Ticking all the boxes: Big telcos do well against green benchmarks

According to Verdantix the leading green telcos have greatly improved their ability to win contracts because they can tick an increasing number of the 'green boxes' now required by both private and public sector organisations when in procurement mode.

Verdantix assessed Europe's 18 largest operators across  50 criteria including a detailed assessment of network energy efficiency, carbon reduction strategies and sustainability reporting.

"Our study found that telecoms operators who can’t communicate their own energy, environment and sustainability performance are now at a competitive disadvantage,” says Verdantix Director, David Metcalfe. “This is particularly true when bidding for public sector telecoms contracts. Bid teams now need training on how to respond to customers’ sustainability questions. An ability to communicate the PUE of data centres or the potential for air travel cost savings from the deployment of telepresence suites differentiates core telecoms services. Among the 18 telcos we looked at, Orange has invested ahead of the curve to create sustainability differentiators for its customers across a broad portfolio.

And complying with the requirement is really beginning to make a difference to business performance, claims the consultancy. It not only benchmarked telco green performance but sanity-checked all that effort against 15 telecom service buyers. It says its interviews confirmed a growing trend for buyers to include energy and environmental assessment of overall business benefits from telecoms services when contracting services, and there is an increasing tendency to include energy and environmental performance questions as part of the supplier pre-qualification process.

In the European telecoms market, AT&T, BT, Orange, Swisscom and Telefonica lead their peer group on energy, environment and social metrics. The study says these telecoms providers boast the broadest portfolio of services that target sustainability growth markets like electricity and gas smart metering.

They have also invested more than their competitors to measure and communicate energy and CO2 benefits delivered to their customers. Swisscom’s 'Green ICT check tool' enables customers to assess energy and CO2 savings across all services in a consistent way. AT&T, BT, Orange and Telefonica have appointed a Chief Sustainability Officer who reports at board level and garners investment for the programme. (see video, below).