绿色有利于商业：为电信业的财务状况辩护

Green is good forbusiness: making June 2023 The GSMA is a global organisation unifying themobile ecosystem to discover, develop and deliverinnovation foundational to positive businessenvironments and societal change. Our vision isto unlock the full power of connectivity so thatpeople, industry, and society thrive. Representingmobile operators and organisations across themobile ecosystem and adjacent industries, theGSMA delivers for its members across three broad GSMA Intelligence is the definitive source of globalmobile operator data, analysis and forecasts, andpublisher of authoritative industry reports andresearch. Our data covers every operator group,network and MVNO in every country worldwide GSMA Intelligence is relied on by leading operators,vendors, regulators, financial institutions andthird-party industry players, to support strategic Our team of analysts and experts produce regularthought-leading research reports across a range of We invite you to find out more at www.gsma.comFollow the GSMA on Twitter: @GSMA www.gsmaintelligence.com info@gsmaintelligence.com AuthorsTim Hatt, Head of Research and Consulting Contents Executive summary 1Context: the sustainability pivotEfficiency and sustainability top the agenda 2The cost side5G infrastructure is expensive, regardless of the paybackOptimising the operator cost structureCapex: easy wins and slow burns 3The revenue sideGoing for green growthConsumer segment Executive summary This report focuses on making the financial casefor going green in the telecoms sector. It providesanalysis on the feed-through effects of green high burden on profit and loss, at 20–40% of opexfor the average operator. The shift to renewableswill help reduce this – but it takes time, so energy The green revenue story is less developed butequally important. This applies in the consumersegment (e.g. device-recycling schemes or bundling The financial case for going green is about lowercosts and higher revenues. Sustainable products thathelp environmental outcomes and reduce costs will Cost savings: very real The main motivation for energy-related cost savingsis to mitigate the outlay and ongoing expenditure on5G networks. 5G infrastructure continues to expandas operators in countries beyond the early adoptersinvest in new builds, primarily on non-standalone country with an EBITDA margin of 25%, GSMAIntelligence estimates opex savings of up to 4% whenpower costs are reduced by 20%. This translates to aflow-through effect that would increase EBITDA by Energy efficiencies in the network are now comingfrom a range of sources, including RAN equipmentwith AI-enabled sleep states, lower air conditioningusage in data centres that deploy liquid cooling (or The key opex line is power consumption becauseit links to all the energy-saving effects from capexinvestments in energy-efficient RAN and network Consumer revenues: targeting the green dollar low, but it needs to be considered in the context ofa low-growth environment, and an expectation that There is a revenue uplift opportunity in at least three —carbon-neutral (or net-zero) certified products—device trade-in and the refurb market Device trade-in schemes can help blunt the effects ofpeople taking longer to upgrade their smartphones.GSMA Intelligence survey data suggests consumersare now more willing to trade in an older device for arefurbished one, rather than waiting to upgrade to the —retail energy. Some 30–60% of consumers claim they are willing topay a premium for a mobile phone or home internetservice if certified as carbon neutral. As an example,in the UK, contract ARPU is around £17 per month onaverage. Assuming 25% of contract customers paid Enterprise revenues: reducing carbon, raising margins The enterprise revenue premise is that 5G andother digital technologies sold by operators or theirpartners provide an energy-saving benefit in additionto a productivity uplift. GSMA Intelligence survey Industries need to lose carbon while combatinglower margins. Taking four industries that togetheraccount for 80% of the global CO2 footprint, GSMA From an energy perspective, 5G, IoT, cloud and AIwork in concert rather than in isolation. With 90% ofcompanies that have already deployed an IoT solutionciting energy efficiency as one of their justificationsfor doing so, there is a clear opportunity for operators However, there is a clear opportunity to sell moreservices into companies in different industries.The use of cloud is the most established of the5G and other digital technologies, at around50–60% of companies in each industry surveyed.IoT deployments are lower but still healthy, driven About this research This is the second of a three-part series from GSMA Intelligence in partnership with Huawei on thetechnological and business implications of sustainability in the telecoms industry. The research aims —overall rationale and outlook —the financial case —the reputational and external relations cas