The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF virtual intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
***
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Good afternoon, thank you so much. My name is Marsden Hanna, and I am our head of sustainability and climate on the government affairs team at Google and have the honor of moderating the discussion today.
Thank you for joining Cutting Carbon in the Digital World: Myth and Facts. And pleased to be joined by an esteemed network of experts. I want to flip to the other sponsors. I will pass to Steven Moore and GSMA and then ICC.
>> STEVEN MOORE: I'm Steven Moore, and I'm responsible for the climate action program at the GMSA, the global industry association for all mobile network Operators and other companies from the mobile system. Very much look forward to having the discussion with you today.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: And Timea, over to you on the ground there.
>> TIMEA SUTO: Thank you, Mars. And welcome, everyone. Quite a thinning crowd here in Katowice towards the end of the week of the IGF, but as a representative of the International Chamber of Commerce glad to be here to promote international business.
I'm the lead for the digital and ICC Global Policy Department. And for those that don't know, the International Chamber of Commerce is the world business organization, and we represent around 45 million companies in over 100 countries worldwide and act as a de facto focal point for business input into internet governance discussions.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Let's get started, and I will introduce the panel. We are very excited to have George Kamiya here who leads the International Energy Agency analysis on energy and climate impacts on digitalization and works on mineral and energy security.
And Pernilla Bergmark is a coauthor of the Exponential Road Map for 1.5C Degree Aligned Action and Active in the Climate impact assessments. And Steven Moore. His role is to provide leader to support industry transition to net zero. And Savannah Goodman who at Google leads development of software solutions to achieve the Google 24/7 carbon energy goals.
We asked the panelists to share on the footprint and ICT factor that companies are taking to mitigate emissions and opportunities for the tech sector to play a role in driving decarbonization. Why don't we start with George. Over to you, George. Thank you.
>> GEORGE KAMIYA: The number of internet users has grown 10 times over the past two decades. Global internet traffic is up about 2,000 times.
So you know logically it follows there is a perception that energy and emissions have also grown quickly.
So there is a headline in the next slide from Forbes from 1999 predicting that the internet would use half of the U.S. electric supply in 2010. It did increase but topped out to closer than 4%. A far cry from the 50% projected globally. The picture is quite similar. Growing rapidly, demand for data center services growing by 10 times but energy use remaining relatively flat.
Data networks account for just over 1% as well. And we continue to see similar headlines. If you could go back. Yeah, The Guardian. We continue to see the sensational headlines about how the energy consumption of the internet will explode in the next few years.
In reality, we don't know. It is unlikely to grow that quickly. These are all estimated and more uncertainty with the future.
We think about blockchain and 5G and how much they might grow. We have introduced strong climate policies while also investing in R & D to develop more efficient technologies in the future. Global emissions come from power industry, transport buildings. We need to decarbonize all of them to get to net zero.
And the digital must decarbonize faster than any other. And the final slide is looking at global energy related CO2 emission trajectories. There is a lot of promise and positive signals coming from countries. So if we think about pre-Paris, we were headed for significant increase from emissions. Since Paris, there have been a lot of policies implemented and more and more countries committing to net zero emissions by 2050.
But we are still far away. Perhaps more importantly, applying the digital technologies to enable emission reductions across other sectors to get to net zero globally as quickly as possible.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Thank you so much, George. Pernilla, over to you.
>> PERNILLA BERGMARK: I think I will basically continue where George ended so if you take me to the next slide.
As George, said there are a lot of uncertainties when it comes to forecasting especially, but also to look at the current ICT footprint. And this is why it is important to collect real world data because these systems are really complex to model.
So that is why we have collected data from manufacturers and so on related to data centers to get real data from life cycle carbon footprint. And we have seen much in line with what George showed us that we have the footprint that is quite stable these days and the blue curve is the curve as George also showed.
What we show between 2020 and 2025 and moving forward is that as a sector we need to reduce our emissions. So that is why. And please take the next slide.
We have worked jointly between the ITU, the UN body for ICT sector, GSMA and the science based target initiative. We worked jointly to develop trajectories which are aligned with the 1.5C development. And we -- and the predicters here are sub predicters for different subsectors. The division level is a bit between then. And they are something which is a normative but also a possible scenario based on the background work that we did.
Very much related to switching to renewable energy but also to have more energy efficient products also moving forward. Next.
