Energy and Utilities Contribute Approximately 12% of the CO2 Emissions Worldwide

Soenke Peters, Head of Strategy and Technology at Nokia for the Middle East and Africa Market, speaks about the role technology plays in the journey toward sustainability

How does technology contribute to sustainability?
In Nokia’s view technology is a key enabler for sustainability, or as we like to say: ‘there is no green without digital’. Digital technologies and critical communication networks contribute in different ways to improving sustainability: evolving telepresence, in the past mainly voice, today video and immersive AR/VR experiences significantly reduced the need to travel for meetings.

Digitalized supply chains and production facilities operate more efficiently, producing less waste, thus reducing emissions. Intelligent power grids enable the production, storage, and distribution of electric energy in optimized ways.

What sort of sustainability efforts does your company practice? Examples: minimal/recyclable packaging, use of recycled material for devices, green energy, low energy consumption, digital products and services, and so on.
As the first large vendor in the telecom technology supply business, we at Nokia joined the Science Based Targets initiative with an aim to reduce our scope 1,2,3 emissions from the 2019 baseline by 50% by 2030. Scope 1 and 2 are those emissions that are owned or controlled by a company, whereas scope 3 emissions are a consequence of the activities of the company but occur from sources not owned or controlled by it. At Nokia, we aim to use 100% renewable energy by 2025 for our own operation. In 2021 we reached 53%, for 2022 our aim is 60%.

Our latest, award-winning product packaging (reddot winner 2022) is not only made 100% from recycled materials but is also lighter and more compact, reducing CO2 emissions during transport. However, most of the CO2 emissions occur during the operation of our products. For example, throughout the lifecycle of radio networks, 92% of CO2 emissions are borne when the networks are in use, and about 8% are created in manufacturing and transportation. Therefore, Nokia puts focuses on significantly reducing the energy consumption of its products by making innovations as part of our development process.

For example, Nokia’s liquid-cooled radio base station reduces direct energy consumption by 30%. In the case of harvesting the waste heat to replace other sources of energy, even 80% of CO2 footprint reduction can be achieved. The reduced operating temperature leads also to increased reliability and longevity of the hardware. To ensure market-leading performance, Nokia is investing and developing its own chipsets for most product segments. The latest release of our IP networking processor FP5 pushes the limits on throughput (1 Tbps) but does so with a 75% reduced energy consumption over previous generations.

Do we need to look at sustainability beyond the use of “green energy”?
Usage of green energy is of course preferable, whenever available. However, reducing energy consumption or not using energy in the first place is another critically important way to increase sustainability. This approach has various angles, like improving the energy efficiency of telecom equipment, as mentioned above, and intelligently powering off-network parts depending on the load and need of the end-users. Nokia’s portfolio of energy savings software features in combination with AI/ML-powered products and services can help to reduce energy consumption by another 10 – 30 %.

Indirect effects of communication networks are another angle, like increasing the usage of remote meetings and training, requiring people to travel less, and reducing their footprint.

How can companies reduce their carbon footprint? Are there local or regional initiatives that encourage companies to adopt best practices?
We at Nokia believe digitalization is a key enabler to optimize processes and avoid waste across a wide area of sectors, like transport, logistics, manufacturing, energy, and utilities. The transport sector is responsible for around 16% of CO2 emissions. The main reduction levers are electric vehicles (EV), optimized routing of heavy goods vehicles (HGV), and commercial shipping. Working from home is another contributor. Digitalization, IoT in particular can support optimizing the EV charging grid. IoT services are also key to improving the efficiency of HGV by optimizing the routes, and monitoring engine and driving dynamics to reduce fuel consumption.

Energy and utilities contribute approximately 12% of CO2 emissions worldwide. While the majority of the CO2 emissions stem from the sourcing and energy production side, efficient energy distribution networks can significantly reduce the overall emissions. Remodeled grids, so-called smart energy systems (SES) with embedded connectivity and analytics are key to the digitalization and decarbonization efforts.

A major part of the reduction will be achieved by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources over time; in parallel reductions can be achieved by better balancing demand and supply by connecting the supply side (solar, wind, and other sources fitted with IoT sensors) and demand side (residential, business, electric vehicles, vehicle to grid) via mobile and fixed networks. These smart grids lead to better efficiencies in distribution, reduced leakages, and more efficient, optimized use of green energy by customers with smart meters.

What challenges do companies face today in their journey toward net zero and how can technology help solve those issues?
In many instances companies struggle to establish a baseline and understanding of the main drivers of their CO2 emissions, as their systems are isolated and offline. Fitting / connecting key parts of an energy production plant, factories, or transport system with connected IoT sensors will create a solid set of data, that can be used to create a digital model (digital twin) of the overall process. These models can be used to identify key drivers for energy consumption, loss, and other inefficiencies. Iteratively, the company can implement changes to the process and verify those in the model first, and afterward in the real system.

Communications technology overall, digitalization in particular, and cloud technologies play a central role in achieving net zero carbon emissions, but how soon it can be achieved depends on the pace of industries across all verticals in adopting these technologies. This is why Nokia is heavily focusing on providing relevant technologies with innovations and professional consultations leveraging its global expertise for deploying these technologies.