executive
insight
Telenor
Environmental measures can range from incremental steps and
consumer initiatives to swapping out complete networks
Erik Ekern Jan Kristensen
hen Telenor calculated the installation of a wind-powered bases-
W
the business case for re- tation by Hungarian subsidiary Pannon.
‘Many climate
placing its entire mobile The tower-mounted wind generator pro-
network infrastructure duces approximately 5,000 kilowatt-hours friendly alternatives
in Norway, energy efficiency was a critical (Kwh) of power per year, according to
factor. The new mobile service infrastruc- Telenor, and this constitutes 50% of the
are quite profitable’
ture, announced in November, promises basestation’s energy requirements. Pannon
to be between 30% and 40% more en- intends to reduce its CO2 emissions by
Erik Ekern
ergy efficient once completed, says Jan 24% by 2011, and to this end has equipped
Kristensen, vice president, climate change its new headquarters with heat pumps and joint venture for infrastructure build and
initiative, Telenor. solar panels and is piloting solar-pow- spectrum sharing.
“The most powerful [improvement in ered basestations. The heat pump system The operator also stresses the need to
energy eficiency comes from]…the re- should save the company US$200,000 per encourage end users to do more. “We are
placement of older network platforms in year in fuel costs and reduce CO2 emis- also focusing on recycling. In the last part
several countries. When we have worked sions by 368 tonnes per year. of the value chain the end user also has re-
on the business case we take [into ac- Telenor’s Malaysian subsidiary, DiGi, has sponsibilities,” says Ekern.
count] power efficiency…and it has been even more radical ambitions. It has set the In March 2009 Telenor launched a re-
one of the ways of assessing vendor choice target over the next 3–4 years of reducing cycling campaign, providing 50 free SMS
and fine-tuning technical specifications,” by approximately 50% its 2011 projected messages and sponsoring the Red Cross
says Eric Ekern, vice president, corporate carbon footprint. Digi plans to achieve to plant 25 trees in Asia for every mo-
resonsibility, Telenor. The operator chose the goal through a mix of mobile network bile phone handed in by consumers. The
Huawei and Starent as the technology upgrades and by swapping out basestation marketing campaign was successful, but
providers for its domestic initiative. transreceivers, as well as through better Telenor notes such initiatives need to be
Telenor prides itself on its efforts to building and transport management. repeated regularly to be effective.
increase energy efficiency and reduce its Like other operators with subsdiaries in Telenor also stresses that over time
carbon footprint, and aims to keep a step developing countries, Telenor is beginning many of the measures it is taking—such
ahead of its competitors. “In recent years to replace diesel-powered basestations as installing solar panels and upgrading
we have established timeframes and goals. with solar-powered ones. It aims to have mobile networks—lower its operational
It drives through all levels of the organi- installed 3,000 solar-powered basestations costs. “We have seen that many climate
sation to ensure we are well ahead of the by 2015, out of a total of approximately friendly investment alternatives are quite
general industry,” claims Ekern. “We are 50,000 worldwide. Telenor’s other interna- profitable—e.g. solar panels,” says Ekern.
working with the GSMA and their target tional subsidiaries include Grameenphone Telenor also points to machine-to-
confirms we’re thinking a few years ahead. in Bangladesh, Vimpelcom in Russia, machine technology as a way to help
Telenor’s goal is 40% reduction [of its car- Kyivstar in Ukraine and Telenor Pakistan. consumers lower their energy consump-
bon emissions] by 2017, whereas [the] Telenor believes improvements in net- tion, by measuring energy use and util-
GSMA’s is 40% by 2020,” says Kristensen. work efficiency, increased network shar- ity suppliers for example. Going forward,
But even while Telenor is beating its ing, and moves to alternative fuel sources it hopes government initiatives to spur
own path towards lower emissions it sup- will have the greatest effect on the level of other sectors to invest in greener practices
ports the GSMA’s aims, and in particu- its CO2 emissions. “I don’t seen any dis- will in turn drive spending on IT and tel-
lar its call for the systematic collection ruptive technology changing it radically. ecoms services, and in particular on m2m
of standardised, easily comparable data. We will see a lot of incremental changes. communications.
“One of the main issues driven by the If we swapped network platforms every “EC recommendations in housing ef-
GSMA is to develop a common measure- seven to ten years the sum of the changes ficiences [for example] are going to need
ment and to systematically collect data, [would be]…quite large. There are also m2m development,” says Ekern. The EC
and do it publicly and have best practice emerging approaches to running mobile wants European governments to set by
sharing,” says Kristensen. networks [that]…are more energy effi- 2012 a schedule for the rollout of smart
One of Telenor’s major initiatives to cient, [such as] network sharing and tower metering. The Commission also says the
combat climate change is the develop- sharing,” says Ekern. In April, Telenor and use of online public services and applica-
ment of renewable energy sources. It has Tele2 announced an agreement to build a tions could save between 1% and 2% of
launched several pilot schemes, including joint LTE network in Sweden, forming a total energy use by 2020 worldwide. n
TOTAL TELECOM ENVIRONMENT SPECIAL
17
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