And to complement this, ITU just recently published a new recommendational standard with how to work towards net zero for ICT organizations. And then the scenario we saw in the previous picture that is like the first step, that is what we need to do first.
Next, so if the previous two standards showed us what we must do and what emission ambition level we must have, the work by the UNFCCC climate action pathways has been led by the climate champions and includes areas including energy, industry land use, an ocean, coastal cells and transport and water and they have looked at heavy industry and light industry where ICT and mobile is a part.
And there is a vision and summary and also an action table. The action table gives concrete guidance for the sector for policy makers, for the financial sector how to work together to decarbonize this sector. This is worth reading and gives you a different time as what needs to be done.
And the last one. So and just remind you complementing these more principal suggestions on what to do, but it is, of course, very important to work jointly to address supply chains, to find ways to work with SMEs and so on.
And we are working in this case in the frame of the exponential road map initiative where we are developing such work jointly. That is also an important path of managing to reduce emissions of the sector. So thank you. I will pass.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Thank you so much, Pernilla. That's terrific. Steven, tell us how the mobile sector is tackling this challenge. Over to you.
>> STEVEN MOORE: Thanks very much, Mars. You heard from George and Pernilla on the scale of problem and challenges and policy recommendations to actually meet them. What we have been doing in the mobile industry is to align our ambition with what's needed in terms of the Paris agreement.
You can go to the next slide. Agreed to be net zero by 2050 to limit global heating 1.5 degrees. That is something we got agreement on from the whole sector through the board of the GMSA. We got agreement on behalf of the whole mobile industry by 2050. And that was back in February of 2019.
And then as Pernilla mentioned, we were involved in helping to understand what the pathway would be down to net zero. And those carbon reduction targets particularly for the next 10 years which are really crucial. What we have also been doing with the members is help them better understand their climate impacts. You can see stats on the left-hand side.
So 69% by connections and 80% by revenue disclose to the national platform EDP so that creates a huge amount of transparency around what the carbon emissions are from the operators and across the sector and what they are doing to reduce them including the target. And we are showing how successful and to report back on progress.
On the right-hand side a couple of stats around where we want to get to. The first is on science-based targets. So these science-based targets are aligned to the sector pathway that Pernilla mentioned before. That is looking to basically half emissions by 2030.
And that is not just for the own operations of mobile network operators but looks at their whole value chain. We have two-thirds committed to that. Half by connections. And then quite a few of the industry have gone further. A third have committed to be net zero by 2050 or even before. Quite a bit are committing to before. We have a sizeable group committing to do it by 2040. We even have one or two aiming to do it before then.
So I mean this is really to show the kind of scope and scale of the ambition and how many of the companies across the sector really, you know, are stepping up and saying that we are going to be cutting emissions rapidly over the next 10 years.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Terrific. Thank you so much, Steven. It is exciting to see the level of commitment at a sector wide level to decarbonization. Savannah let's turn to you to tell us a little bit about how Google in particular is tackling this challenge for its operations.
>> SAVANNAH GOODMAN: Thank you, Mars. You can go to the next one. So today I wanted to talk about our 24/7 carbon free energy program. Before we get into a little bit what that means, I want to go through briefly what Google's energy journey has been because, indeed, it has been a journey.
You know, we recognize it could be an on ramp for lots of different organizations and different companies to really neutralizing their carbon footprint.
We started with carbon neutrality in 2007. We purchased enough offsets and renewable energy to net out our operational emissions to zero. And then a decade later in 2017 we were able to match all of our global annual electricity use with renewable energy purchases. And we are really excited, this is a big achievement.
However, we wanted to go to the next step and truly eliminate our emissions from electricity. And that is where we get to 24/7. At a high level that basically means we will eliminate electricity emissions on every single grid we operate on every single hour of the year. This is really kind of the national extension of 100% renewable energy by matching to carbon free energy sources.
So just to get a little visual representation of moving from 100% renewable energy to 24/7 carbon free. The graph is an example data center based in Iowa and you can see that the green which is the carbon-free energy supply, if you sum that up it is actually greater than actually the sum of the black which is the consumption.
And what that means is that even though we on an annual basis procure enough we will be able to equal to the total consumption for the data center. There is still times during the day and during the year where we are relying on electricity from the grid which isn't fully carbon free yet.
