Vodafone using 100% renewable energy in Europe

Today, Vodafone has announced a major sustainability milestone, noting that its entire European operations will run entirely on renewable energy by the start of next month. 

 

This announcement is not entirely unexpected; Vodafone announced back in July 2020 that it was making impressive progress with its environmental initiatives, bringing forward it plan to purchase 100% renewable energy in Europe from 2025 to 2021. Now, the company is making good on that pledge.

 

“From 1 July 2021, Vodafone’s customers across Europe can be reassured that the connectivity they use is entirely powered by electricity from renewable sources,” said Vodafone Group CEO Nick Read. “This is a major milestone towards our goal of reducing our own global carbon emissions to net zero by 2030, helping our customers reduce their own environmental footprint and continuing to build an inclusive and sustainable digital society in all of our markets.”

 

As a group, Vodafone currently hopes to reduce its carbon emissions to ‘net zero’ by 2030 and to do so across its entire value chain by 2040. 

 

Interestingly, despite a 47% year-on-year increase in mobile data traffic over the last year, there has been no notable increase in the company’s energy consumption, a fact which the company attributes to the use of more efficient mobile technology and analytics, including Massive MIMO. Over the past year, Vodafone has invested €65 million in energy efficiency and on-site renewable projects, leading to annual energy savings of 135 GWh.

 

Of course, Vodafone’s renewable energy ambitions do not end with Europe. The company hopes to achieve 100% renewable energy in Africa by 2025.