Reducing our environmental impact

We demonstrate leadership in the energy and environmental performance of telecom networks and services to minimize our carbon footprint and environmental impacts. Our Life-Cycle Assessment approach shows that our greatest environmental impact is from when our products are in use, so our strategy is to provide energy-efficient and low energy-consuming products and solutions. We also focus on reducing the carbon footprint of our own activities and tracking other environmental impacts such as emissions to air, waste and water.

Managing our environmental impacts

While we monitor and address environmental impacts such as emissions to air, waste and water, our Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) confirms that energy use of products in operation remains our most significant environmental impact. We use Design for Environment (DfE) to identify and minimize our environmental impact from products and services, including raw material extraction, manufacturing, transport, use and end-of-life treatment. We also actively manage environmental impacts of our own operations, including facilities, product transport and business travel.

Impact of Ericsson activities

Ericsson seeks to minimize the environmental impacts from our own operations and activities within facilities, product transport, and business travel. The most significant impact of these is product transport, where the emphasis is on decreasing use of airfreight. We also set annual and multi-year targets on reducing business travel and on facility energy efficiency and consumption.

Energy efficient products and solutions

Climate change, energy supply and security, and rising energy costs are growing concerns to Ericsson and our customers. We offer a variety of energy-efficient products, solutions and services to help our customers reduce their environmental impact and also reduce the footprint of our own activities.

Materials management and efficiency

We work with efficient materials management to avoid hazardous substances and use resources more effectively and reduce environmental impact of manufacturing, use and end-of-life treatment. We combine proactive phase-out of hazardous substances with knowledge of the material content in our products. Conflict minerals are now included in our Banned and Restricted Substances List.

Understanding trends in ICT and carbon emissions

As data traffic on mobile broadband networks grows, the ICT industry needs to increase network energy-efficiency to limit its contribution to global carbon dioxide emissions. Ericsson engages in research on network energy consumption and data growth to increase understanding and map future trends for energy consumption in mobile networks. Recent studies include a joint Ericsson/TeliaSonera study and SMARTer2020, to which Ericsson contributed.

Standardization

Ericsson monitors closely sustainability-related market and regulatory developments worldwide and contributes actively to the development of well-defined standards that drive materials and energy efficiency and for assessing climate change impact.

Extended producer responsibility

We offer free take back of decommissioned equipment in all the countries in which we operate. In addition, all decommissioned equipment originating globally from our test plants, repair centers, R&D and manufacturing facilities both internal and externally sourced are part of the program.