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The agreement between the two Italian firms will see them work together towards sustainability goals in various forms, from increasing their use of renewables to transitioning to electric vehicles
Today, Enel Italia and INWIT have announced the signing of a memorandum of intent, pledging to collaborate with one another to jointly reduce their CO2 emissions and become more sustainable.
For INWIT, the deal could include the development of photovoltaic systems (i.e., solar panels) combined with storage systems at INWIT sites, as well as other energy efficiency initiatives. The company also suggested that they would do more to support a circular economy through the recovery and reuse of end-of-life materials, as well as electrifying the company’s vehicle fleet.
The statement released was a little more generalised when it came to Enel, suggesting the company would aim primarily at increasing its use of renewables, decarbonisation, digitalisation, and electrification of consumption.
“The collaboration with Enel allows us to give a new boost and speed up on the ecological transformation of our country,” said INWIT CEO Giovanni Ferigo. “We are aware of the strategic role played by our business and believe that these agreements, through the sharing of reciprocal competences, are an essential tool in successfully identifying innovative solutions with positive impacts on the general public.”
It is interesting to note here that INWI secured a €250 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) back in August, aiming to finance the creation of new 5G towers in Italy, as well as the deployment of equipment for indoor and outdoor networks, from small cells to distributed antenna systems.
In a recent panel at Total Telecom’s Connected Italy, Harald Gruber, Head of Digital Infrastructure at the EIB said that sustainability was becoming an enormous focus for investors in infrastructure, describing climate action as “the overriding goal” for the EIB.
“From this year, all of the operations that the Bank is funding need to be Paris-aligned and, moreover, by next year at least 50% of the investments should explicitly fulfil climate action goals,” he said.
Naturally, the deployment of additional telecoms infrastructure is not an inherently green target, typically leading to greater energy consumption for the operator, not to mention the carbon footprint of the deployment process.
However, this is too simplistic a view. it should be considered that more advanced infrastructure will not only be greener than its predecessor technology, which can gradually be phased out – especially in the cases of fibre versus copper – but will also help connected enterprises to reduce their own emissions footprint by allowing for greater digitalisation.
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