Time to Act
Besides Village Connection, an initiative to address rural connectivity, Nokia Siemens Networks is undertaking trials with a leading Indian GSM operator in the development and implementation of cell sites power from renewable alternative energy sources, eg, solar, wind, hybrid, etc.

“We saw from the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali in late 2007, that major developing countries, including India, have recognized the urgent need to address climate change and are willing to take on a range of domestic commitments. This is a very positive step,” says Sudhir Narang of BT India.

Some of the activities by Cisco include review of energy efficiency concepts; enhance and standardize recycling programs and green cleaning; explore transportation services and landscaping/parking for sustainability opportunities; incorporate LEED certification and energy collection data requests in future site selection criteria and standard lease agreements and more. In addition, Cisco regularly identifies green energy purchase opportunities, deploys alternative energy sources where feasible GhG (greenhouse gas) offset opportunities can be identified, and educates employees on their role in the journey to sustainability.

A recent audit of BT's data centers and some creative thinking about the way in which equipment is actually used identified opportunities to switch off 3,000 of 50,000 servers, resulting in reducing electricity consumption by 23 GWh per year and annual CO2 emissions by 3,300 tonnes.

Green thinking is an integral part of the Nokia Siemens Networks' business and on-going product plans. Design for environment principles are integrated into all Nokia Siemens Networks' product creation processes. This ensures that environmental aspects are considered throughout the normal design process and implemented in research and development projects. Nokia Siemens Networks has set ambitious targets for its products.

Nokia Siemens networks also focuses on renewable energy solutions, which are especially suitable for remote rural areas or where electricity supply is unreliable or non-existent. The company has provided base stations running with solar and wind energy to over twenty-five countries.

“EMC has recently announced a next generation version of its Power Calculator designed to analyze and effectively project the power consumption of many EMC products, including EMC Symmetrix DMX-3, CLARiiON CX3 and Celerra networked storage systems. As a result, organizations have the means to accurately estimate their power and cooling requirements, and to interactively alter configurations to meet optimal power provisioning,” says Praveen Sahai, director, Marketing and Corporate Affairs, EMC.

“The Environmentally Conscious Design program allows designers to apply life-cycle thinking early in the product design and development process while the opportunities are available to improve the environmental performance of the product. The Environmental Conscious Design involves minimizing material and energy use and maximizing reuse and recycling. The guidelines address regulatory, customer and Alcatel-Lucent requirements and include topics for product lifetime extension, energy efficiency improvement, electromagnetic environment safeguards, noise emissions reduction, substance content control including restricted materials avoidance, eco-environmental requirements for batteries and product packaging reduction,” says A Sethuraman, CMO, Alcatel-Lucent.

Commitments by Alcatel-Lucent for this year toward green initiatives include: provide eco-declarations (environmental “ID cards” for our products) for 95% of the Alcatel-Lucent product portfolio; define metrics to measure product energy efficiency based on functionality for our key product families.

Extreme Networks recently announced that its Go Green network solutions can help reduce the carbon footprint by dramatically reducing electricity usage of network connected devices, including IP phones, resulting in potential energy savings between 50-75% compared to the current solutions. “Organizations are looking to reduce their carbon footprint, and the Go Green solution from Extreme Networks is a unique and key component in managing the edge of the network,” says Phillip Park, vice president, Asia-Pacific, Extreme Networks.

Developing Best Practices
The development of best practices and regulation should be a partnership between the industry and the government. The Indian mobile industry is driving innovation in services delivery in the global telecommunications sector so why shouldn't it also take the lead in green initiatives, considering that India's infrastructure challenges such as lack of power provide the necessary impetus to looking at greener energy alternates.

The government induced financial incentives, increased community consciousness and tightening environmental regulations would go a long way in adoption of greener technologies. Also, in the long term, the cost of energy using clean technologies will become more competitive compared to traditional sources, thereby creating the commercial imperative to invest in clean technologies.

An optimal and harmonized regulatory framework can encourage best practices and bring commercial benefits. Clear targets and a robust regulatory framework are part of the solution. However, regulation should not be discussed in isolation. Businesses, for example, have an important role to play by taking the initiative to develop greener solutions, and with supportive regulations (tax breaks, incentives and alternative power) they can go much further.

Baburajan K
baburajank@cybermedia.co.in