Transcript 0:01 [on-hold music] Consider what these next two things mean for your business. 0:06 First, connectivity is absolutely growing, and 5G is growing, and we're connecting a lot of things, both on our consumer end and on our businesses. So how can you take advantage of this? Which we are. 0:21 We're connecting so many things. We need to keep the second consideration in mind, which is, of course, sustainability. 0:29 [upbeat music] Welcome to The Peggy Smedley Show, your voice for our connected world, with your host, Peggy Smedley. 0:47 Hello, listeners, and welcome to today's edition of Peggy Smedley Show. I'm your host, Peggy Smedley. There are two hundred and ninety-six commercial 5G networks worldwide. 0:58 This number is expected to grow to four hundred and thirty-eight by twenty twenty-five, says 5G Americas. Now globally, the number of deployed 5G networks now rivals 4G LTE deployments. 1:13 Of course, we know 5G is going to impact both the consumer and business applications, and this is really, really exciting when you think about it. 1:21 Looking at the business side, we see GSMA suggests the enterprise segment now has ten point seven billion IoT connections compared to the ten point five billion consumer connections. This growth will continue. 1:39 Enterprise connections are expected to be more than double to thirty-eight point five billion by twenty-thirty, and we see things like smart buildings will account for as much as thirty-four percent of total enterprise connections. 1:55 And just adding to that, while smart manufacturing will account for as much as sixteen percent of total enterprise connections. Simply let's just get to it. The bottom line, 5G is here. 2:08 But here's a really important question I want to ask you: Are you ready? Now, we're going to talk about that today here on the first segment. 2:15 But before we get to that, I want to know if you're ready to really go into a narrower conversation, because I want to talk more specifically about sustainability surrounding 5G. 2:28 So not just about 5G, because we know it, but more about sustainability in 5G. But before we get to that conversation, let me tell you about my guest, because we've got some really great guests again, as always. 2:39 I love when we interview a diverse audience of guests on the show, and I'm going to be interviewing Bill Estes, who is the Global Strategy and Operations Leader at Anderson Power. 2:50 Now, we're going to discuss how emerging tech like AI, the IoT, and more are impacting data centers and the increasing demand for power. 2:59 And we're all talking about that, and we're going to actually talk about how companies can effectively manage and optimize power consumption in their data centers in order to support the growing need of all these emerging technologies that we've been talking about. 3:14 And then I'm going to wrap up the show while getting back my dear friend Nancy Novak, who is the Chief Innovation Officer at Compass Data Centers. 3:22 And we're going to talk about data center construction and what makes this exciting and meaningful work. 3:28 We're also going to discuss how the demand for data centers is growing and the innovation that's happening all around the world. 3:36 And we're going to talk about where we are since the last time she was here and what's been happening as of late. And there's so much that's to unravel that whole discussion. 3:46 But first, let's get started by talking about 5G, because there's a lot happening. 3:52 And as many of you know, during the last week of February, thousands of people joined together in Barcelona, as they do every year, to talk about the future of connectivity. 4:03 And MWC Barcelona, or Mobile World Congress as it's been known, was a bevy of announcements for both consumers and businesses. 4:11 And central to many conversations at the show was the topic of 5G, and a subtopic for many was sustainability. And for example, Greenwave announced version two point O of its reconfigurable intelligent surfaces. 4:29 Now, based on a cheaper and more energy-efficient new component, this version is set to revolutionize the market by promising a tenfold reduction in energy consumption and drastically lower costs. 4:44 Now, of course, this is simply just one example of many discussions at the show. 4:49 Now, I could easily cite dozens of examples on this first segment, and we could go on and on for hours, but rather than for this discussion today, I really want to dig into some of the numbers around connectivity and the ultimate impact it's having on our planet, because I think that's really where we should get to the heart of the discussion. 5:11 So during MWC Barcelona, GMSA released its fourth Mobile Net Zero report. Now, it's interesting to talk about what it found. 5:22 The carbon emissions of mobile network operators fell by six percent globally between twenty-nineteen and twenty-twenty-two. So we're making some slow but steady progress. 5:35 What we are also seeing is some widespread discrepancies geographically. So this decrease in carbon emissions was led by a fifty percent reduction in Europe. 5:49 In North America, Latin America, the Middle East, and North Africa, emissions fell somewhere in the range of twenty to thirty percent. So you could see those numbers. 6:00 We know China and Asia-Pacific are the world's largest and second-largest mobile markets respectively.Here we see that although operational emissions rose in Greater China and the Asia-Pacific, global emissions overall decreased despite growing data usage. 6:22 That is the challenge this industry faces. Now, let's be honest about this. While data usage grows, we also need to reduce emissions, which of course is easier said than done. Now, let's just look at that for what it is. 6:36 Achieving the mobile sector's target to reach net zero by twenty-fifty relies on the industry cutting its emissions to forty percent below twenty-twenty levels by twenty-thirty. 6:49 Now, this means that overall emissions, including scope one, two, and three, need to fall by around seven percent per year up to twenty-thirty. Now, you heard me right, seven percent per year up to twenty-thirty. 7:04 We're making some progress, but it's not fast enough. According to the GSMA analysis, operational emissions fell despite surging demand for data and connectivity. 7:17 We know the number of mobile connections globally rose by seven percent between twenty-nineteen and twenty-twenty, while the internet traffic more than doubled. 