Nokia announces enhanced Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy to address some of the biggest global challenges through its business and technology.
The strategy, which Nokia has spent the past 12 months developing, builds on five strategic focus areas: environment, industrial digitalization, security & privacy, bridging the digital divide, and responsible business.
Plans range from increasing the energy efficiency of their operations, hardware circularity, shoring up the security of their telecommunications devices, and ensuring responsible business practices across its value chain.
Nicole Robertson, VP, ESG at Nokia, said: “The line between purpose and profit is dissolving and companies are looking to identify the best ESG strategies to deliver measurable impact to societal challenges and drive value creation.”
Once a producer of mobile handsets, Nokia now makes routers, network processors, and products for telecom infrastructure, including the 5G network, and also offers cloud services and solutions.
The telecommunications giant’s 2021 ESG report, released earlier this year, highlights their progress across a number of different goals. Their accomplishments include an energy reduction of 46% within customer networks that they modernized in 2021, 53% of purchased electricity being renewably sourced, and emission reductions of 30% across their facilities (scope 1 & 2) from 2019.
Nokia worked with the Science-based target initiative (SBTi) to set a goal of net zero by 2050, aiming to reduce scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions by 50% between 2019 and 2030. But, the latest report highlights that this goal is currently not on track, with emissions 8% above the companies cumulative carbon budget for 2020–2021.
The report goes on to state that the companies decarbonisation plan is not likely to be a linear process. Suggesting that future energy-efficient products and decarbonisation of the electricity grid over time will allow the target to be met.
While the telecommunications industry may not come to mind when people discuss emissions, it does represent a significant share of global carbon emissions. According to research published by mobile phone maker Ericsson, the overall telecommunications industry accounts for about 1.4% of emissions worldwide. By comparison, the aviation industry generates 2% of all global carbon emissions.
In order to combat the industries carbon footprint, Nokia joined the EU Green Digital Coalition (EGDC) as a founding member. The coalition is a group of 26 ICT companies, including tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, and IBM, who are all committed to supporting the Green and Digital Transformation of the EU.
You can read Nokia’s press release here.
