At a time when Climate Control initiatives are getting embroiled in quotas and targets, it is remarkable that the ICT industry has stepped up to the challenge and begun to deliver genuine solutions that reduce CO2 emissions.
On December 10th, IDC released a report that detailed 17 ICT solutions that could reduce the G20 nations’ CO2 emissions by 5.8GTonnes per year by 2020. The solutions spanned four industry segments (Transport, Buildings, Industry and Energy). The report highlighted that within the Energy segment, a total of 1.7 GTonnes could be saved – with Renewable Energy Management Systems ( part of a Smart Grid deployment) being the leading solution. China and the U.S. have such a huge opportunity to reduce their emissions using this solution.
Within the Transport sector, savings in Video Conferencing-based solutions are promising with 162 MTonnes of CO2 savings being possible for the collective G20. However, for Transport, IDC suggest that Supply Chain Logistics improvements using ICT is the major opportunity. The 3rd sector, Buildings, can realize significant CO2 savings by using Energy Management Systems. We believe that this ICT solution could be used to save up to 762 MTonnes of CO2 per annum.
Our findings show that ICT based solutions do have a genuine place and role to play in reducing global CO2 emissions. The key points that can be concluded from this study indicate that digital-based Energy Management Systems (from Energy Generation and Distribution to Buildings Management) are the corner stones of any initiative. Another key point to mention is that the G20 nations do have strong ICT infrastructure support systems already in place (networks, data centers, skills to perform business-like Sustainability Intelligence, real time decision making, etc). This knowledge and best practices is a very easily transferable knowledge to nations outside the G20, and therefore should be agreed upon as national strategies. The time is right for ICT to take the lead and implement solutions that have significant impacts through massive deployment of these solutions.