7:27 The industry's carbon reductions were largely driven by strong progress on energy efficiency and use of renewable energy, according to the report as well. 7:39 More than half of the drop in emissions were driven by improved energy efficiency efforts in networks, data centers, and things in offices. We also saw the rise of electrification of fleets and generators. 7:55 Additionally, renewable energy accounted for thirty-three percent of the electricity purchased by operators in twenty-twenty-two, up from fourteen percent in twenty-nineteen. 8:07 Without these purchases, operational carbon emissions are estimated to have been about fifteen million tons higher in twenty-twenty-two. Certainly, these are just a few ways to approach this. 8:21 Now, another way, certainly technology can also be one way to improve this as well, and we talk about that many, many times and have in the past. 8:30 In fact, a recent white paper from 5G Americas explores the strategies and technologies in the mobile industry that can help achieve carbon neutrality enhance global connectivity. 8:43 In fact, the report suggests technologies are driving energy efficiency in the regional area network. This includes techniques in time domain, frequency domain, spatial domain, power domain. 8:59 The role of artificial intelligence, machine learning will also be a key enabler in sustainability. There's so many things that will all need to come into play. 9:09 We'll also see the rise of things like system architecture solutions for energy efficiency, deployment and architecture strategies for network energy savings, applications and services energy efficiency techniques, and of course, site solutions based on renewable energy. 9:28 All of these things will certainly have an impact. So if I think about my tip for today, I would be remiss if I didn't say we are certainly headed in the right direction, but I'm not sure if it's going to be fast enough. 9:41 If we want to reach net zero emissions by twenty-fifty, it will require additional work, a lot more effort. It will require reducing emissions, certainly in scope one, two, and three. 9:54 Scope three is certainly challenging, to say the least, and all of these efforts, we need to step it up. 10:01 Three-quarters of the mobile industry's overall carbon emissions are scope three value chain emissions, according to GSMA, and we understand that. So there's a lot of work to be done, and it's certainly not easy. 10:15 Ninety percent of the emissions originate from just five categories, and they are purchased goods and services, capital goods, fuel and energy-related activities, use of sold products, and of course, all these investments. 10:31 That is still far too high, and it can't be ignored. This is all having a considerable impact. Increasing the circularity of mobile phones and network equipment is critical to reducing scope three emissions. 10:49 We will need everyone, as we talk about this all the time, to come together on this. This is not a one-person kind of thing. 10:58 It's everybody, and we need to move to a more circular world, and this is, again, something we've talked about to be more efficient and to reduce our emissions. 11:10 We will need businesses, tech companies, academia, and government to rally together to figure out how we're going to meet these new demands and to hit the goals that we're talking about. 11:22 Now, here's my tip for today as well. Consider what these next two things mean for your business. 11:30 First, connectivity is absolutely growing, and 5G is growing, and we're connecting a lot of things both on our consumer end and on our businesses. 11:41 So how can you take advantage of this, which we are, we're connecting so many things, and how can you leverage it in your business to improve productivity and profitability? Because that's clearly important. 11:55 There are big opportunities to be had here. We all know that. 11:59 But as we do this, we need to keep the second consideration in mind, which is, of course, sustainability, because that is what not only, as we talk about it today, future generations are thinking so much about.It's foremost on their mind, and this includes network operators, but also includes businesses. 12:22 We all have an opportunity to improve energy efficiency here, but we also must consider the responsibility we have in today's world for future generations. 12:33 We must act now all around the globe if we want to reduce our carbon emissions and meet our goals. We can't wait. We can't put it off. 12:43 It requires action from everyone, as we talk about so many times and we've learned in the supply chain. 12:50 It will require your company to respond both at every level in order for all of us, from businesses to consumers, to be a part of this. 12:59 And when we look at these numbers that we talked about early on, and it can't just be in one part of the world, it's got to be a global effort. 13:07 And as we look at some reductions in that, we're never going to hit these goals that we talked about unless we are all a part of this effort. 13:16 And I think that's where the misnomer comes in or the misconception is that we can reach these goals only by some of us doing it. It has to come from every part of the world. 13:28 So whether it's in manufacturing, smart manufacturing, smart building, enterprise connections, everybody has to be a part of this to make this work. 13:38 And when we're all a part of the solution, then we will hit those objectives. But right now, we're not all part of the solution. We're slowly getting there, but we've got to work together to make it happen. 13:48 But I'm curious, how will your company respond to make this happen? Those are always my questions. I love to leave a question for you to ponder at the end of each show. 13:58 All right, listeners, I'm out of time for this segment. Share your thoughts with me on X at Connected World or on LinkedIn to continue the conversation there. 14:06 Please check out our website at connectedworld.com, our show website at thepeggySmedleyShow.com. 14:12 Don't forget to check out our Project Sustainability podcast at pspgreen.libsyn.com, and make sure to share and subscribe to our episodes each week. We're going to take a quick commercial break, but don't go away. 14:23 This is The Peggy Smedley Show, your voice for our connected world. And remember, with great technology comes great responsibility. We'll be right back. [upbeat music]
