Interviews

At Connected Britain, we spoke with Aurelien Bergonzo, Director of Telecom Datacom, and Infrastructure Business Unit at ACOME, to discuss how to more deeply embed sustainability throughout the telecoms supply chain

Is sustainability truly a priority for telcos?

At Connected Britain 2025, the topic of carbon neutrality and sustainable networks was as prominent as ever, but evidence of true progress at scale was in short supply.

For ACOME’s Aurelien Bergonzo, a big part of this challenge has been the difficult macroeconomic environment, which has seen operators forced to focus more heavily on cost.

“Despite the ambition for carbon neutrality, the reality is that cost remains the main criteria for operators,” he said, noting that technical breakthroughs in greener network tech are being made frequently but implemented too slowly.

“You need to have a competitive physical layer and a competitive network, but at the same time you want to decarbonise. I think that’s impeding our adoption of breakthrough [sustainable] technology,” he explained.

The solution, Bergonzo argues, is taking a more holistic approach to the entire network supply chain, compounding on small sustainability gains throughout the networks life cycle.

“People are engaged and willing but right now we’re not working together as an ecosystem to make this a reality,” he said. “Everyone is the scope three of someone else. So, at the end of the day, its really about taking a holistic approach. If we move forward collectively, we can make some significant advances.”

Watch our full interview below!

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