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The most recent European sustainable telecoms sector benchmark conducted by independent analyst frmVerdantix – The Green Quadrant Sustainable Telecoms Europe 2011 report – provides a detailed, fact-based comparison of ten sustainable telecoms solutions provided by 18 of the largest telecoms operators in the European market.

The study assesses Europe’s largest telecoms operators across 50 criteria including a detailed assessment of network energy effciency, carbon reduction strategies and sustainability reporting. It also includes insights from interviews with a panel of 15 senior IT and telecoms buyers with combined revenues of over € 175 billion. Firms included in the study are AT&T, Belgacom, BT, Cable&Wireless, Colt, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, KPN, SFR, Swisscom, Telecom Austria, Telekom Italia, Telecom Portugal, Telefonica, Telenor, TeliaSonera, Verizon and Vodafone.

Key fndings

The analysis found that AT&T, BT, Orange (France Télécom), Swisscom and Telefónica will improve their ability to win contracts for telepresence, cloud computing, smart meters and web hosting because they differentiate their services with superior energy and environmental performance. The report stated that these fve telcos lead the European market for sustainable telecoms because of their integrated commercial strategies to apply sustainability right across their products and services, coupled with in-depth organisational commitment to sustainability, resulting in class leading corporate sustainability performance.

Competitive disadvantage

Verdantix Director David Metcalfe says that the study found that telecoms operators who can’t communicate their own energy, environment and sustainability performance are now at a competitive disadvantage. “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. BT stands out for its corporate sustainability performance.”

Buyer’s market

According to the report, buyers focus on the sustainability benefts delivered by video conferencing, telepresence, collaboration platforms and data centre-related services including cloud computing. Interviews with 15 telecoms buyers representing multinational frms with average revenues of € 12 billion uncovered a growing trend to include energy and environment benefts in the assessment of overall business benefts from telecoms services. These powerfu buying constituencies u energy and environmen performance questions as part of supplier pre-qualifcation. Two globa banks told Verdantix the require telcos to have IS certifcation as a pre-co spending money with t In the European tele AT&T, BT, Orange, Swis Telefonica lead their pe energy, environment an These telecoms provide broadest portfolio of se target sustainability gro electricity and gas smart metering.

They have also invested more than their competitors to measure and communicate energy and CO2 benefts delivered to their customers. For example, Swisscom’s Green-ICT-check tool enables customers to assess energy and CO2 savings across all services in a consistent way, while AT&T, BT, Orange and Telefonica have appointed a Chief Sustainability Offcer who reports at Board level and garners investment for the programme.

Market opportunity

“There is a big market opportunity for the telecoms sector to act as a sustainability ‘enabler’ helping customers to reduce their energy consumption, fuel costs and CO2 emissions,” says Phil Sayer, Principal Analyst at Verdantix. “But customers still need more education to understand how to defne sustainability benefts in fnancial terms. Right now there is a gaping disconnect between the ambitions of the telcos and the quality of their eco-marketing. Europe’s telcos need to work much harder to articulate how sustainability

Operators who can’t communicate their own energy,

environment and sustainability performance are now at a competitive disadvantage.

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Sustainable telecoms

Telecoms services including video conferencing, online collaboration and cloud computing play an important role in delivering sustainability programme targets such as energy cost reduction, travel substitution and fuel effciency.