The ultimate goal is by 2030 this graph would be green, and you wouldn't be able to see any black. A little more on what we mean by carbon free. That is the key principle of the 24/7 carbon free.
Removing from just renewable energy to be more inclusive. Wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, nuclear on the grid and hydropower and pump storage and battery storage discharge. We consider the carbon-free energy on the grid as well as the energy that we purchase through power purchase agreements.
And the reason for that is that the ultimate goal of 24/7 is to decarbonize the grid, so we want to make sure there is alignment between the procurement and the carbon free electricity already on the grid.
You can see the example as also our Iowa data center and you can see how on the top graph that is sort of the carbon-free generation mix of the electricity grid in Iowa.
And then the bottom is the hourly production profile of the PPAs there, you can see the increase of CFE score from 33% to 92%, for example. It shows how we are getting closer to that fully 24/7 matching within one data center and we want to do this with every single region that we operate in.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Terrific thank you so much, Savannah and all of the panelists here.
We got helpful context on the industry from George and Pernilla and dove in on what companies are doing to tackle the issue on decarbonization from Steven and Savannah.
Let's turn to Q&A. I have questions for each of the panelists and I want to leave time for questions from the audience.
George, why don't we go back to you. You showed the headlines we have seen in the media that project eye-popping statistics that might happen. And we are seeing similar statistics to headlines seen decades ago. Can you help us understand what is myth, what is fact? And help us understand sort of the footprint of the sector as a whole.
>> GEORGE KAMIYA: There is a lack of data and a lack of established methodology.
You might see like 1.5% GHG even up to 6% of global GHG and all have different scopes and covering different emissions and different sources of data and methodologies. There is no kind of standard or manual. There is an ITU standard which is 1.4% as Pernilla mentioned. Often the projections are overestimating what is likely to happen in the future because they are typically underestimating the efficiency gains that are possible.
So that is one source of error. And I think the comparison with aviation emissions is a bit unusual. There was a paper recently showing that 1% of the global population accounts for half of aviation emissions. The equality of emissions and users is very different when we compare the internet versus aviation. And the pathway to decarbonize is different. With aviation, we don't yet have the technologies we need and the sustainable fuels we need to decarbonize that.
In ICT, we certainly -- it is a heavily electrified sector. Google and others are making strides to decarbonize the electricity supply. And digital can play a role in reducing aviation emissions. If all of us flew to Katowice, we would probably have 4 or 5 tons of carbon emission. We have to think about ways for not only the energy sector but other sectors as well.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Thank you very much. I'm glad you brought up the point.
Pernilla, if you could talk about opportunities for the sector to not only reduce its own footprint but help others decarbonize. I would love to hear your thoughts.
>> PERNILLA BERGMARK: When it comes to that, we have barely scratched the surface. There are a number of things we can do within the sector and as society. We should work closely with other sectors to understand their challenges when it comes to decarbonization, and we should look at the aggregated effects of complementary technologies.
For many years ICT sector said ICT is bringing the enabling effect, and now it is AI is bringing this or IoT. And in reality we have a lot of collaborative technologies, let's say, that need to work together and bring a good output.
Then I think if we look at the sector should also prioritize solutions that are addressing the climate crisis. That should be a top priority as I see it. Then I think if you look at governments I think they need to integrate more closely the climate plans because often they are not really connected. It is important also to have knowledge, methodologies and datasets.
And what we have seen in our research have been many estimates, but we can see that methodologies used are quite crude. This is why we are working in the frame of ITU to develop methodologies which are giving more credibility and type of assessments and I think is really important for us to provide good and well evaluated cases that show real potentials. And also where we get the opportunities from practical experience.
Because what we see is when you look at datasets around these enabling effects or risks related to those, we see maybe academia presenting very transparent estimates.
But based on simulations. And we see industry presenting other estimates but from real world and not always so transparently described. It would help to know, to magnify that as much as possible and also suppress the negative effects.
It is interesting to draw parallels around George’s comments around the need for better data standardization on the emissions estimate side.
And then Pernilla, your comments here on the need for clearer methodologies for quantifying enabling effects seems to be certainly a clear need for lots more work on standardization across the industry on the footprint and handprint side.
Let's stick with the handprint and turn to Steven and tell us about what opportunities you are seeing for the mobile sector in particular to help act as an enabler to reduce emissions. Over to you, Steven.
