Sustainability: Creating a greener future for network connectivity

Ensuring sustainable development and operations are now key components of companies’ and telecom operators’ digital transformation strategies. Most companies in Europe and in other parts of the world have implemented a regulatory framework to calculate their carbon footprint and set targets for reducing it.

With sustainability becoming such a priority, equipment and services suppliers are increasingly looking to develop products with a reduced environmental impact, turning sustainability from a potential hurdle into a key market differentiator.

As part of our ESG commitments, Ekinops has implemented in its OneAccess branded routers several sustainability initiatives, centered around reducing the environmental footprint of our operations and products. Operators can leverage these initiatives to improve their own sustainability ratings. Eco-design principles are a key element of Ekinops’ strategy and development, as are measuring product climate impact through Life Cycle Analysis and improving the sustainability of Ekinops packaging and delivery.

Ekinops provides business service operators with tailor-made equipment, through a monolithic structure that integrates all the functionalities required for service provision into a single box, as opposed to a modular approach. The result is a range of products adopting a smaller form factor, using fewer resources and reducing the environmental impact.

Reducing the power consumption of our products is also a key priority for Ekinops. The new range of Ekinops routers uses green Ethernet, which optimizes the electrical power consumed by Ethernet ports. In Ekinops’ new OneAccess branded routers, cores can be dynamically put in sleep mode when they are not being used. Finally, in the most recent models of Ekinops routers, the power supply of the Wi-Fi module can be switched off completely, reducing power consumption by around 4 Watts during non-working hours and at weekends. By implementing all or parts of these power consumption reduction features, the average carbon footprint can be reduced significantly.

Ekinops also enables operators to calculate how our products contribute to their overall carbon footprint, by providing the climate change indicator for any and every Access portfolio Ekinops solution they have deployed. In addition to the climate change indicator, Ekinops can also provide operators with a report that covers all 17 indicators for each stage in the lifecycle of our products. This information can be used as part of operators’ full carbon footprint calculations, as well as to position themselves favorably in tender responses or with customers by demonstrating their environmental impact.

Finally, this work on product life-cycle analysis incentivized our Ekinops Access product teams to optimize factory operations by minimizing the use of resources and waste management. For instance, the dimensions of Ekinops’ product packaging have been adjusted to match the pallet size, increasing the number of products per pallet from 109 to 152. We’ve also been able to reduce waste and save resources by reusing pallets to deliver products to our customers. Today, 40% of the pallets used by Ekinops are re-used; the remaining are bought second-hand.

To find out more about Ekinops' environmental and energy management initiatives, visit our ESG proof points page.