circulate the air. External intake of air only works when you have the right temperatures and has issues when fires are about. The carriers through power at the problem with up to 3 small air conditioners running in the shelter to cool a space of around 9-12m square.
A recent replacement of a 50 volt power rack saw a 2 man truck from the official transport contractor drive 500km to site and back to deliver a new rack from Sydney and then days later drive another 1,000km return trip to pick up the old rack and take it to the end of life store where it will probably sit for a year or two because of internal financial arrangements before being shipped for scrap. Storage in a warehouse with lights blazing is not exactly a green initiative that I can feel good about.
Carriers leave old technology in place for years and do not upgrade the gear to more efficient systems unless there is a need to expand or similar reason. Last year I found sites where the original equipment I installed was still working.
The life of a phone being only two years is also a very bad prospect. The carriers encourage this by offering incentives to upgrade at the end of a two year contract even if the user is happy with the current phone.
Those are just a few issues. I have many gripes about the mobile network and green issues and the carriers have ignored my attempts to investigate their green initiatives and to listen to new methods of cooling and operating for the better of our community and our world. The carriers refuse to listen and only do a token amount to appease the community.
If Telstra and others actually fix these issues, then great. My hat is off to them, but until I see better cooling, replacement of old inefficient systems (when newer ones will save enough power to justify), open audits and end of life managent I will assume this is a smoke and mirror exercise.
Robert Brand
Director Altnetworks
http://www.altnet.com.au
The mobile carriers are able to implement better sharing options for the base station infrastructure. They never have acheived this especially Telstra. It seems that the NBN could implement a shared infrastructure that could be utilised by others. it would save power, multiple towers and multiple ugly antennas, shelters and other issues such as power lines to individual sites – Telstra may be on one hill and Optus the next. Both need power lines. I am concerned that the question is about using mobile technology for being green when the system underpinning such an initiative would be basically inefficient and flawed from the very start.
Robert Brand
Thanks for your honest appraisal Robert.
Agree there are impacts that the industry needs to deal with. I can’t address these all here.
The global industry is aware of some of the issues you raise and is acting on these. See the policy request section of the GSMA document being presented in Copenhagen this week and the discussion on network sharing:
“Infrastructure optimisation and sharing Historically mobile networks have been designed in a way that optimises traffic flows. Increasingly operators now design networks, and specifically the number and location of BTS, in a way that
optimises both traffic flow and energy consumption. However, they are often constrained by planning policies that make it difficult to site base stations in optimal locations. To reduce both their costs and their emissions, mobile operators are also looking to share more infrastructure, but this can also be restricted by regulation. There are two levels of infrastructure
sharing: passive and active. Passive sharing involves components such as the tower mast or pylons,
cables, physical site or rooftop, shelter cabinets, power supply, air conditioning, alarm systems, etc. Active sharing includes antennas, antenna systems, backhaul transmission systems and the BTS equipment itself”.
I will start compiling Telstra-specific responses for each of the issues you raise.
Thanks,
Turlough
http://au.linkedin.com/in/turloughguerin
http://twitter.com/Turlough_Guerin
Very impressed by the level of discussion in the comments here – especially Robert’s. We are working on a report on handset recycling at the moment, and I’ll let you know when it’s out. There are lots of commercial pressures to recycle, and some not very nice practices involved in recycling. Extending the life of handsets would be better – it’s funny how handsets used to last so much longer. My dad is still using a Nokia 6310 and even the battery is fine after all these years. Why does no-one want to build anything like that any more>
Thanks Jeremy.
Robert is one of the active contributors on my blogs and I always appreciate his straight forward comments.
Looking forward to the Ovum report.
Turlough
BTW we are actively reducing energy consumption across wireless network and share these achievements as the results are made public.
We think it is about time someone has come to the party with an energy saving Mobile Phone Company. More and more pressure is being placed on companies to perform and let’s face it, it’s not just from a profit point of view now, it’s an energy saving matter. Why? Government has obviously placed new carbon taxes in place for energy consumption and now investors want to see a company that can perform in this area for a greater return on their investment. Good luck to the company who can achieve this mobile telecommunications breakthrough. Not only would you be assisting the business and companies like us but you would also be helping every single Australian in general.
Kyle R Smith
Managing Director
Purely Promotions Australia