>> STEVEN MOORE: Thanks very much, Mars. We did a piece of research actually a couple of years ago which we called the enablement effects which looked to understand at that time what was the level of carbon reduction that was being enabled by mobile technologies across all sectors.
And it was quite interesting to see that there are actually some quite significant savings being enabled. I think the mobile sector as a subsector of the ICT is about 0.4%. But the emissions savings was about 10 times as big. So about 4% percent.
That was back two or three years ago, and we are seeing mobile technologies rolled out much more since then. We thought for 26 it would be useful to look to have a better understanding what the contribution that mobile technologies could make towards the decarbonization of four key sectors where we think they could play a significant role. Building sector the energy sector, the transportation and the manufacturing one.
And what we found is that again, digital technologies could make quite a significant contribution. So we sort of took as Pernilla mentioned the exponential roadmap says that we have to half emissions the next 10 years. So we took that as the starting point for what needed to happen in each of the sectors and then looked to understand what carbon emission mobile technologies can make. And found that they could help enable 40% of the reductions needed. Just do the math for you, that is about a 20% total contribution across the four sectors.
And the types of things we looked at. None is new, stuff that exists but could be rolled out much more. Charging meters enabled by mobile technologies to more smartly charge electric vehicles is as you can imagine a really big contributor. There is only about 0.8% of vehicles on the road that are electric at the moment.
Working from home. Being able to work remotely, which we have seen massively accelerated. That was a surprising big contributor as well. Plus improving things like route and fleet management in the transportation sector. And big opportunities around smart manufacturing. Only 1% of factories at the moment use smart connected technology so there is a huge opportunity there to make them efficient. Each factory obviously uses lots of different processes.
The final big one was around the energy sector. We see big opportunities for creating smarter better connected grids. Talking to what Savannah mentioned there being able to match supply and demand and storage of renewable energy and then distribution limits needed.
So we see there has been massive opportunities using existing technology, but that just could be rolled out more widely than it is currently over the next 10 years.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Terrific. Thank you so much. Excited to hear how many different sectors there is really an opportunity to make a robust dent in emissions.
Savannah, you spoke about the 24/7 strategy that Google has taken. I would love for you to unpack this a little bit more. I know it is a complex nomenclature and easy to get confused what each of these mean. Tell us a little bit about how 24/7 compares to the other strategies, you know, and particular little things like what does this mean for costs or difficulty or impact on the grid across the different strategies for emissions mitigation.
>> SAVANNAH GOODMAN: Sure thing. Some of the differences between 100% RE and the CDE are the time and location matching. We talked about a little bit.
One thing that being able to make sure that you're procuring energy within your local grid that can be delivered right to wherever you are consuming electricity is a little important.
There is a little more even if the local aspect of getting involved in local policy and regulatory matters with the utilities and grid operators. And we see that as a really important part beyond just matching in time and location. It is actually really focusing in the local communities that you are consuming electricity.
One thing with being technology inclusive, there is a lots of research out there to show that to get to a fully decarbonized grid we're going to have to expand some of the traditional variable renewables. And so 24/7 is really a way to bring up the investment in those technologies and to accelerate the development similar to how 100% RE programs have done for solar and wind, right. Solar and wind used to be much more expensive and corporate PPAs actually helped really drive down and accelerated options and we see 24/7 is kind of the program to be able to do that for the next set of more firm clean technologies.
So yeah, those are some of kind of the key differences. In terms of benefits to the grid and maybe challenges, so there was a study done recently by Princeton University that's really great and kind of goes into a lot of detailed modeling. You know, procuring 100% renewable energy within a grid, so still a local grid, versus 24/7. And essentially there's a couple key results there which was 24/7 is much stronger at reducing the CO2 emissions of, of course, the buyer's electricity.
But also actually the system level. It will lead to a greater system level emissions. Not just the consumer's own carbon footprint, which is really exciting and kind of the whole point about 24/7. I also mentioned driving the earlier deployment of advanced energies. That's a huge benefit of 24/7 that you don't really get with just 100% RE.
And kind of a parallel to that is because you are investing in more new firm technology on the grid, there is also accelerated retirement of fossil fuel capacity. You know, a lot of -- if 24/7 really helps us move to a paradigm on the grid where we don't actually have to rely on carbon intensive firm generation.
