Vodafone says it will be helping its business customers and managed service partners go green through its European network, that will be powered by 100% renewable electricity no later than July 2021. The operator has created its Green Gigabit Net for customers across 11 markets, that will grow sustainably using only power from wind, solar or hydro sources.
Vodafone also promised to help business customers and partners who use its services reduce their own carbon emissions by a cumulative total of 350m tonnes globally, over ten years between 2020 and 2030 – “an ambitious new target equivalent to the UK’s total annual carbon emissions for 2019”, said Vodafone.
In 2019, Vodafone committed to purchasing all electricity from renewable sources, “halving its environmental footprint by 2025” and reusing, reselling or recycling 100% of its network waste, supporting the move towards a more circular economy. “Today’s announcement accelerates the current commitments and adds a new one”, it said.
Around four-fifths of the energy used by Vodafone’s networks will now be from renewable sources obtained directly from national electricity grids via PPA (power purchase agreements) and green tariffs. The remaining fifth, supplied by Vodafone’s landlords to buildings and other infrastructure, will be covered instead by “credible” renewable energy certificates (RECs), Vodafone said. “Where feasible”, Vodafone will also invest in self-generation on site, mostly via solar panels.
Green Gigabit Net will be enabled across all Vodafone’s markets in Europe, including Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Romania, Albania, Czech Republic and Hungary, no later than 31 July 2021.
Vodafone Group CEO Nick Read said: “As society rebuilds and recovers from the Covid-19 crisis, we have an opportunity to reshape our future sustainably to ensure that recovery does not come at a cost to the environment.
“Our accelerated shift to 100% renewable electricity on our European networks will change the way we power our technology for good - reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, helping our customers manage their resources more effectively and reduce their carbon emissions.”
The new carbon reduction target was developed with support from global carbon and sustainability experts The Carbon Trust, whom Vodafone has worked with for a number of years. The Carbon Trust calculated the total quantity of emissions Vodafone has helped business customers avoid already and has modeled potential future scenarios to inform Vodafone’s target setting in this area. The Carbon Trust chief executive Tom Delay said: “We have been working closely with Vodafone on its sustainability agenda since 2010, and for the last seven years on quantifying the carbon enablement impact of Vodafone’s products and services.
“There is a growing and important opportunity for the ICT sector to develop and enable new solutions that help drive decarbonisation, and this target represents a very high level of ambition for Vodafone to continue to drive this strategy, further developing its IoT and other services, and engaging with its business customers.”
Last year, The European Commission cleared Vodafone Group's €18.4bn acquisition of Liberty Global’s operations in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania to greatly boost its converged customer base.
Following completion of the deal, Vodafone said it would have 116.3m mobile customers, 24.2m broadband customers and 22.1m TV customers across its European footprint. It said over half of group revenues would come from fixed and converged services.
