Enabling our customers to reduce emissions and save energy

Several reports, such as the Exponential Roadmap report, show the potential of connectivity and digital solutions when it comes to improving resource efficiency and reducing GHG emissions in other industries. Opportunities include energy and fuel optimization in logistics, grids and buildings, and replacements of travel or physical products. Consciously applied, 5G will enable societies to further scale such effects.

Since 2020, we track “enablement effects” for some of our products and services: remote meetings and IoT for buildings, transports and utilities. Based on products and services delivered during 2022, we estimate that these categories enabled GHG emission reductions by approximately 330,000 tons in 2022, the equivalent of over 2.4 million return trips by air between Stockholm and Helsinki. 

Many of the markets Telia operates in have domestic electricity production with a high share of renewables. Hence, for some applications the carbon enablement effect may be lower than in other geographies. However, electricity savings for such services is just as important to achieve, to enable the full phasing out of fossil fuels in the grid systems and limiting other types of environmental impacts. We estimate that in 2022 we enabled electricity savings of approximately 810 GWh through IoT solutions for smart buildings and utilities, equivalent to the annual consumption of 90,000 average Swedish households. 

In addition to the above, the underlying connectivity we provide enables further reductions that are indirect or more distant and thus more difficult to capture. For example, as a connectivity provider we enable various digital solutions provided by other digital players, including new sharing economy business models that significantly reduces both GHG emissions and resource use.

Read more about this work and our calculation method on pages 80-84 in the 2022 Annual and Sustainability Report 

Going forward, we aim to expand the model to cover more of our services and to actively engage in industry collaboration to establish common calculation methods.