And that is really important so that we don't lock ourselves into a carbon-emitting scheme. And that's what going to really allow us to get to net zero on the electricity front.
But, you know, 24/7 can be a bit of a premium compared to 100% RE. But that's part of the reason Google is working to develop a broader ecosystem so that we can drive down some of the costs and take advantage of learning rates just like we have done with the traditional renewables.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Thank you. It is helpful to understand how these really compare because I know that it can be difficult if you just hear the tagline. So it's great to hear.
Let's now turn to questions from the audience. We have one in the chat I'd like to start with. And Savannah, this is to you about our 24/7 carbon-free energy program.
I've seen that you're providing an example of this at a data center. Do you extend or plan to extend this to other facilities of Google or were they only focused specifically on data centers?
>> SAVANNAH GOODMAN: Yeah, that's a great question. So yes, our carbon-free energy goal does extend to our core campuses. So, you know, we have a lot of campuses across the globe. And we're working -- the data center team is working very closely with our real estate team to make sure that we are aligned, and we can more efficiently procure carbon-free electricity even together. There's some efficiencies with being able to do both.
But yeah, you know, data centers do consume a larger fraction of Alphabet or Google's energy. We do see, you know, decarbonizing is an important part. The short answer is yes, facilities are included there.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Great, thank you. So why don't we turn to any live questions from the ground?
>> TIMEA SUTO: Thank you. The room filled up as you were presenting. Would anybody like to ask a question? Thank you. Mike, please.
>> MICHEAL OGEIA: Hi, my name is Michael Ogeia. I work for the Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Alliance.
And from our point of view, we completely agree with George. Hi, George and Pernilla, good to see you.
From our point of view, of course, I completely agree with what George said which was that we need data in order to actually know how to benchmark the industry going forward.
And so I really appreciate hearing the interventions and the perspective that you are giving.
But actually I also have a question for Savannah, but it could also be relevant for Steven as well given that you work with a lot of mobile operators, especially when we’re talking about PPAs.
They are great in many respects, but unfortunately because there is no actual cable going, let's say, from a wind park or a solar production, you know, to a solar farm to let's say a data center, we don't really actually know if the power that's being purchased is actually green or not or that it's actually then going to supply, let's say, a data center.
So, for instance, would Google or mobile operators, telecom networks, would they actually be willing to, you know, make that data transparent? That way we would actually know then what is -- you know, kind of open that black box up a little bit while also contributing to alleviating a bit of the problem that George has very rightfully highlighted?
>> SAVANNAH GOODMAN: Yeah, sure, I can take that.
So power purchase agreements are one form of transaction that we're looking at. It has traditionally been kind of the default. But just to clarify, we are looking at other kinds of -- you know, working with utilities to develop full tariffs so that clean electricity we're procuring is actually deliverable within the sites.
I think a lot of this comes down to how you define the regions, too. And, you know, electron deliverability, it's impossible essentially to be able to flow through right exactly where electrons are going through the grid.
But what the 24/7 program does is really help define and narrow down, right, what we consider to be a reasonable boundary where we think electricity will be deliverable.
And for example, we started with like balancing authorities, but there is a lot of discussions on whether we should be -- you know, that we should go down to the market zone right within a broader balancing authority.
And those are things that we will evaluate and evolve, right, our methodology as we learn more and get more data. And, you know, there is a lot of -- there's a big initiative called Energy Tag that's working certificates or what we call time-based energy attribute certificates which is really helping to bring more transparency so the claims that we are making on the electricity, you now, where it's being produced, within what bidding zone is it being produced what bidding zone is it being canceled against. When exactly was it produced.
So that's a big initiative that we're working to definitely increase kind of the transparency and bring more trust and validity, right, to 24/7 and hourly procurement.
And we're working to bring more transparency to the grid in general. So, for example, we have a partner called Electricity Map who produces hourly grid mix data. And we're working with them to be able to surface more of that data and make it available for the public. And, you know, have better global coverage. Because that's another issue, too, is the data disparity is very different depending on the region and so we're trying to really, you know, take a global approach there.
>> MICHAEL: Thank you for that. And, of course, I have to really admit that Google has been quite trailblazing when it comes to what is going on in especially in the data centers. And so I definitely say that less as a challenge and more as an invitation to continue to do that.
