Ericsson has said its recent annual Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility report entitled “Technology for Good” confirms the belief in the power of Information and Communications Technology

(ICT) to spur socioeconomic development.

It said it also confirms the confidence in ICT to put the world on the path of a low-carbon economy.

According to a statement released in Lagos, last week, Mr Hans Vestberg, Ericsson President and CEO, said, “We anchor our approach to sustainability and corporate responsibility in the triple bottom line of responsible social, economic and environmental development.

“We continuously raise the bar on our own sustainability performance, and seek to deepen our understanding of stakeholders’ top concerns. This way of doing business is essential to our success.”

He said the other highlights of the report included energy efficient solutions.

He stressed that “the ICT industry can help lead the transition to a low-carbon economy through greater resource efficiency.  

“The ICT sector contributes about two per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions, but can potentially offset a significant portion of the remaining 98 per cent from other industries.”

He said Ericsson’s research indicated that the increase in overall energy consumption from ICT will be moderate, thanks to gains in network energy efficiency, through 2020. 

According to him, “Ericsson has increased 3G/4G energy efficiency by 85 per cent in base stations over the last decade, while continuing to meet the bandwidth demands of the networked society, without increasing energy consumption per subscriber.”

Furthermore, Ericsson recognises the increasingly important role of cities in future sustainable development.

It said by 2016, densely populated urban areas representing less than 1 per cent of the Earth’s total land area will generate around 60 per cent of mobile traffic.

So, to increase network capacity in such areas, it said it will build heterogeneous networks, whereby powerful macro-radio base stations are complemented by smaller pico and micro base stations, which provide extra capacity for areas with high demand.

“With a nearby low power node, we can off-load the high power nodes, thus saving energy,” the Ericsson boss added.