During MWC, Ecosystem Services and the Dutch Coalition for Sustainable Digitalization (NCDD) organised a guided knowledge mission tour as part of the Netherlands program on from Monday the 2nd of March until Wednesday March 4. The Digital Sustainability tour focused on inspiration, knowledge exchange and networking in an informal setting, with special attention to digital sustainability topics such as energy-efficient networks, responsible AI, circular IT and sustainable digital infrastructure.
Monday, March 2
AWS
Amazon Web Services presented their cloud and AI services. Their presence underscored the growing role of hyperscalers in the telecom ecosystem, particularly in running networks, data platforms, and AI workloads at scale. The group actively raised questions about AWS’ sustainability goals to emphasize the importance of this aspect of development.
European Innovation Council
In the afternoon, the tour visited the 4YFN hall for presentations of the European Innovation Council (EIC), Zirrow and Cykero. The EIC is Europe’s flagship innovation programme which identifies, develops and scales up breakthrough tech innovations. The group had the opportunity to ask question with regards to sustainability strategies to the Programme Manager for Sustainable Semiconductors, Isabel Obieta Vilallonga.
Zirrow
Zirrow works together with data centers to reduce energy waste and helps customers achieve their sustainability goals. Zirrow’s smart data technology is able to measure, report and reduce data related energy loss, while ensuring optimal performance. They are also an active member of the Dutch Coalition for Sustainable Digitalization (NCDD). At the 4YFN pavilion Menno van Leeuwen, Co-founder Zirrow, showcased their inspiring work.
Cykero
CYKERO was founded in 2020 as a repair initiative and grew into to a high-end refurbishment industry in Europe. During MWC they explained how their business grew, how they developed important stakeholder relations, and how they aim to add to the market in the future.
Tuesday, March 3
Deutsche Telecom
On Tuesday morning, Deutsche Telecom organised two empowering sessions about sustainability and circularity as a strategic advantage and a driver of real business value. Throughout the sessions, the speakers referred to pressing current issues caused by geopolitical shifts and supply chain challenges. The urgency to approach these challenges with sustainable strategies was felt by all speakers. Among others, the speakers include Robert Metzke; Vice President and Head of Group Corporate Responsibility at DT, Subhagata Mukherjee; Vice President and Global Head of Sustainability at Nokia, Jean-Benoît Besset; Senior VP for Environmental and Energy Transition at Orange Group and Angela Hultberg; Global Head of Sustainability at Kearney.
NTT Data
The group was introduced to NTT Data’s sustainability strategies by Stephen Kelly, Global VP of Sustainability Solutions for NTT Data. Kelly explained how NTT Data leads the transformation and adoption of technology solutions, through their own sustainable ambitions as well as their clients’ and partners’. He emphasized the importance of the accuracy and the availability of data on carbon reporting, circularity and the role of technology in achieving decarbonisation.
Nokia
In the afternoon, the group had a meeting with Nokia’s Head of Environmental and Responsible AI Leadership, Francesca Sartori. During the meeting, Sartori shared valuable insights into Nokia’s sustainability strategies. Nokia’s active on sustainability research and standardization initiatives focused on sustainability by design, environmental impact of technology, and responsible AI.
Wednesday, March 4
Glasgow City Innovation District
On Wednesday morning, the NCDD visited Glasgow City Innovation District to learn about which challenges they face with regards to sustainability in digital innovation. The importance of building on regional collaboration while at the same time achieving European standards was discussed.
Huawei
In the afternoon, the tour visited the Huawei exhibition. As one of the world leading companies on ICT infrastructure and products, the tour included a visit to a model of the newest data center server. Huawei showcased how they use green energy through new materials and battery management.
NL Pavillion: CEVA Logistics, Closing the Loop and Fairphone
At the NL pavilion, a NLtalk about Sustainable Logistic Design, Sustainability & Security, and Sovereignty was held with CEVA Logistics, Fairphone and Sectra.
The tour group also met with CEVA Logistics to further discuss their strategies on sustainability and circularity. CEVA Logistics supports the complete lifecycle management of smartphones through a data-driven and scalable logistics model with their Device Lifecycle Solutions (DLS).
Ryan Bark from Closing the Loop also gave a presentation of their business endeavours. Cloosing the Loop is a social enterprise that helps tech companies make their electronics waste‑neutral by collecting and responsibly recycling an equivalent amount of e‑waste, such as old phones, tablets, and laptops, for every new device sold. Ryan explained their inspiring mission to enable the tech industry to sustain its proud legacy of innovation by incorporating circular business models that benefit businesses, people, and the planet without compromise. We discussed sustainable digital impact, and how it actually works in business. According to Closing the Loop impact follows value in business. The more value you create for customers, partners and the market, the greater the impact can become. Cloosing the Loop also elaborated on their cooperation within the NCDD.
A final visit was planned to Fairphone as a showcase of its products and to talk about their mission. Fairphone makes smartphones that are designed to be ethical and environmentally friendly. They focus on fair sourcing of materials, good working conditions, and creating devices that are easy to repair and last longer. A company with sustainability and strong values at its core.
Ericsson
The tour visited Ericsson at the end of the afternoon.
The Ericsson booth showed very interesting use cases of Private 5G Networks and you can see that their focus is now also to cover this market development. The Dual use of network technology has also been explained to enable for instance drone detection with a wireless network. On the technology side the demo of Multi-Radio Spectrum Sharing was impressive to see in the live demonstration. With this technology, 6G can be introduced next to 5G in the same frequency band in a very efficient way with little overhead.
Partners