Because if we have someone or something like Google that's saying yes, we're going to open this up, we're going to make this available, it will set a standard that I think would continue to push the envelope when it comes to that kind of transparency that is really, desperately, critically needed. Especially in the short amount of time that we have. So thank you very much.
>> SAVANNAH GOODMAN: Yeah, thanks for the question. We completely agree.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Terrific. Thank you. I do want to open it up to any other panelists that might want to comment on this as well if anyone is interested.
>> PERNILLA BERGMARK: Yeah, I would like to add something.
So I think what you are doing at Google with this more dynamic way of looking at this is super interesting. I just wonder to Michael's point that to say that I'm just coming from an ITUS meeting and this week we have agreed to have a new work item where we would outline how to set up a global database on emissions of the ICT sector.
And actually I want to pose George a bit because there actually a quite detailed standard on how you do these calculations. But now we want to prepare the description of the database that we hope that the ITU as a UN body will start to build up this kind of dataset.
So I think that would also add to transparency but maybe less on the dynamic side and more on the more static side, but I think that is also dataset which is really needed. And we know there are a lot of transparent reporting from companies, but it is not too well collected because it's time consuming to get ahold of everything.
>> STEVEN MOORE: I started off my introduction by talking about climate disclosure amongst and across the industry and there is lots of information there and a lot is public and actually does look to go into some of the intricacies of what energy has been bought, the type of renewable energy, whether it's a REC renewable energy, whether it's a PPA, whether it is onsite.
So I think that is also another potential source of transparency. And something that as an organization we will producing an update to our kind of stat of the industry and climate action in the first half of next year. And we would be looking to kind of aggregate some of that data and provide a bit more transparency around what is happening across the whole of the sector. So hopefully that will be of some interest to some of the viewers.
>> GEORGE KAMIYA: Sorry, if I could add to that.
Of course, as we decarbonize the operations, so data center energy consumption, more attention is going to go towards the supply chain of that hardware that is coming in, of devices that we own and dispose of. So, you know, there is -- I think the methodologies that we establish here in the operations can be helpful in understanding and decarbonizing the supply chain as well which would be I think the next challenge ahead.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: I wonder if I could call an audible here and talk more about that.
I would love to dig into some of the discussions around value chain. I know, Pernilla, you have been involved through Exponential Roadmap and others in some of the supply chain.
I'd be very curious if you could tell us a little about how you see the importance of the supply chain and value chain work evolving. And what are the strategies to tackle in that sector as it's quite different than some of the others.
>> PERNILLA BERGMARK: Yeah, so I think what we can see is definitely there is a growing interest in the supply chain, and overall value chain really for the companies and may be consequence for them in the customer’s request which is growing and growing when it comes to their emissions.
We have reported scope one, two, and three for many years even before it was common. And we see from our study that the absolute majority of our emissions actually occur in -- for products in operation --
So the main product and they are on 24/7 like a data center. So we have had for quite some time SPGs both for the own operation and we have reduced by 70% since 2016.
And for product operation, so that is very important because that is how we can help the customers to have higher energy performance. But More recently, we have started to focus also on the supply chain. That is less substantial than the upstream -- downstream for us but it is much bigger than our own emissions, although we are present in the majority of the countries in the world.
But we see there is a balance, of course, as George mentioned. So I think it important to point out again where customers operate is more renewable. Of course relative importance of our emissions increase. So and we also know that supply chain is very much related to the use of electricity for suppliers.
So we think it is very important to work with other companies, with and within our -- within or outside, I should say, of our sector. And also to work with policy makers as I think Savannah mentioned because it has very much to do with the access to renewable electricity.
And that is why we are working within the framework of the 1.5C supply chain, indeed that's where we are with companies like BT and so on.
But also with Unilever and other companies in completely different sectors and work to develop what we call the 1.5C supplier engagement guideline which helps us to tackle the best practical experience to tackle the different challenges in the relation to how we address the supply chain.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Great, thank you very much.
Let's go back to the group live on the ground there. And Timea, can I pass it back to you if there are other live questions.
>> TIMEA SUTO: Sure. Anyone want to take the floor? I know Michael has a second question if not. Please go ahead.
>> MICHAEL OGHIA: Hi, again, everyone, sorry. Michael Oghia.
