Converting carbon footprint into capital
Ericsson had ambitious sustainability and cost reduction goals. To achieve them, we worked in partnership to deliver a system to monitor their energy and emissions footprint. Our holistic solution exceeded the targets that were set.
Ericsson is one of the world’s leading providers of Information Communication Technology (ICT), and they carry about 40 per cent of the world’s total mobile traffic. With 90 sites across Asia Pacific, energy consumption was a sizable operating cost. They wanted to find new ways to reduce their carbon footprint, achieve sustainability goals, and adopt the right technology to make it happen.
Their system for tracking performance at the time was outdated and cumbersome. They wanted a partner who can provide a better way to track energy, water and waste metrics across their vast portfolio. Ericsson and JLL already had an existing relationship for other real estate services, so it was a natural expansion to include sustainability.
JLL’s Energy and Sustainability experts worked full time on the Ericsson portfolio and we successfully achieved the target of 13.5% savings over five years. Using our own technology, Energy and Sustainability Platform (ESP), we benchmarked individual building performance against the portfolio and international standards.
Ericsson wanted to optimise their buildings’ performance whilst keeping capital expenditure as low as possible. Our understanding of operations combined with data supplied with ESP helped us achieve this by implementing the right low-cost energy saving changes; tweaking air conditioning set points, schedules and operating parameters.
“The ESP program is just at its early stages and we’ve already seen great achievements together. ”
In just over two years, the ESP program has performed beyond expectations. This includes:
- More than 25 per cent energy reduction over 2 years, from 185 energy conservation measures, exceeding the initial target of 13.5% savings over 5 years;
- Over 100 individual sustainability initiatives outside of energy – e.g. water savings, waste savings, recycling were identified and tracked;
- Reduced maintenance costs as equipment was running more efficiently;
- Reduced capital investments as equipment lifespans were extended, meaning they were replaced less often.
The icing on the cake for the ESP program was when Tony Ashworth, Ericsson’s program lead, was named “Global Lead for Sustainability” in part due to his successful efforts in driving sustainability in Asia Pacific.