The global mobile industry is uniting under industry trade group GSMA to take collaborative action in tackling climate change with the release of the Science-Based Target (SBT) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the telecommunications industry. 

The SBT is designed to reduce emissions trajectories for mobile, fixed, and data center operators; curb the risks and effects of climate change; and ultimately help companies reach the ambitious Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming.

“Our sector will form the backbone to the future global economy and has a unique role to play in reaching a net-zero economy. A decarbonized world will be a digital world so we must show leadership and take responsibility for driving positive climate action,” said Mats Granryd, director general of GSMA, in a statement

As of today, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and 27 other mobile operators from around the world – representing 30% of global mobile connections – are on board with SBTs. 

GSMA developed the SBT program in partnership with The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Global Engagement Studies Institute (GESI), and Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to establish a sector-specific decarbonisation pathway for ICT companies to set and meet targets in accordance to the latest climate science. 

Emissions produced within the ICT sector – which includes devices like computers and phones but also infrastructure like data centers and communication networks – does not seem decidedly significant at just 1.4% of the global carbon footprint, as reported in a recent Ericsson study. But, if the IT industry can slash its carbon emissions in half in each of the next three decades, it can reportedly help the planet reach net-zero emissions by 2050. 

Further, a joint report produced by the GSMA and the Carbon Trust found that mobile technology use enabled a global reduction in emissions of more than 2.1 billion tons in 2018 – savings that were almost 10-times greater than the global carbon footprint of the mobile industry alone.

The SBT initiative is another checkpoint on GSMA’s climate action roadmap for the industry, which has already seen operators disclose impacts.

“Investors and customers are demanding that the private sector plays a role in delivering the plan and meeting the targets. Therefore, the mobile industry must take responsibility and show leadership,” said Ana Tavares Lattibeaudiere, head of GSMA’s North America operations,  in an interview with SDxCentral.

GSMA also launched a Climate Toolkit as part of its climate action roadmap. It’s targeted today at  mobile operators, however the GSMA said “it has relevance to all organizations in the mobile ecosystem.”

The Toolkit provides guidance on how to set a science-based target aligned to the ICT sector decarbonization pathway to net-zero emissions by 2050.

GSMA Chairman Stéphane Richard said during his keynote at MWC Los Angeles 2019 that the mobile industry faces three omnipresent challenges it must overcome before it can collectively deliver 5G. Among those challenges is the loss of trust in businesses’ ability to deliver sustainable growth for the entire industry.

A growing number of people are also asking questions that the industry must answer in a more forceful but honest manner, he said. “Do we really need 5G? Do we want our lives to become even more digital? We have to find responsible answers to these questions.”

Richard argued that 5G will lessen the industry’s impact on the environment compared to previous generations of network technology because it can be directional and concentrated toward active users rather than diffusing signals everywhere.

The world produced approximately 50 million tons of e-waste in 2018, a sum that weighs more than commercial airliners have ever made, according to a report from the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE) and the United Nations’ E-Waste Coalition. That number is expected to skyrocket as network operators, vendors, and device makers prepare to deploy the next generation of 5G devices. However, the magnitude of the transition will come at a monumental cost to the environment.

The GSMA forecasts 40% of the world’s population will be covered by 5G networks by 2025, and 25 billion IoT connections will be live within the next five years. “Our responsible leadership of the industry can make a difference,” Richard said.

As the saying goes “out with the old, in with the new,” but when it comes to technology and devices – specifically the millions of smartphones, modems, and other gadgets incompatible with 5G networks – even if 5G networks and devices are designed to be more energy efficient than their predecessors, what will come of the obsolete discarded electronics?