I have a lot to say because I've been working very passionately on this topic since 2016, it's something I really care about. And George, to be very frank, I used to be one of those people that was like, oh, no, you know, the data growth and whatnot.
And I have since become a lot more conservative about that in part because of IEA's work. And to me I really want to kind of support something that Pernilla was talking about especially. And I really appreciate that, Marsden, that you took the conversation that way.
I don't think that energy use as much as it is important, I think that material use is a much bigger problem going forward than actually thinking about the energy itself.
Especially, I guess this is a good question for George because of all the work that you'd done with critical minerals. How do you see the future of the ICT sector in terms of the amount of minerals that we are using, the amount of production that's happening with the amount of servers that we're creating.
How can we then also change the narrative a bit to make sure we are addressing ICT sustainability from a little bit more holistic way as to opposed to just focusing on the energy use?
>> GEORGE KAMIYA: Thanks, yeah.
Really great point and I try to highlight the progress on the energy efficiency side, renewables procurement, but also the challenge that lies ahead around the life cycle level, especially looking at minerals.
Yeah, at IEA we published a report looking at minerals and broader clean energy transmissions. Actually, so currently EV batteries, for example, account for half of kind of battery mineral requirements with, you know, ICT obviously and consumer electronics a big share.
But in the future if are to we see the huge growth that we need in electric vehicles across cars, trucks, buses, the energy sector actually will be a dominant player in material use.
So certainly any lessons around recycling and recycling these critical minerals will be very important as we need those clean energy technologies that rely on metals and minerals that we either need to mine from the ground or we need to recycle in a sustainable manner.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Thank you, George.
I have one more question. I want to go back to some of the themes around energy efficiency that I know, George, you brought up on the data center side. And Steven, I wanted to ask you on the mobile operator side if you could help us understand some of the trends around efficiency.
Thinking really specifically around this very unique time in history with this nearly two-year period of COVID-19 when all of a sudden hundreds of millions of people began suddenly working from home and the use of the ICT sector exploded.
Can you help us understand how that impacted energy and emissions? And what, if any, sort of energy efficiency models or trends you saw over the last couple of years?
>> STEVEN MOORE: Yeah, sure. We did actually reach out. It was earlier last year, so just towards the end of the first lockdown that we had. So we reached out to some of the operators, particularly those actually across Europe because they were in similar lockdown stages across Europe to ask European operators what they were seeing. A sudden spike in the energy consumption and how that affected the carbon issues.
Because the European network operator, they have -- a lot of the members have mobile networks, a few also have fixed line networks as well. And they have just seen perhaps a bit of a shift. Less commuting use of mobile networks. And there was more fixed line at home.
But then there was also maybe some more mobile use at home for those who didn't have fixed line and would have normally used the fixed line connection in the office.
So it was a bit more of a shift in geographical pattern. And there was, you know, increase data traffic because we are all stuck at home and basically watching Netflix. There was a lot more of that going on.
And what they found was because these peaks and troughs are built into the way that networks are designed. And, you know, you can't have a data center fall over because everyone certainly wants to stream the latest movie on Netflix.
SO they found actually there was pretty negligible change in energy use over that period. I think, if anything, it was maybe less than 1%. As I say, because the actual structure is designed so that the energy use is actually fairly constant regardless of what the data traffic is going across it.
Now that is not to say that now it will be necessarily going forward, and we know that for example 5G technology is much more dynamic. And we will be able to use artificial intelligence, for example, to be able to monitor when there are likely to be peaks and troughs in data traffic and actually even ramp up or shut down parts -- so maybe like 3:00 a.m. in the morning not very many people on the phone, maybe close down two or three quarters because it doesn't need to be operating at such a high level. We see those types of efficiencies that can happen going forward.
And this is one of the reasons why, coming back to the point that was raised about the emissions and equipment, that is something that we are having to consider as we roll out 5G mass and as we input. And at the same time 5G is much more efficient at moving data around. It uses much less energy to move a byte of data around.
So, again, these are the things that the science-based targets that a lot of the companies signed up to, they have to evaluate all of this. Because they have to look at the operation energy emissions but also the emissions coming from the stuff that they buy up into their supply chain.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Terrific. Thank you, thank you so much.
