Scoping out the long path to net zero

After a year in which telcos’ network energy efficiency stole the sustainability headlines several communications service providers are moving the spotlight onto Scope 3 emission reduction.

Scope 3 is a sprawling category that refers to indirect emissions from assets that telcos do not own or control directly, including those from the production, use and disposal of purchased goods and services. Addressing Scope 3 is crucial if telcos are to bring their greenhouse gases (GHG) to as near zero as possible because it is typically the largest source of GHG emissions.

Telia, for example, estimates they account for 91% of its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the number is similarly high for other telcos. However, scope 3 emissions are difficult to tackle because they cover not only products from suppliers, but also how customers use products, such as customer premise equipment or mobile phones.

Suppliers can be the easiest place for telcos to start, especially as many have their own net zero targets in place. In addition, they can also account for a large percentage of scope 3 emissions: Telenor says 90% of its scope 3 emissions come from its supply chain and the goods and services that it buys and recently announced it has made it mandatory for suppliers to abide by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to halve greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030 and hit net-zero by 2050. The company has been working with suppliers for some time to encourage the development of greener equipment, as Gaurav Arora, Director, Sustainability & Operational Excellence, Telenor Group IHQ, explained in an interview with Inform.

Meanwhile Telia says that 45% of its supply chain emissions from purchased goods and services and capital goods “are covered by science-based climate targets, an increase of nearly one-third since the end of 2022, with another 14% awaiting external validation.” Its goal is to increase the 45% figure to 72% by 2025.

The steps that telcos are taking include circularity: i.e. encouraging network equipment suppliers to design products for reuse, repair and re-manufacturing so that products and materials are recycled in a circular way.

5 billion phones

Getting customers to take a circular approach to their equipment, however, may be harder to manage. The number of unused mobile devices lying around gives some indication of the scale of the challenge – the GSMA puts the figure at 5 billion. Separately, new research from EU research team reported by RCR Wireless estimates that 78 million IoT batteries will be dumped daily by 2025.

Twelve telcos have signed up to GSMA targets to increase mobile phone recycling. Their aim by 2030 is to ensure “the number of used mobile devices collected through operator take-back schemes amounts to at least 20% of the number of new mobile devices distributed directly to customers.” These phones will then be repaired, reused or transferred to controlled recycling organizations.

The project calculates that the impact of a refurbished phone is 87% lower than that of a newly manufactured phone. An added lure is that the efficient recycling of five billion mobile phones could uncover “USD 8 billion worth of gold, palladium, silver, copper, rare earth elements, and other critical minerals, and enough cobalt for 10 million electric car batteries.”

Several telcos are already promoting circularity with end customers. Telefónica, for example, works with consumers to buy back old phones and repairs routers instead of making new ones, and cited a figure of 4.7 million devices re-used per year. And Orange, which is jointly leading the most recent phone recycling initiative from the GSMA, committed to collecting the equivalent in used devices of at least 30% of its total sales volumes per year by 2025 in each of its European operating countries.

But telcos’ net zero goals indicate how difficult it is to get to grips with scope 3 emissions. Plans from BT, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Vodafone are among some of the most ambitious, but even they only expect to achieve net zero across all of their emissions by 2040.