O2

Climate Change - being part of the solution

Did you know that telecommunications companies and the information and communications technology (ICT) sector are widely recognised as being part of the solution to the global problem of climate change? This is because companies like Telefónica O2 UK and others in the wider ICT industry have a critical role to play in helping businesses and society reduce the impact on the environment.

The experts who've studied this area, estimate the ICT sector's total climate change impact is around 2 percent of the total global contribution, but use of ICT services can lead to emission reductions five times the sector's own footprint by 2020 with $950 billion of cost savings (see SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age, The Climate Group & GeSI, Global e-Sustainability Initiative, 2008). There are lots of ways in which our sector can help. For example:

• Travel - ICT is altering the need to travel via video-conferencing, home-working, and allowing online business & shopping
• Transport - smart logistics can improve transport efficiencies, e.g. via traffic movement intelligence etc. Also, ICT software to improve the design of transport networks, allow the running of centralised distribution networks
• Smart buildings - design, management and automation of building management systems for controlling heating, cooling etc.
• Grids - a "smart grid" is a set of software and hardware tools that enable generators to route power more efficiently, reducing the need for excess capacity. ICT allows for monitoring and management through smart meters
• Industrial systems - smart motor systems are devices that convert electricity into mechanical power used throughout global industry. ICT allows intelligent control of these systems with significant efficiency and climate improvements.
• Dematerialisation - reducing unnecessary materials, e.g. via online billing, downloading of media & music etc.

If you'd like more information on climate change and the ICT sector's role in tackling it, please visit the GeSI website at www.gesi.org.

What we're doing

Of course being part of the solution doesn't mean that you don’t have to worry about your own performance. O2 has a sizeable carbon footprint, which we're working hard to address.

• In 2007, Telefónica O2 UK consumed 419,932,222 kWh of energy (Based on a mix of actual, estimation and extrapolation methods).
• About 85 percent of our energy consumption is associated with our networks (with the remainder attributable to our retail stores & offices).
• Since 2005 O2 has invested over £1.75m in energy efficiency activities with £1.4m invested in smart meters; allowing us to accurately monitor our real-time energy consumption, and thereby implement significant efficiency programmes, across our cell sites, our retail stores and our offices.
• We have installed smart meters in 330 of our 397 retail stores. Where we haven't installed them, that's because these stores are owned by landlords.
• Overall we've improved our energy efficiency by 15 percent in the last three years, thereby avoiding 47,000 tonnes of CO2, and saving over £8 million.
• In early 2009, we became the first UK mobile operator to be awarded the new Carbon Trust Standard, for continued demonstrable improvements in our energy reduction performance.

With 85 percent of our energy consumption in our networks we work closely with our key suppliers to ensure the constant evolution and improvement in energy efficiency of the equipment. We have seen improvements of over 15 percent in our carrier energy efficiency and we have also recently introduced new rectifiers in our power supply’s units which are 96 percent efficient.

We continue to work across all areas of our business to improve our energy performance and minimise our carbon footprint.

Our customers have also been telling us that they'd like to find ways of reducing their own environmental impacts. So we've been sourcing products which can help. Find out all about them.