From Guest Blogger Erika Remmington: Going Green in the Telecom Industry — Five Companies That Are Making the Energy Transition

Businesses across the globe are beginning to respond to impending environmental destruction by confronting their own wasteful practices. The telecom carrier industry has been at the forefront of this shift in attitudes. From changing its relationship towards energy usage, to inventing high tech green solutions, telecom is at the forefront of the green revolution in business.

Intelligent Energy
India’s boom in telecom towers outpaced the nation’s ability to power them. Consequently, the country was blowing through diesel and adding to our global environmental crisis. In addition, the cost to power towers with diesel for at least half of each day in operation took a serious cut from telecom profits. International telecom company Intelligent Energy created its Essential India Energy division to address this gap in powering India’s telecom towers. Intelligent Energy, operating through its India division, has fostered power solutions for telecom towers including fuel cells.

Indigo Telecom Group
Indigo has tackled the problem of defunct network equipment piling up across the world. The existence of dead technology would lead to environmentally irresponsible disposal methods by Indigo’s clients. Indigo has partnered with N2S to streamline responsible disposal methods as part of its services. Responsible disposal was simply made into part of their network installation process. This integration helps Indigo’s clients avoid extra costs for this green shift.

Pinnacle Telecom
Pinnacle has developed a program called Mobile Phone Scrappage Scheme which fosters mass recycling of mobile phones. Pinnacle, a UK company, estimates 50 million mobile phones are bought in the UK each year and 100 million are thrown away across Europe yearly. By offering users a recycling service bundled with the purchase of a new phone and contract, Pinnacle meets this issue head on.

Airtel Network
Like India, Africaeven too often relies on diesel to generate power for telecom towers. Airtel’s “Green Initiative” is an innovative effort to reduce diesel usage. The company has remodelled many of its sites and turned them into something they call Hybrid Energy Banks. These banks collect unused power derived from diesel each day. A simple gesture, this approach significantly reduces diesel use and helps to significantly increase the Airtel’s profits.

Sri Lanka Telecom
In Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Telecom has joined the government’s ‘Api Wawamu Rata Nagamu’ (Let us grow more food to develop the nation) program by opening its sites to agriculture. Food shortages are certainly a major hurdle for the world’s governments as the effects of climate change and destructive industrial agricultural practices curtail our ability to grow food as we have in the past. By finding a balance between telecom needs and common needs through doubling the function of the company’s land, SLT has given the world a thoughtful way forward into the 21st century.