These days, “sustainability” is more than a buzzword. Enterprises understand that responsible environmental stewardship matters. Commitments to environmental responsibility are now a standard element in countless corporate 10-K filings, reflecting its importance.
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Desigen (LEED) Certification is a universal measure of an enterprise’s commitment; certifications exist for virtually any kind of structure or organization, from a single home to an entire city. In 2025, this focus is only going to sharpen, and enterprises need the tools to earn and keep these coveted certifications.
Better sustainability begins with operational efficiency in the network
For most enterprises, their efficiency — and their sustainability profile — depend on the network. Energy efficiency, water management, waste management and procurement all figure in. LEED Certifications are complex and there is no single route to earn them; it requires a holistic approach, and since the network touches every aspect of operations, it presents a uniquely effective area of focus. Its evolution into smarter monitoring and automation is what will drive the network as a key sustainability enabler in 2025 and beyond.
Enterprise networks can contain any number of technologies, such as wired Ethernet, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth, Zigbee and other IoT protocols, private 5G and Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) unlicensed spectrum, to drive connected people and devices. Each technology has its particular role and there are countless unique implementation combinations depending on the industry. Still, it’s possible to showcase a particular example to explore the many ways smarter networks are empowering significant sustainability.
Case in point: the hospitality vertical
Few enterprise environments are so diverse as the hospitality sector. Hoteliers eagerly promote their sustainability bona fides knowing it influences guests’ preferences as to where to stay. This follows the now-established practice of guests making a difference by how they choose to handle their used towels to reduce the use of water and laundering chemicals. However, the opportunities for network-based, efficiency-driven sustainability improvements go far beyond this.
In fact, the sheer number of opportunities for an intelligent network to help a hospitality venue reduce waste is surprising. Beyond the green measures of mobile check-in, digital keys and digital signage to replace printed materials, there are grander, system-level opportunities to enhance the resource-conserving efficiency of the network. For instance, the capacity for network management to power down connected devices, including HVAC and Wi-Fi® services in vacant rooms to reduce energy use already exists; but now that can include rebalancing Wi-Fi coverage across a particular area, ensuring that the signal is where it needs to be — and nowhere else — at the scale the traffic demands.
AI is the game changer
The big step forward has been in the addition of Artificial Intelligence (AI) monitoring and management to wireless networks, a top priority in hospitality settings and indeed in any enterprise environment. What once required a human decision to turn services on or off, sometimes in person, can now be automated to read occupancy schedules and apply the optimal settings as needed. With experience, AI can learn to predict such patterns of occupancy — approved by human management, of course.
AI also enables granular control of policy over all manner of connected technologies —Bluetooth, Zigbee, private 5G and other services. The complexity of so many layered technologies is such that it has become virtually impossible for human management to do it alone, even with a large, highly-trained IT staff, which would be hard to find and afford.
The value of these capabilities is immediately clear in any enterprise environment, as networks operating in every vertical are engaging with the issue of sustainability to some degree, and none are generally immune to the ongoing lack of skilled IT labor. We could drive out examples with large public venues, education, multi-dwelling units or office campuses, but we’ll continue with the hospitality industry as AI has quickly become a necessity for hospitality venues to offer exceptional guest experiences — and exceptional sustainability operations.
These AI-managed networks support an amazing variety of sensors and controls which, for example, relegate that power and water are only consumed to serve a specific purpose. Because AI network management is an aid for — not a replacement of — a competent IT staff, AI’s capacity to learn and automate helps that limited IT budget go further, essentially replacing more advanced skill sets by enabling less-trained people to perform beyond their educated expertise through use of predictions and recommendations delivered through natural language models. This kind of straightforward communications instills confidence in the human chain of command; without it, opaque instructions can have the opposite effect and lead to disregard for recommendations.
Consider how these AI-driven applications can boost a sustainability profile:
- Energy use. In addition to idling unused assets in unoccupied rooms, AI-driven connectivity also adjusts power to Wi-Fi access points in reaction to changing conditions, such as a conference room that holds 500 connected guests when its partition is open, or 400 guests in two discrete groups when the partition is closed.
AI learning can also lead to less obvious efficiencies because it can simulate and test various configuration models, experimenting with theoretical network changes that would take weeks or months for IT to test in actual practice. With human oversight AI can even push successful tested configurations to the network, seamlessly improving efficiency and reducing the carbon impact of the network’s operation.
- Water use. Even where water is traditionally plentiful, public awareness of its ecological fragility has made water use a priority issue. Hotels are outsized consumers of fresh water, and even with towel handling policies, the World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance (representing 30,000 properties worldwide) estimates that an average hotel room occupancy consumes nearly 400 gallons of water daily. Water management is an important factor in LEED Certification as well.
An intelligent network can drive IoT devices that monitor water use and discover potential efficiencies and raise alerts when unusual water usage patterns are detected. Also, leak detection sensors placed in plumbing locations can immediately detect the existence of leaks—not only a significant driver of water waste, but a common source of property damage that can result in the costly closure of guest areas. Indeed, an IoT water leak detection sensor network can potentially pay for itself with the first such detected problem. As water availability concerns grow in 2025, so will the importance of these important IoT capabilities.
- Waste management. The same AI capabilities that enable AI to monitor, react and learn from energy use also provide a means to streamline waste management. Hospitality properties generate a substantial amount of refuse, so they must be responsible in its management.
IoT sensor-equipped waste and recycle bins not only alert housekeeping when they are full; today, AI-equipped connected waste systems can learn the patterns of refuse. A recent innovation is able to identify all kinds of hotel kitchen refuse, right down to vegetable peelings, to provide insights to minimize food waste. Another solution of growing interest is AI-automated sorting of recyclables.
The broader enterprise picture
While this examination of sustainability using the hospitality vertical as an example includes many specific applications, the possibilities are just as impressive for a school, hospital, airport, stadium or corporate campus. In any setting, AI can now deliver deep insights into every phase of operation, from procurement to resource management to day-to-day operations. At each step, AI-driven networks can help identify, leverage and measure the key sustainability factors in play for virtually any situation.
In 2025, sustainability will remain a top priority — and AI-driven smart networks and their connected applications and services will be the key enabler of that sustainability — and the improved end-user experiences that drive their businesses.
