How Nokia & Ericsson are Steering Net Zero & Sustainability

Making a single two minute call everyday, will create 47 kg of carbon emissions each year, according to Reboxed. While attention is often centred on the biggest emitters - agriculture, transport, construction - every gram of CO2 adds up and the telecommunications sector is not shying away from the pollution caused by instant communication. Many mobile businesses are setting net zero targets. 

Timotheus Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG, has set the company on a trajectory to be fully climate neutral by 2025.

“We want to achieve net zero emissions from the production of cell phones,” he said. “Anyone who fails to achieve green production will eventually be removed from the line-up. We import devices. But we export our environmental protection standards.”

When the whole planet’s organisations, machines and devices are in sync with each other and the people they serve, perhaps then, we can realise the full potential of digital to create a more sustainable, productive and accessible future, suggests Subho Mukherjee, the Vice President & Global Head of Sustainability for Nokia. In his role, Subho and his team explore bridging the digital divide, industrial decarbonisation, maintaining the supply chain, expanding human rights and the responsible use of technology.

“At Nokia, we create technology that helps the world act together. We see the potential of digital to transform business, industry and society – and we play a critical role in enabling this,” he says. “We have always been driven by our values, to create technology that makes a positive impact in the world.”

Subho has a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and Master’s degree in Business Administration, with a broad background covering strategy, technology and innovation management, organisational transformation and leadership positioning at large multinational organisations. He joined Nokia in 2008 as Manager, Strategy & Business Development for Global Services, working his way up through to his current role.

At Nokia, he leads the company’s global sustainability strategy and its programmes, including its strategic intent to leverage Environmental, Social & Governance initiatives to create new value for its stakeholders. 

When this happens, Subho says, massive gains are possible:

• More efficient processes that decouple business growth from an increased environmental footprint

• Increased productivity through the digitalisation of physical industry

• More inclusive digital access, so communities can receive access to healthcare, employment and education

“We maximise the positive handprint of digitalisation and enhanced connectivity, while simultaneously minimising the potential environmental and social footprint of our products and services,” he shares. 

How Nokia is enabling industrial decarbonisation through connectivity

Subho sees digitalisation and enhanced connectivity as a critical part of the solution to decarbonise physical industries that significantly contribute to global carbon emissions. 

“This is our handprint – it represents the enablement effect of the technology solutions we provide,” he shares. “We have recently spoken about this role of digital technologies in industrial decarbonisation extensively at the Climate Week in New York this year. ​You can see from our annual sustainability report, People & Planet, that we are the leader in the private wireless market. We now have over 710 customers globally, helping industries accelerate their digital transformation.”

Nokia is a global leader in communications infrastructure and over 600 telcos around the world use its mobile, fixed, IP, optical and non-terrestrial networks and technologies. 

Minimising the environmental footprint and any potential negative social impact of Nokia’s technology is what the company calls its sustainability footprint. From 2019 to 2023 worldwide, mobile data growth surged 293% to nearly 120 zettabytes per year. During that time, however, Nokia’s emissions – the majority of which stems from the use of its network equipment in its customer communication networks – have decreased 11%. 

Nokia’s net zero initiatives include a range of short- medium- and long-term sustainability targets. 

“Nokia was the first telecoms vendor to have its 2030 Science Based Target (SBT) validated by the SBTi in 2017 and was among the first 100 companies across all sectors to do so,” Subho explains. “Earlier in 2024 we announced our commitment to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 across our value chain, as well as an accelerated decarbonisation of our scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030. We have also defined a net-zero pathway that will help us continue to reduce our emissions across our value chain.”

Key levers in Nokia’s net-zero pathway include:

Product design and innovation

With Nokia’s chipsets (Quillion, Reefshark PSE-6s and FP5) the company has achieved between a 40% and a 75% reduction across different network areas. 

Reefshark offers a 50% reduction in the average power consumption of 5G mMIMO Base stations by 2023 from a 2019 baseline. Quillion can help reduce power consumption for broadband access products with 50% less power needed in fibre installations than previous generations. The PSE-6s can reduce network power consumption per bit in optical transport by up to 40% compared to the PSE V. Nokia’s FP5 network processor offers a 75% reduction in power consumption compared to its previous generation.

