There are three main elements in our approach to addressing climate change:

• sphere of influence; which defines both the direct and indirect impacts of our business operations, our products and our sector’s role in society, and identifying where we can have greatest impact on energy use and climate change.
  
  
• life­-cycle assessment; which is the tool we use to measure the environmental impacts of our business operations, our products and our sector.
  
  
• carbon footprint; which summarizes our performance across both direct and indirect impacts of our business.
  

Sphere of influence
Our sphere of influence includes direct impacts such as sites, transport and travel, and our indirect impacts such as "products", estimated life-time in operation, associated operator activities and end-of-life treatment. While we focus actively on the products and services that we deliver, we also examine how the provision of telecommunication in itself can have broader implications to society in combating climate change.

The sphere of influence is made up of the following four areas:

• products and features: includes energy efficient radio base station design and energy saving features such as the BTS Power Savings.
  
  
• sites: includes cooling, heat exchangers, alternative energies to power the sites and new techniques such as battery-diesel hybrid sites. Since 2000, we have delivered
  more than 200 sites using a variety of energy efficient and renewable energy technologies.
  
  
• networks: at the network level, Ericsson has worked to reduce energy use for a number of years and continues to do so, setting targets to bring down energy use in 2G and 3G networks. Network solutions and services are designed to use fewer sites and to optimize network design.
  
  
• telecom contribution to a low carbon economy: telecommunications have the capability to deliver societal solutions which can contribute to a transition to a global low carbon economy. It is estimated by WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and ETNO (European Telecommunication Network Operators) that societal behavior changes using telecommunications could result in a reduction of energy in society that is ten times greater than the amount of energy required to produce and deliver telecom services. Ericsson estimates that societal energy use and CO2 emissions could be reduced by 5-20 percent between now and 2020.

Examples of telecom applications that can support behavioral change are technologies for facilitating remote working and video conferencing that reduce travel and the need for large, energy intensive workplaces; and energy monitoring systems that remotely control heating and lighting, bringing energy efficiencies in the home and workplace.

In every area throughout our sphere of influence, energy optimization is Ericsson’s core strength. Our unique ability is  to take complex telecommunication systems and optimize energy use at every step, focusing not just on any one product, but on a total cost of ownership reduction with the lowest possible energy impact and carbon footprint.