Green Telecom & IT Workshop: Gee Rittenhouse Keynote

Editor's Notes

• #5: A study by the e-sustainability Global Initiative, called SMART 2020 report, found that the ICT industry as a whole is a significant polluter – with Telecom making a third of the whole of ICT emissions, and that the internal growth of the industry is making the picture worst, with an expectation of multiplying by a factor 3 its carbon dioxide footprint between 2002 and 2020.But there is another way to look at our contribution to global warming: (transition)The same report gives two important directions:1) The industry is set to save a huge amount of energy and carbon emissions by direct improvements in telecom equipment and the way we deploy it. There is real potential to drive our 2020 emission levels down to the level of 2002 – despite exponential growth in traffic.2) By helping our customers save energy and reduce emissions, we’re actually a massive contributor to the solution. The benefits of ICT to other industries add up to more than ten times our own footprint.In other words, you as an operator have a tremendous opportunity to make a real, positive impact on our world – and people should know about it. This is not about PR and ‘greenwashing’. Our opportunity to be a power for good depends on our willingness to seize it -- to do the right things.