One final question and then I want to ask each panelist to give us one moment of closing thoughts. But before we do that, Savannah, I want to come back to you on the 24/7 strategy and ask if you could tell us what you see is the biggest challenges to adopting the 24/7 strategy and what companies can do to remove barriers to taking up one of these goals.
>> SAVANNAH GOODMAN: We talked about data transparency and that is one area we talked about a lot. Some of other changes is 24/7 is complex. You are going to need once you have all of the data, it's a lot more data, and you are now needing to really understand on an hourly basis what your profile looks.
And thinking beyond, right, the traditional PPA for organizations is definitely something that will need to be done.
Luckily we started to work with partners like AES and ANGI to develop these products that are like, for example, 90% carbon-free energy supply and they go out and procure the portfolio. We have the energy manager approach and that can simplify for the buyers by having the intermediaries to deal with those complexities.
Another example is we worked with a company called Fervo to do a geothermal pilot And again, part is really just like getting involved in 24/7 and growing the ecosystem.
So SE For All, for example, has organized a 24/7 Compact. There's a website go carbon free 24/7 if you are interested in learning more and participating. And I think that is a really great way to start getting involved.
There's a lot of different folks who have already signed onto the compact from buyers, suppliers, regulators, utilities, cities.
So it is really about bringing the ecosystem together so that we can work on developing new products and market systems and bringing data transparency and things we talked about a really surfacing them. That is what I would say.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Terrific. Thank you so much, Savannah. So this has been a very exciting session. And thank you so much to our panelists. It has been never helpful to hear some of these the themes particularly around the need for improved data transparency and better estimation methodologies on both the footprint and the handprint side. Lots of opportunities that we all see or that we talked about today to decarbonize both electricity. Lots of opportunities that we see that we talked with about today to decarbonize like strategies like 24/7 and then the need to get to work as well on the supply chains and value chain.
And then many opportunities to decarbonize across -- decarbonize other industries by deploying mobile technology by deploying ICT technology. Very interesting discussion.
I want to ask if we could just close by having each panelist maybe give us 30 seconds on what you are most optimistic about heading into 2022 for the role of the tech sector, the ICT sector in tackling climate? So let's go George, Pernilla, Steven, Savannah. So, George, over to you.
>> GEORGE KAMIYA: Thanks, Mars. I would say it's the people in tech that I think are increasingly interested and engaged in climate change and sustainability that is quite promising. Data scientists, AI practitioner, they're learning more about the energy system, transport systems and how they apply their skills to reduce emissions in all of these other sectors.
And I really -- it is really -- I guess I see a lot of hope around that because they have all these skills and we need those skills in decarbonizing all of the other sectors, so yeah.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Great. Pernilla.
>> PERNILLA BERGMARK: I think I will go a bit in the same direction.
I'm optimistic about the increasing awareness and also that there is really a positive competition when it comes to the race to zero among top runners.
I think there is an obvious risk that I might include that. Everyone is very enthusiastic and make not be so organized.
And there is a green wishing and green washing. And then of course, we need to find ways to scale beyond the usual suspects that we see in these type of events. So, yeah, We need to broaden, but the directions that need to be positive.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Terrific. Steven.
>> STEVEN MOORE: Yeah, I kind of echo the points that Pernilla and George made and say that from what are seeing across the telco sector is incredible for collaboration on the issues.
We have more than 50 companies now part of the task force and the projects that we work on continue to expand. So we have energy efficiency, and we are going to start a renewables project. We've got something looking sector economy of network equipment and devices. That we continue to champion climate disclosure set in place best targets.
And I'm sure there will be other things that we'll be working on together next year. I'm grateful for the fact that there are competitors coming together and willing to talk about the issues and work together to solve them. Yeah.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Terrific. Savannah.
>> SAVANNAH GOODMAN: Yeah, and maybe just to expand on that, I think that is what is really exciting to me is seeing all of these the different, you know, who might be competitors within their own industry come together.
We have seen folks in the data taking 24/7 seriously. And on that note, the U.S. Federal Government just announced a 24/7 goal yesterday.
It shows the goals that the ICT sector can have on the broader globe, the broader organizations. So I think there is a lot of momentum there, and yeah, that gives me a lot of optimism looking forward.
>> MARSDEN HANNA: Wonderful. Well, please, everyone join me in thanking all of our panelists for this exciting discussion. And good luck to everyone on the ground in Katowice with the rest of the conference. And thank you all so much.