Ericsson Achieves Top Ranking on Greenpeace Cool IT Leaderboard

Among a few ICT majors that are recognized for their comprehensive approach toward climate crisis, Ericsson is definitely a name to be reckoned with. Recently, the company was honored by Greenpeace, the international campaigner for green and clean environment, for its contributions in carbon footprint reducing initiatives.

In a recent press release, Ericsson (News - Alert) announced that it has been honored by Greenpeace with a top ranking on their Cool IT Leaderboard as one of the IT companies with "the boldest and most encompassing industry efforts to address climate change to date.”

The Cool IT Leaderboard ranks global IT brands on their efforts to build emission-slashing innovations, mitigate their own energy footprints, and support groundbreaking climate and energy policies.

Two years ago, the Climate Group, along with Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) published the "SMART 2020.” The report highlighted the IT sector's potential to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions to 15 percent by 2020.

Greenpeace maintains that IT companies need to continue working with other transformative sectors -- buildings, transportation, logistics, and clean energy developers -- to actively support policies that catalyze the global adoption of clean technologies; that, in combination with an enhanced commitment to reducing IT's own growing energy footprint, can transform the energy economy into a renewable and prosperous system built on IT innovation.

A leading provider of technology and services to telecom operators, Ericsson provides support for networks with over 2 billion subscribers and has the leading position in managed services. The company's portfolio comprises mobile and fixed network infrastructure, telecom services, software, broadband and multimedia solutions for operators, enterprises and the media industry. The Sony Ericsson (News - Alert) and ST-Ericsson joint ventures provide consumers with feature-rich personal mobile devices. 

Ericsson participates actively in public-private dialogue where the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in combating the climate change is discussed. The company officials informed that right now Ericsson is part of the Green Solutions Fair in conjunction with COP16 in Mexico.

“A few companies stand out for the comprehensiveness of their approach to climate action, or have distinguished themselves in a key realm of leadership,” said Greenpeace in a statement. According to Greenpeace, some IT companies are taking active initiative in dealing with the climate issues, while others are not coming forward. And this is what creating a leadership gap in the handling of climate crisis, explained Greenpeace. But Ericsson is definitely not among the later group.

Greenpeace energy policy analyst Gary Cook said in a statement that Greanpeace is happy to see that Ericsson is putting forward solutions to address the climate crisis. “…we hope that the company's ongoing commitment to a clean energy economy will inspire action across the sector,” Cook observed in his statement.

“A 21st century infrastructure built on broadband will be pivotal to creating a sustainable, low-carbon economy, allowing services such as smart grids, m-health and intelligent transport, among others. In shifting from products to services supported by today's Information and Communication Technology (ICT), we have the potential to positively affect climate change in ways that could not have been imagined a few years ago. The impact will be truly transformational,” Ericsson’s head of sustainability and corporate responsibility Elaine Weidman-Grunewald explained.

Couple of month back, LG-Ericsson USA launched a feature-rich, easy-to-use hybrid VoIP solution for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMB). In a statement, the company said that the new ipLDK-60 Hybrid Key Telephone System is easy-to-install, manage and can simplify voice communications for even the smallest of offices.