NEW YORK-To celebrate World Environment Day, a group of telecommunications carriers, equipment vendors and industry associations formed the Global e-Sustainability Initiative last week, an alliance billed as the first of its kind.
“Modern telecommunications, a major theme of this year’s international World Environment Day celebrations, is transforming the way the world works … and can make a major contribution toward human development. It also offers hope for reducing some of the great environmental threats of this new millennium, like climate change,” said Klaus Topfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme.
While telecommunications is a relatively clean industry, it also consumes vast amounts of energy, generates waste and affects the physical environment, the GeSI said in defining its concerns at a press conference held in Torino, Italy.
UNEP and the International Telecommunication Union support the e-Sustainability Initiative, whose founding members include: AT&T Corp., British Telecommunications plc, Cable & Wireless plc, Deutsche Telekom AG, L.M. Ericsson, Lucent Technologies Inc., Marconi plc, Telcordia Technologies Inc., Telenor and the European Telecommunications Network Operators Association.
During the next two years, the Global e-Sustainability Initiative will tackle three primary objectives. First it will support research into the role that information and communications technologies can play in advancing sustainable development. Within that framework, it will focus first on climate change, waste reduction and the digital divide.
In the second prong of its strategy, the alliance will research and develop ways to disseminate to other industry sectors the knowledge and experience individual communications companies have obtained in addressing issues concerning environmental protection, social responsibility and sustainable development.
Members of the Initiative also will collaborate with each other to share best practices for reducing and recycling waste, saving energy and developing products in ways that reduce their adverse environmental effects.
“A product life-cycle approach, from concept through to disposal, in the development and delivery of all products and services, minimizes the depletion of natural resources such as energy and maximizes the potential for recycling,” the GeSI said in its mission statement.
“In support of this approach, participating companies work closely with customers, suppliers, trade and industry associations and standards organizations to develop and promote sustainable management systems and business solutions.”
Cable & Wireless, for example, already has incorporated these environmental impact criteria into the request for proposals it issues to potential suppliers of goods and services it requires. Lucent has developed a system to help identify products that can be characterized as environmentally friendly.
The Global e-Sustainability Initiative is headquartered at the U.N. Environmental Programme’s Division of Technology, Industry and Economics in Paris. The Web site is www.gesi.org.
