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The Accelerating telecom’s sustainability journey Catalyst enables CSPs to reduce Scope 3 emissions by integrating real-time carbon tracking, eco-friendly recommendations, and circular economy practices into the customer experience
Reducing Scope 3 emissions with customer-facing sustainability platforms
Consumers and regulators are pushing established brands to meet ambitious climate goals. For CSPs, reducing Scope 3 emissions—those indirectly generated by customers’ use of digital devices and services—has become a pressing challenge. As Panneer Jayaraman Architect at Verizon India explains, “traditional approaches often overlook the importance of sustainability, end-of-life management, bombarding customers with irrelevant messages and ignoring their environmental concerns”. The CDP estimates that Scope 3 emissions account for 75% of the average company’s emissions – and this rises to 85% of a typical CSP’s carbon footprint. Scope 3 emissions however remain particularly difficult to address due to their indirect and disparate nature. The knock-on effects can be severe on global climate objectives, for many companies have no way of reporting, let alone addressing such emissions.
The Accelerating telecom’s sustainability journey Catalyst is designed to help the industry tackle this challenge. By providing CSPs with tools to track emissions and engage users in environmentally-conscious practices, it can transform a compliance challenge into a growth opportunity. Such a platform offers CSPs a clear way to reduce their environmental impact, increase customer loyalty, and help their brand fulfil strategic objectives.
The platform integrates carbon emissions data directly into the customer experience, helping both CSPs and their users make more environmentally conscious decisions. For consumers, it includes a self-service portal that provides real-time carbon footprint tracking. This data is calculated using insights into device usage, battery health, and energy consumption. By visualizing their impact, customers have the ability to adopt greener habits. The platform also offers personalized recommendations, such as how to optimize settings or switch to energy-efficient plans.
For CSPs, the platform helps embed sustainability into everyday operations. It tracks emissions and promotes circular economy practices like refurbished product sales and take-back programs. Additionally, it optimizes CSP infrastructure by reducing energy consumption in cloud services and other operational components. Crucially, it’s built using TM Forum standards, including APIs for customer management and product configuration, the platform also incorporates proprietary technologies like a CO2 calculation engine to ensure seamless integration and improved functionality.
This project aligns sustainability with profitability by marketing environmentally conscious products and services - meaning CSPs can appeal to a growing demographic of environmentally conscious consumers, driving customer acquisition and retention.
As Kanakasubramaniam Krishnamurthi, AVP Software Development at Verizon India explains, the impact of this Catalyst could be profound: “although designed for telecoms, the platform’s framework can be applied to other industries also grappling with Scope 3 emissions. It provides a blueprint for combining carbon tracking, customer engagement, and operational optimization in sectors like retail and technology. The Catalyst’s inclusion of circularity adds another layer of value. Promoting refurbished devices and take-back programs reduces electronic waste and extends product lifecycles. Looking forward, the project’s cloud-native, sustainability-optimized architecture could inspire future green technology developments. By integrating customer-facing tools with backend analytics, the platform bridges the gap between business goals and environmental responsibility.”
In an era where sustainability is both a moral obligation and a business imperative, this Catalyst provides a practical blueprint for reducing emissions while strengthening customer relationships. For CSPs willing to invest in innovation, it’s not just a way of staying competitive—it’s about taking a lead role in defining a greener future for the telecoms industry.
