In a Mobile World Congress likely to strongly highlight energy efficiency and sustainability, Nokia has brought out a well-timed announcement in which it commits to reducing its total global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to net zero by 2040, accelerating its previous target by ten years and putting it ahead of the Paris Agreement target of net zero by 2050.
Nokia will also double down on its existing near-term (2030) target. Having already committed to halving its GHG emissions across Scope 1,2 and 3 by 2030 from a 2019 baseline, it has now announced that it will further accelerate the decarbonisation of its own operations.
As we noted in an earlier story, Scope 1 refers to direct emissions that are owned or controlled by a company, whereas Scope 2 and 3 indirect emissions are a consequence of the activities of the company but occur from sources not owned or controlled by it.
Nokia says it was the first telecoms vendor to have its 2030 Science Based Target (SBT) validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) in 2017 and was among the first 100 companies across all sectors to do so.
With today’s announcement Nokia reiterates its existing near-term target to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% across its value chain (Scopes 1, 2 and 3), accelerates the decarbonisation of its own operations (Scopes 1 and 2) as part of its near-term targets with complete decarbonisation of its car fleet and facilities, and explicitly sets a new long-term target to reach net zero by 2040 (Scopes 1, 2 and 3) by 2040.
To ensure that its new long-term target aligns with climate science, Nokia has submitted its net-zero letter of commitment to the SBTi, a partnership between CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
Nokia has also defined a net-zero pathway that will help it reduce emissions across its value chain. Key levers in the net-zero pathway include product design and innovation, low-carbon electricity, energy and material efficiency, and carbon removals.
And that’s not all. As one of the few telecommunications vendors with its own fleet of marine vessels, Nokia says it is targeting marine fleet emission reductions aligned with the International Maritime Organisation decarbonisation pathway and has already invested in more efficient vessels and trialled the use of biofuels to reduce emissions.
As we noted earlier, this announcement is well-timed, and not just because energy efficiency and sustainability are high on operators’ and vendors’ agendas of late, but because Nokia will be taking part in this Wednesday’s Sustainability Summit at MWC 2024.
