The GSMA today unveiled a network equipment commerce platform to help the telecoms industry achieve its financial and environmental sustainability goals, in partnership with solutions provider Shields Environmental Group (Shields).
The cloud-based global platform, called GSMA Equipment Marketplace, will help telecommunication providers around the world reuse, redeploy and recycle their network assets, while helping them achieve their net zero environmental targets and ensure financial sustainability.
By making the service available to its membership base of more than 1000 mobile operators and equipment manufacturers around the world, the GSMA hopes that the service can transform the way networks – fixed, mobile or private – are procured and decommissioned. In turn this will support the industry in its ambitions to reduce carbon emissions and minimise extraction of environmentally damaging raw materials used to make telecoms equipment.
The GSMA estimates that manufacturing network equipment (including materials extraction and processing) and constructing network sites and mobile masts accounts for more than 30 million tonnes CO2e per year. GSMA Equipment Marketplace can help to reduce these figures by enabling operators to reuse and recycle more of their assets, and so help support the industry to achieve its ambition to be net zero by 2050 at the latest.
John Giusti, Chief Regulatory Officer and Climate Action sponsor at the GSMA, said: “The industry continues strong and concerted action to deliver on its Net Zero commitments. Transitioning to a more circular economy business model can help operators further lower their emissions, by reducing reliance on carbon-intensive equipment manufacturing. We believe this new platform from the GSMA and Shields can support telecommunication network providers in their efforts to reduce carbon emissions and limit their reliance on raw material extraction.”
The GSMA Equipment Marketplace platform is already being successfully used by Vodafone Group, with the GSMA and Shields today unveiling plans to make it available to industry as a whole. Ninian Wilson, Vodafone Global Supply Chain Director & CEO Vodafone Procurement Company said: “This platform has successfully supported Vodafone to reuse, resell and recycle decommissioned network equipment since we started using it in 2021. It has delivered new revenue and savings opportunities, while also contributing to a reduction of our carbon footprint. We are delighted to see this platform opening up to serve businesses across our whole industry, enabling a more circular economy for network equipment at greater scale.”
