The GSMA, in collaboration with Shields Environmental Group (Shields), has launched an innovative network equipment trading platform designed to help the telecommunications industry achieve its environmental and financial sustainability goals. The cloud-based platform, called the GSMA Equipment Marketplace, will enable telecommunications providers worldwide to reuse, redistribute, and recycle their network assets, while helping them achieve their net zero emissions targets and ensure financial sustainability.
By making this service available to its member base, which includes over 1000 mobile operators and equipment manufacturers worldwide, the GSMA hopes to transform the way networks are acquired and dismantled – fixed, mobile, or private – thus supporting the industry in its ambitions to reduce carbon emissions and minimize the extraction of raw materials that harm the environment used to manufacture telecommunications equipment.
The GSMA estimates that network equipment manufacturing (including material extraction and processing) and network site construction and mobile mast installations represent more than 30 million tons of CO2e per year. Supply chain emissions account for the largest share of a telecommunications network operator’s carbon footprint, reaching over 80% of the total in some cases. The GSMA Equipment Marketplace can help reduce these figures by allowing operators to reuse and recycle more of their assets, helping the industry achieve its net zero ambition by 2050 at the latest.
John Giusti, GSMA’s Director of Regulation and Climate Action Sponsor, said: “The industry continues with strong and concerted action to meet its Net Zero commitments. Transitioning to a circular economy business model can help operators further reduce their emissions by reducing their reliance on carbon-intensive equipment manufacturing. We believe that this new GSMA and Shields platform can support telecommunications network providers in their efforts to reduce carbon emissions and limit their reliance on the extraction of raw materials.”
The GSMA Equipment Marketplace platform is already being successfully used by the Vodafone Group, and the GSMA and Shields have announced plans to make it available to the industry as a whole today.
Ninian Wilson, Vodafone’s Global Supply Chain Director and CEO of Vodafone Procurement Company, said: “This platform has successfully supported Vodafone to reuse, resell, and recycle dismantled network equipment since we started using it in 2021. It has generated new revenue opportunities and savings while contributing to the reduction of our carbon footprint. We are pleased to see this platform opening up to serve companies throughout our industry, enabling a circular economy for network equipment on a larger scale.”
The cloud-based platform, created and managed by Shields, a market leader in this field, provides a global view of assets and equipment, including real-time stock visibility. Users can search for the individual assets required, view the results in a simple and intuitive interface, identify the most efficient and cost-effective source for the products needed, and place an order. Additionally, users can sell dismantled equipment to a global base of buyers or have them recycled.
Network operators can quantify their carbon emission reductions based on the total weight of assets purchased or disposed of through the GSMA Equipment Marketplace, rather than buying new ones. This evidence can then be incorporated into company reports to highlight the brand’s commitment to the environment and tangible progress toward carbon goals.
Daniel Jones, CEO of Shields, said: “Shields is passionate about helping to build a more sustainable telecommunications industry through continuous innovation to provide structural support to improve the way networks are sourced and maintained. We are extremely proud and very excited to partner with the GSMA. Our commitment is assured, together we will ensure that this digital platform and associated managed services are of the highest quality and enable operators to maintain network integrity.”
GSMA’s commitment: helping the telecommunications industry reduce its carbon footprint
GSMA has long been an advocate for climate action, supporting mobile network operators to set carbon reduction goals aligned with 1.5C. More than 70 operators have already done so, covering almost half of global mobile connections.
Alongside the launch of Equipment Marketplace, GSMA has also released its fourth annual report “Mobile Net Zero: State of the Industry on Climate Action,” which shows that carbon emissions from mobile network operators globally dropped by 6% between 2019-2022.
Last year, GSMA and mobile operators launched an initiative to address the over five billion unused mobile phones sitting in desk drawers worldwide, so they can be reused or recycled as part of a more ‘circular’ supply chain.
Press release MWC 2024