Going digital to go green

At this stage, virtually every aspect of the economy regardless of industry is now rightly viewed through the lens of its impact on the environment, even the channel. Luckily, sustainability is the number one priority for many channel partners, marking a significant and positive change within the industry.

The communications sector has an important part to play – both setting best practices in operations and in enabling customers. Vendors, resellers, and MSPs must work together to ensure that growing the nation’s digital footprint doesn’t have to mean growing its carbon footprint, and this can be done by embracing new, more efficient technology. 

Sustainability challenges faced by the channel

Knowing where to start is a major challenge faced by channel companies regarding sustainability, stemming from the lack of available data. Data plays a crucial role in allowing a company to identify how sustainable their business practices are across the board, enabling them to deploy resources, frameworks, and teams that can address specific sustainability concerns. 

Without it, there are often large knowledge gaps that leave businesses either unable to improve their sustainability position or see them take decisions without evidence or context. 

Many businesses, even those that are up to date with sustainable practices, are often caught out by scope 3 emissions – emissions that aren’t produced by the company itself but that they are indirectly responsible for through the value chain. It can be difficult for vendors, resellers, and MSPs to understand the nature of their full supply chain, especially if they don’t have the data available. 

For example, when a company buys, uses, and disposes of products from suppliers, this can impact their scope 3 emissions. Working with others who share the same sustainability ethos is therefore vital to achieving ESG goals.

For businesses who may have previously not been concerned about such issues, establishing this ethos through a culture of sustainability may be tricky to develop. Some business leaders may see sustainability as a ‘nice to have’, so ensuring this attitude is shifted from both the top down and bottom up is crucial to making long-lasting change. 

Unlocking the key pillars of accountability

Establishing goals and targets is the first step towards a net-zero future, but without processes in place to keep businesses on track, sustainability can easily become an afterthought. To ensure this doesn’t happen, channel players should hold themselves accountable using the following pillars. 

Championing transparency  

Being transparent with stakeholders, partners, employees, and customers is crucial. Businesses should showcase their hard work towards a greener future, sharing best practices, while also holding their hands up when something goes wrong, or a target is missed. 

Clear KPIs, structured processes, and regular reporting can ensure businesses adhere to this, as well as building sustainability into conversations across the ecosystem. Transparency is integral to creating a culture of sustainability, as it enables people to learn from one another and have a united approach. 

Ensuring you have the right portfolio  

Channel players have a key role in helping individuals and businesses across the country make more sustainable choices. They have a huge reach and hold a lot of trust, so have a responsibility to provide customers with a varied portfolio of sustainable IT solutions. 

With a reported 85% of global companies expected to expand their multi-cloud access across several regions by 2025, leading to an eightfold increase in data traffic – there’s potential for an increase in global energy use and carbon footprints. However, channel companies can’t decarbonize the grid and supply chains fast enough to compensate for rapid digital growth. That’s why we need to prioritize purpose-driven networks which are efficient, circular, and enabling – all underpinned by transparency.

Embracing more efficient networks, such as FTTP and 5G will help to lower carbon footprints. Legacy networks, such as PSTN, use more energy than the new all-IP networks, meaning they are not only inefficient, but also result in higher carbon emissions. As old telephone lines are phased out, businesses that haven’t upgraded risk suffering from outages or equipment deteriorating, leading to callouts to engineers and greater CO2 emissions from vehicles as they respond to problems.  

Similarly, as mobile connectivity becomes a necessity for everyday life, the retirement of 3G mobile networks and the increased use and availability of 5G will help to decrease the energy demands of mobile networks, contributing to an overall reduction in energy demand of 10% between 2020 and 2030. Devices using 5G are also 90% more energy efficient than 4G and their networks have less need for plastics, cabling, and hardware, ensuring less e-waste and the potential to improve circularity throughout the channel too. 

Technology is a clear accelerator towards net zero goals and the investment in full fiber broadband and 5G networks will pave the way for a greener future. It’s up to channel leaders to drive this forward. 

Getting messaging and communication right 

To hold all players accountable and foster trust throughout the industry, channel companies must be aligned and use clear and concise messaging to convey sustainability goals with investors, employees and customers, and get buy-in from all stakeholders. 

For example, employees should feel comfortable in providing criticism or highlighting processes that aren’t accomplishing targets, and businesses should have procedures in place for managers to escalate and rectify any concerns or provide adequate feedback. 

Ultimately, sustainability will only be achieved when everyone works together. It’s not enough to only accelerate your own sustainability ambitions, channel companies need to work to enable others’ too.

Fortunately, the channel is uniquely positioned to help individuals and organizations sow the seeds for a greener future. Prioritizing purpose-driven, more efficient networks and championing transparency and clear communication is key, and the companies that embrace this will drive the industry to achieve sustainability and net-zero goals.