Viewpoint
From this year’s massive wildfires in Greece and Turkey to large-scale flooding in Europe, increasing climate anomalies is a clear message from nature that we need to act now. Unfortunately, such incidents are on the rise throughout the globe and are likely to worsen over the next decade.
It is then imperative that the ICT industry acts in accordance with the sustainable development goals put forward by the United Nations in 2015 to adopt measures to bring down emission of Greenhouse Gases.
The ICT industry, which is a backbone of the modern-day global economy, must adopt green and energy-efficient practices and products and take the lead in correcting the course of the climate change crisis. Huawei, along with several service providers, recently shared its insights and solutions that promote a sustainable way of functioning for the ICT and telecom industry at Better World Summit (BWS) for Green ICT for Green development in Dubai in United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Several senior industry leaders from different segments of the industry participated in the event to highlight the efforts made and the strategy adopted by them to reduce carbon emissions and reach the target of net-zero. Service providers speakers included representatives from some of the biggest service providers in the world, Dr Ahmed Bin Ali, SVP Corporate Communications, Etisalat Group; Herve Suquet, Group Energy SVP, Orange; Dirk Karl, Group Executive, Chief Procurement Officer, MTN and Tanveer Mohammad, SVP, Head of Global Operation, Telenor.
Apart from that, participants at BWS included Richard Mahony, Vice President of Service Provider Markets of Informa; Dr. Dena Assaf, UN Resident Coordinator of United Arab Emirates; Tommy Stadlen, Co-Founder of Giant Ventures; and Aaron Jiang, Vice President of Huawei Wireless Product Line.
Future Shall be Greener
Huawei is at the forefront to reduce our new carbon emissions and has taken several initiatives to bring down its own carbon emissions. For instance, its R&D centre in Chengdu, is entirely powered by renewables. The campus uses 200 million kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, and all of that comes from hydropower. This is equal to an annual carbon reduction of 177,000 tons or planting 7.7 million trees.
"With our innovative products and solutions, we want to work with customers and industry partners to jointly define industry standards, and help operators better measure and manage their carbon reduction roadmaps," says Bob Cai, Chief Marketing Officer at Carrier Business Group, while opening the Summit.
The company is not just taking measures to reduce its carbon emissions but is also pursuing innovations to make telecom networks more sustainable and energy-efficient. For example, the company invests more than 10% of its sales revenue into the research and development of new materials, high-performance algorithms, and innovative heat dissipation technologies to make its products more energy efficient.
Cai further elaborated that the ICT industry has to maintain a balance between development and lowering carbon emissions to better manage and measure carbon reduction roadmaps. At MWC Barcelona 2021, Huawei and Informa Tech jointly proposed the Network Carbon Intensity, or NCI, index, in which carbon emissions per bit of data is defined as a new metric of green networks.
Several speakers highlighted the role of 5G in bringing down carbon emissions. "5G is significantly greener technology compared with previous standards besides emerging as a revenue generator. It has already been deployed in 176 countries providing ultra-high-speed broadband to around 500 million subscribers. In China, it helped the operators achieve 11.2% in profit," says Jiang of Huawei.
It is then critical to focus on green solutions while 5G networks are being built and there are several options available to help service providers accomplish their net-zero vision. Jiang highlighted solutions that are helping the service providers address the challenge of climate change. For instance, PowerStar allows service providers to meet their energy saving goals without compromising network experience.
“Apart from Powerstar, Huawei’s ultra-wideband RRU integrates network components into one single box, allowing service providers to use several frequency bands from the same equipment. This not only brings down the power consumption but also helps in enhancing the user experience,” elaborates Jiang during his closing session. In addition, adopting alternate sources of energy like solar energy also helps in reducing carbon emissions.
Jiang highlighted the energy efficiency offered by Huawei’s Meta Active Antenna Unit (AAU) which comes with a larger antenna tray that brings together software and hardware components. “This approach increases the energy saving potential of antennas without compromising on consumer experience or network coverage. Meta AAU (Active Antenna Unit) consumes 30% less power when compared with the traditional approach,” says Jiang in his closing remarks.
Addressing the problem of climate change demands close collaboration between all the stakeholders, including the vendors, service providers, and industry bodies. The event provided a perfect opportunity to the ecosystem players to discuss different strategies to bring down the carbon emissions for a more sustainable world.
