Cox Communications Telecommunications Innovation
Status of the Sustainability Movement
The telecommunications industry, supported by the United Nations and the International Telecommunications Union, launched a formal cooperative effort to promote sustainable business practices and technology in June 2001. The Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) was officially launched on World Environment Day with the vision "to help improve the global environment and to enhance human and economic development, and thereby make a key contribution to a global sustainable future" (Thomsen, 2001).
This industry-wide initiative was significant in that its founders included some of the biggest global players: AT&T, British Telecommunications, Cable and Wireless, Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Lucent Technologies, Marconi, Telcordia Technologies, Telenor as, and the European Telecommunications Network Operators Association. Members implemented various programs to achieve environment-friendly business practices. For example, British Telecommunications calculated that employee use of audio and video conferencing contributed to saving over one million tons of CO2 emissions the previous year, while at&T increased teleworking by staff to cut car travel and reduce CO2 emissions by almost 50,000 tons. Deutsche Telekom reduced pollutant emissions from their vehicle fleet by 25% over a period of four years. Marconi started a best practice by installing an auto waste-to-heat recovery system whose benefits included less landfill, "free" hot water, and lower carbon dioxide emissions (Thomsen, 2001).
Member companies also began to adopt a life-cycle approach to their products, analyzing the development and delivery of all products and services in terms of environmental impact. The companies worked closely with customers, suppliers, trade and industry associations, and standards organizations to develop and promote sustainable management systems and solutions. For example, Cable and Wireless incorporated environmental criteria into its Request for Quote document for all suppliers in the UK (Thomsen, 2001).
Since the launch of GeSI, the telecommunications industry continues to make progress in sustainability efforts. One such milestone is standards organization UL Environment is in the process of creating a new sustainability standard for cell phones. Until now, cell phone companies called their products greener by adding recycled content or by offering recycling programs. Now, if companies truly want to call their products sustainable, they will have to meet requirements of the new standard. The UL Environment standard for "environmentally preferred mobile devices" will be able to score products on three tiers based on their energy efficiency, materials, packaging, manufacturing processes, disposal and other life cycle impacts (Bardelline, 2011).
The first draft of the requirements was created by a small group that included only one wireless carrier, Sprint Nextel. The requirements will next be vetted by a Standards Technical Panel that includes other wireless carriers, manufacturers, retailers and non-governmental organizations. UL Environment grew out of Underwriters Laboratory, the 117-year-old safety certification organization. UL Environment's focus is on energy efficiency, as well as environmental claims and product sustainability (Bardelline, 2011).
According to a study done by ABI Research, a company specializing in quantitative forecasting and trends analysis, at&T was ranked as the top ten greenest wireless carrier on the North American continent. at&T sustainability achievements span various technologies and operations. As part of its alternative energy utilization strategy, at&T now has 2,000 alternative fuel vehicles and 1,500 compressed natural gas vehicles in its ground fleet (Mailsos, 2010). In its 2010 Sustainability Report, at&T reported that it avoided the purchase of 1 million gallons of traditional petroleum because of its use of compressed natural gas vehicles (at&T investments in sustainability, 2011).
Since 2008, at&T has been purchasing wind power for 10% of the electricity consumed in all its Austin, Texas at&T facilities. This effort reduced the amount of fossil-generated electricity by 7.2 million kilowatt hours (kWh) each year. The company completed a large-scale power plant at its Secaucus, New Jersey campus in 2009. The 841-kW system will produce 1 million kWh of electricity per year (Mailsos, 2010).
AT&T is also creating and enacting sustainability measures within its network and company operations. The company implemented power-down software for 14,000 cell sites which turn off radios during maintenance times to eliminate wasted energy when not on-air. at&T is also updating its central office switches to reduce electricity and HVAC demands (Mailsos, 2010).
The ABI Research study ranked Verizon Wireless as the third highest North American wireless carrier pursuing sustainable actions, initiatives and goals. Verizon operates the largest fuel cell facility of its kind in the nation, which helped it earn the ENERGY STAR Award from the federal government in 2008. The facility uses seven cells to help reduce dependence on commercial electricity; each fuel cell can produce 200 kW of electrical power per hour, enough to supply the needs of nearly 400 single-family households...
Ayers (2000, p. 4) describes a supply chain as "Life cycle processes supporting physical, information, financial, and knowledge flows for moving products and services from suppliers to end-users." A supply chain can be short, as in the case of a cottage industry, or quite long and complex as in the manufacture, distribution, and sales of automobiles. In fact, the automobile supply chain has its origin in the mining of the
66). Furthermore, social software will only increase in importance in helping organizations maintain and manage their domains of knowledge and information. When networks are enabled and flourish, their value to all users and to the organization increases as well. That increase in value is typically nonlinear, where some additions yield more than proportionate values to the organization (McCluskey and Korobow, 2009). Some of the key characteristics of social software applications
Literature Review, Analysis and Discussion 7,500 words This section presents a review of the recent relevant peer-reviewed and scholarly literature concerning environmental sustainability in general and how environmental sustainability initiatives can help multinational corporations of different sizes and types achieve a competitive advantage in particular. Literature Review. According to Michalisin and Stinchfield (2010), "There is widespread consensus that human activity has had a significant impact on global climatic patterns which will have
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now