Telecom providers publish sustainability information

August 10, 2011 2 Comments

Global wireless telecommunication providers are now keeping track of their environmental performance by finding ways to save energy and keep more cellphones from landfills.

Verizon Wireless recently released its Corporate Sustainability Report and announced it improved its carbon efficiency by more than 15 percent in comparison with 2009. The company, which is keeping track of its energy usage and efficiency since 2001, said it hopes to report carbon-intensity efficiency results, energy usage and CO2 emissions every year from now on.

Verizon measures its carbon-intensity efficiency by dividing the total of CO2 emissions coming from use of electricity and fuels by the terabytes of information in its networks. Reducing the amount of energy used and moving more information with the same unit of energy improves the company’s carbon-efficiency.

While the company registered a 151.71 kWh per terabyte in 2009, the amount decreased to 130.27, close to 14 percent, in 2010.

According to the report, Verizon emitted a little over 6 million metric tons of CO2 in 2010, most of it 5,426,863 metric tons coming from electricity. The remaining emissions came from vehicle fuels, buildings and other fuels.

The report also showed Verizon has, for the fourth consecutive year, collected more than 1 million cellphones no longer in use through its HopeLine recycling and reuse program, which avoids phones from winding up simply unused or in landfills.

It was also looking into improving its footprint that Verizon increased its fleet of alternative-fuel vehicles in 2010. The company reported it now owns 1,902 green vehicles — mostly hybrids — 1,642 of which added in 2010.

The company also reported its facilities and operations have become greener through double-sided, black-an-white printing, toner cartridge recycling, an a corporate-wide recycling electronics program.

Last October the company was accepted into the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Volume program.

As of now, 32 Verizon Wireless stores earned LEED certifications, which ensures the building was designed for energy savings, water efficiency and stewardship of resources, among others. According to the report, such certification diverted 763 tons of construction waste from landfills. It also saves 864,000 gallons of water and approximately 386,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year.

Like Verizon, wireless providers AT & T and Sprint are also looking into way of operating in a greener way.

In 2010, for the second year in a row, Sprint ranked highest among all U.S. telecom companies by Newsweek in its 2010 Green Rankings. The company was ranked sixth out of 500 companies in 2010, up from the fifteenth place in 2009.

Sprint recently set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in 15 percent by 2017. It achieved a 9.5 percent reduction in 2009, larger than the 6.8 percent in 2008.

Like Verizon, Sprint offers take-back programs to better handle unused and old devices. According to the company, in 2010, more than 90 percent of the mobile devices Sprint collected in 2010 were reused. The company estimates more than 24 million devices were kept out of landfills by its programs since 2001.

Also according to the company, all the devices collected respect Sprint’s zero e-waste policy, which means phones collected are not sent to landfills or waste incinerators.

Recycling programs within its facilities, water recirculation ponds to allow for decreased water usage, and decreased paper consumption are other items Sprint is looking at to decrease its footprint, according to reports.

Not behind its competitors, AT & T also released recently its 2010 Corporate Sustainability Report.

The company has been measuring its greenhouse gas emissions since 2008, and reported its GHG stayed relatively steady in 2010 in comparison to 2009. In 2010, the company released close to 9 million metric tons of CO2 with about 86 percent of it coming from electric power.

According to AT & T, in 2011 the company will be taking steps to also incorporate supplier GHG emissions into its calculations. For that to happen, the company joined the Carbon Disclosure Project Supply Chain Initiative and sent request to top suppliers for their GHG emissions information.

AT & T also measures its electricity usage as related to the amount of information transmitted through its global network, voice and video traffic. The company found it used 498 kWh per terabyte of data carried over its network in 2008. In 2010, the company recorded using 415 kWh per terabyte of data carried on the network. The goal is to reduce that number in 17 percent in 2011.

The company also appointed an energy director to oversee its energy management efforts, as well as other energy and track progress programs.

AT &

T also developed in 2010 an energy scorecard through which it keeps track of its 500 largest energy-consuming facilities. The company uses the scorecards to set goal to each of the facilities. According to the company, since the implementation of the program, scores improved 58 percent in comparison to 2009.

In 2010, though it was less than in 2009, AT & T collected more than 3.7 million cellphones for reuse and recycling. However, the company reported an increase of about 17 percent in its in-store Reuse and Recycling program. It also brought in close to 1.8 million pounds of batteries and accessories.

Mobile devices recycling

In May 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency released an Electronics Waste Management summary in the U.S. through 2009 and concluded 141 million mobile devices entered end-of-life management in 2009, which was more than any other type of product in its analysis*, including TVs, computers, laptops and printers.

In its analysis, the agency found 129 million mobile devices** were disposed of in 2009 but only 11.7 million of those were collected for recycling. Because the rate at which mobile devices are collected for recycling

is increasing, EPA projected 11 percent of mobile devices will be recycled in 2010.

* When counted by weight, mobile devices account for less than one percent of end-of-life electronics.

**Cellphones, PDAs, smart phones and pagers are classified as mobile devices by EPA.

 

 

Tags: att, corporate, CSR, ewaste, recycling, sprint, sustainability, verizonCorporate Reports