Telcos have a role to play in addressing climate impact

Telecommunications will be critical in helping society manage and reduce the effects of climate change. The ESG strategies that telcos employ must therefore be carefully designed and implemented, writes Telkom Chief Human Resources Officer Melody Lekota.

Like almost every part of the economy, the telecommunications sector faces significant risks due to climate change. Fortunately, it is also in a position to mitigate many of these risks.

Extreme weather events, such as floods, fires and cyclones, pose an increasing physical risk to telecommunications networks, as they can damage infrastructure and cause outages. South Africans regularly get an unfortunate taste of weather impacts such as floods in KwaZulu-Natal, fires in the Cape and droughts in areas such as the Eastern, Western and the southern Free State.

Disaster responses

However, when natural disasters happen at scale, they directly impact the ability to deliver telecommunications services, which can in turn worsen the impact of disasters, as people become cut off, and unable to summon help.

These issues are far from theoretical. A recent report, the Disaster Risk Finance Diagnostic, found that South Africa is highly vulnerable to shocks, including droughts, floods, wildfires, and social violence. Between 1952 and 2019, South Africa experienced US$9 billion in economic losses due to disasters, with an acceleration in losses due to the increasing frequency and severity of shocks.

These accelerating impacts are largely due to climate change, and they tend to recur. KwaZulu-Natal had barely recovered from the disastrous floods of April 2022, when floods again hit the province. Heavy rains hit during December 2023, and continued into the new year, eventually causing R2 billion in flood damage.

In the Western Cape, fires often have the most disastrous impact. Over exactly the same time period as the floods that laid waste to KZN, the Western Cape was experiencing one of its worst-ever fire seasons. During the months of December 2023 and January 2024, there were more than 6 000 fires in the Western Cape, which destroyed almost 100,000 hectares of vegetation.

Firefighters and emergency response teams work like heroes to protect lives and property. However, a truly integrated disaster-management strategy requires an integrated approach that includes telecoms service providers.

Ensuring that vital communications remain intact during disasters requires integrated engagement, and Telkom has first-hand experience of this, through our long-standing participation in the National Disaster Management Advisory Forum (NDMF).

Our main learning from our role here is that collaboration is the key to addressing any disaster, with each stakeholder having a responsibility to bring their own particular expertise to support disaster response.

For instance, telcos would assist the Central Communications Centre during a natural disaster in helping to develop, establish and maintain effective telecommunications and an operational call centre.

An example of climate-related influence on Telkom’s services is network backlogs created during the winter rainy season in the Western Cape. We respond to these impacts by relocating employees from unaffected regions to service the network faults caused by prolonged rainfall periods.

The additional support employees are paid relocation stipends for the inconvenience of working away from their homes. These additional costs are already built into the backlog plan’s operational expenditure.

However, climate change cannot simply be about reacting to disasters. Climate change is a human-caused phenomenon, and therefore human intervention is needed to reverse its impact.

Society-wide interventions

Many of these interventions can be technology driven.

For instance, by promoting virtualisation and cloud computing, telecoms companies can help businesses reduce their physical IT infrastructure. This reduces the need for on-premises servers and hardware, leading to lower energy consumption and carbon emissions.

By investing in energy-efficient network equipment and infrastructure, such as routers, switches, and data centres, companies can reduce their carbon footprint and energy costs.

Companies that enable remote work and telecommuting will also be able to cut car use, as well as office space. This not only reduces greenhouse-gas emissions from transportation, it creates a better work-life balance for employees.

Smart grids and energy management systems are another effective way for utilities to monitor power use, and use these insights to save energy, reduce waste, and support a renewable-energy transition.

At Telkom, we have used such energy-use insights to manage our emissions profile downwards. Subsequent renewable energy and energy-efficiency initiatives have contributed in 2023 to an overall 17% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions from our 2022 financial year baseline.

Lastly, companies should be encouraged to work with suppliers and partners to adopt sustainable practices throughout supply chains, reducing packaging waste, optimising transportation routes, and sourcing materials from eco-friendly sources.

Climate-related opportunities

While the risks of climate change are well known, addressing these risks comes with many promising opportunities. On-site solar energy generation can reduce operating costs, vulnerability to loadshedding and carbon tax liability.

Sensor technologies and LED lighting can reduce energy consumption and costs. Increased resource efficiency can reduce operating costs and carbon tax liability, especially through improved building energy consumption. Green-star ratings can enhance corporate reputation. Efficient water consumption can reduce operating costs, mitigate possible drought impact, and reduce impacts on water-cooled IT infrastructure.

On the financial front, greater sustainability credentials can unlock access to cheaper financial capital ringfenced for environmentally conscious projects.

Sustainability goals

Fully aware of these opportunities, as well as our responsibilities, we share the commitment running across much of modern business to build better processes. We are working to ensure that, by 2030, our infrastructure, technologies and operations have been upgraded to be more sustainable, resource efficient and environmentally sound.

This is an organic business imperative. It’s about creating shared value. Connecting our customers to a better life must, by definition, include strategies to create a better world