Telco responds to climate change through innovation

The World Economic Forum is currently taking place in Davos, Switzerland. One of the key launches of this year’s event came from Scandinavian telecom giant, Ericsson. In collaboration with partners, Ericsson has launched the first business playbook for exponential climate change. The playbook summarises a framework for businesses to drive strategies in line with stabilizing the temperature rise to 1.5°C

To achieve this 1.5°C ambition, the playbook states that greenhouse gas emissions have to stop increasing by 2020 and decline by half every decade in the future to approach net-zero by 2050. It also calls for simultaneous action to remove carbon that is already emitted.

The playbook also says that even though meeting the ambitious target will require the most rapid economic and societal transition in history – it is achievable.

The framework is a byproduct from the Exponential Roadmap initiative. This is a Stockholm-based collaboration of international technology innovators, scientists, companies and NGOs, all dedicated to mitigating overall greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) special report on 1.5°C.

The playbook underlines how businesses can achieve net-zero emissions through exponential action in order to halve their greenhouse gas emissions every 10 years, and embed climate action in their business strategy completely.

The playbook has four focus pillars:

• To reduce the company’s own emissions.
• To reduce the company’s value chain emissions.
• To transform the company’s products, services and projects to be low or zero emissions, or even remove carbon from the atmosphere.
• Work with other actors in society to accelerate climate action.

Heather Johnson, Head of Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility, Ericsson, says: “As a sustainability pioneer in the private sector we have been both an advocate of climate action within our own operations as well as in society. We have also developed an integrated strategy and set challenging 1.5°C targets. Now, it is time for all companies to do the same and the playbook is a guide for how this can be done. We will work with our business partners to utilize the playbook tool, to enable exponential reduction of carbon emissions globally.”

Johan Falk, from the Exponential Roadmap initiative, says: “We designed this to make it as easy as possible for businesses to set sharp targets and meet them through clear action. In fact, many companies can halve their emissions much faster than every decade.”

The Playbook is in line with existing standards and key initiatives such as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG), the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTI), Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), RE100, Mission Innovation’s 1.5°C compatible solutions framework and the Chambers Climate Coalition.

Other partners include the Exponential Roadmap Program, WWF, the International Chamber of Commerce, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, the HAGA Initiative, the Finnish Future Fund, Climate Leadership Coalition, IKEA, Scania, Telia and KTH Royal Institute of Technology.