Juniper Research Names Leading Mobile Operators in Sustainability

Juniper Research has named the world’s leading network mobile operators for sustainability. The new study scored operators on several factors, such as their breadth and depth of sustainability initiatives, the array of sustainable technologies adopted, and their success achieved so far. The top 3 operators with the most impactful sustainability initiatives were KDDI (Japan), Deutsche Telekom (Germany), and Verizon (US).

The analytics company commended KDDI for its involvement in cloud technologies and circular economy strategies that focus on recycling network hardware. The operator reported that over 99% of disused network hardware was recycled in 2023. Additionally, the rising usage of cloud services has enabled KDDI to reduce its carbon emissions through automation, significantly reducing energy consumption. KDDI is also optimizing data center operations and reducing the scale of physical networks through NFV (network function virtualization), thus reducing energy consumption.

The report identified cloud computing as the most impactful network technology in reducing carbon emissions, costs, and energy consumption. With high levels of virtualization across 5G and future 6G networks, the report predicts centralizing and automating network functions via cloud platforms will enable operators to reduce their overall energy consumption by over 2,000TWh globally in 2025.

“Cloud computing is an instrumental strategy for operators to improve efficiency and meet sustainability goals. Cloud’s ability to dynamically allocate resources in real-time significantly reduces energy consumption, compared to the constant energy requirement from traditional networks,” commented research author Frederick Savage.