Low-carbon electricity

Nokia has committed to using 100% renewable electricity in its own facilities by 2025 – a challenge that the company is managing well, given that Nokia is present in more than 100 countries. 

Energy and material efficiency

Nokia aims to achieve 95% circularity by 2030, in relation to operational waste (waste from offices, labs, manufacturing, installation and product take back), driving actions to reduce landfilling.

Carbon removals

Credible, permanent carbon removals and storage may be required to neutralise some residual emissions to reach net zero.

“These climate actions are tied to our employee long term incentive plans and through the companywide business and operational governance of our net zero roadmap that involved our board and senior management teams,” Subho adds. 

Net Zero calling at Deutsche Telekom AG

Making a single two minute call everyday, will create 47 kg of carbon emissions each year, according to Reboxed. While attention is often centred on the biggest emitters - agriculture, transport, construction - every gram of CO2 adds up. Leaders like Subho are not shying away from the pollution caused by instant communication. Timotheus Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG, is another telecommunications leader who has set his company on a trajectory to be fully climate neutral by 2025.

“We want to achieve net zero emissions from the production of cell phones,” he said. “Anyone who fails to achieve green production will eventually be removed from the line-up. We import devices. But we export our environmental protection standards.”

With Timotheus’ long-term focus, the company already emits 94% fewer CO2 emissions than it did in 2017. 

“Sustainability means: Never sticking with yesterday, instead always working for tomorrow,” he shared.

Ericsson is transforming telecom with sustainability

Alper Benli, Head of Transformation and Strategic Programmes at Ericsson, previously spoke with Mobile Magazine to discuss how mobile innovations are shaping the future of voice, data and the internet in telecommunications. He also shared with us how Ericsson is using AI in the telecommunications market and expanding its sustainability credentials. 

“AI helps to boost network performance and reliability by analysing network traffic and optimising resource allocation. It also contributes to sustainability and energy savings by maximising network utilisation without impacting performance,” Alper explains. “As networks become increasingly intelligent, AI opens up a wealth of opportunities for communication service providers (CSPs) to grow their businesses beyond simply providing connectivity.”

Ericsson is leveraging AI to address five main areas: 

• Ensuring and boosting network performance

• Creating outstanding customer experiences

• Turning operations into efficient business enablers

• Improving energy efficiency and sustainability 

• Maximising the potential of existing infrastructure

According to Alper, Ericsson's strengths in AI for telecommunications lie in its decades of experience building networks and its deep understanding of service providers' needs and unique access to data and AI use-case co-creation.

“We are continuously pushing the envelope of Telco AI through research and development of new technologies, such as Graph Neural Networks and Explainable AI, to ensure our solutions are not only high-performing but also transparent and trustworthy,” he shared. 

In the digital age, where sustainability rules, there are still challenges ahead on Nokia's net zero journey

The path to net zero is far from smooth. Subho and the Nokia team have many challenges ahead of them before reaching these ambitious net zero goals.

“We must decouple data traffic growth from its related energy growth,” he says. “This will be a defining challenge for our industry. ICT accounts for up to 5% of global electricity consumption and 2% of global GHG emissions but current scenarios indicate that this will continue to grow.”

A further challenge is grid decarbonisation. As Nokia is present in more than 100 countries around the world, the pace of change to decarbonise electricity is uneven.  

Subho sees digitalisation, underpinned by networking technologies, AI and the cloud as fundamental tools in humankinds’ acceleration towards a greener and equitable planet. 

“We have a once in a lifetime opportunity to leverage the progress we have made in technological innovation over the past decades, to put them in use, to help the planet,” he continues. 

This is of course good for our future generations, but Subho also believes that this is fundamentally valuable for businesses like Nokia. 

“At Nokia we are committed to realise the full potential of digital to create a more sustainable, productive and accessible future.”

To read the full story in the magazine click HERE

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