Green 5G – A Sustainability Imperative for the Decade of Action

By Prof. Sally Eaves 

Today’s ‘climate emergency’ as defined by UN Environment, if not tackled immediately, threatens every aspect of our lives. Enhancing energy efficiency and helping to avert climate change through both behaviours and technology is a key part of the solution, including – and potentially surprising expectations – the integral role of Green 5G.

This reflects that the benefits of 5G extends beyond low latency, high bandwidth, ubiquitous connectivity, high reliability and multi-level security to low power consumption too. And further, that 5G is the critical integrator and enabler for many real-time responsive energy efficiency advancements.

Framing this discussion are two key anniversaries. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were launched when the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted Resolution 70/1 on 25th September 2015, presenting a plan for action: Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This addressed not only environmental issues such as climate change but also social issues such as poverty and inequality.

It called for global, local and individual collaborative action, bringing together governments, local authorities, institutions, organisations, communities and every single one of us. And now, five years later, as the United Nations celebrates its 75th Anniversary, the social impact of the pandemic has amplified the need to achieve the SDG targets in the decade left – the Decade of Action.

Reflecting on progress, whilst food insecurity and inequalities have increased and the natural environment deteriorated, some progress had been made towards achieving the SDGs. However, the recent global impact of COVID-19 has seriously disrupted progress, reversing inroads into poverty, healthcare and education, with the world’s poorest and most vulnerable groups affected the most.

The depth and breadth of global lockdowns has had a dramatic effect on areas as diverse as consumer behaviours, industrial activity, supply chain fragility and transport use. It has highlighted the inequalities that exists globally in society, especially regards digital inclusion and accessibility for all – long before the pandemic hit, some 260 million children were normally not in school.

We have also seen a dramatic impact on global CO2 emissions with Carbon Brief estimating a fall in the region of 5.5% of 2019’s global total. However, as economies the world over attempt to recover, the question is whether this will involve reverting to previous practices, or whether there will be active collaborative effort to seek more sustainable solutions, from conscious consumerism through to carbon neutrality?

Whilst humanity and the environment is clearly under threat, this is also an age of unprecedented technological development that can be harnessed to make a difference. This is exemplified in the constellation of different technologies that is 5G. In today’s ‘internet of everything’ world with billions of connected and always-on sensing devices, 5G affords the opportunity to radically transform once discrete technological devices from stand-alone, to seamlessly integrated.

It also enables not only human-human and human-device connectivity, but device-device connectivity too, allowing an almost limitless scaling up of technological configurations connecting sensors with intelligence. This connectivity enables the sharing of data about anything which, combined with virtualization, edge computing, AI-enabled analytics and cloud, allows the smart management of all that is connected.

This leads to more efficient energy and resource utilisation (e.g. electricity, water), predictive and online maintenance (e.g. data centers) as well as alerts to undesirable events (e.g. air pollution).  It is not location constrained and offers aerial, terrestrial and marine applications.

5G has been rolled out in conservation areas, such as in the Costa Rican rainforest to aid the combating of illegal logging and poaching, as well as in extremely remote hostile locations, where Huawei successfully installed a 5G base station at 6,500m on Mount Everest! This really highlights the art of the possible and as shown in Figure 1, the enabling effect of 5G across multiple industry verticals is extensive.

This brings to life just how 5G can make an important impact to achieving the SDGs. The recent report by Huawei draws attention to 5G’s direct contributions, and the most significant ‘enabling’ indirect impacts. Firstly, the number of 5G connected devices will become significant with 5G mobile subscriptions anticipated to quadruple to nearly 10.24 billion and forecast to reach 19.3% of global market by the end of 2024 (GSA and Omdia 2020).

Secondly, is the low power consumption alongside use of renewable energy sources and intelligent energy management, transforming a 5G network into a sustainable technology that contributes to SDG7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) and hence to SDG13 (Climate Action). The greatest energy savings are expected at the base station which currently consumes around 57% of a network’s power usage. Smart use of energy produced by green sources could lead to an impressive 50% reduction in energy consumption.

The configuration and integration of 5G with other technologies such as IoT, edge-cloud computing and AI enabled analytics also contributes to SDG9 – building a resilient infrastructure. This is anticipated to have a significant effect across several industry verticals, especially those with high power consumption. The biggest energy consumers in the EU are currently transport, industry and households, implying that these offer the greatest opportunity to effect climate change action.

Consequently, any absolute increase in energy consumption attributed directly to increased 5G connectivity, is expected to be appreciably offset by its indirect enabling impact on energy efficiency across multiple applications.

As one example, the shift to remote working at scale catalysed by the pandemic has not only greatly reduced travel, but has demonstrated (with appropriate access) the ability to work and learn anywhere. Add to this, smart, real-time and remote energy management of buildings and infrastructure and the potential savings are significant. Gas pipeline inspection using 5G enabled unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) eliminates the need to have people on the ground with vehicles to transport them.

As well operational efficiencies, a Life Cycle Analysis, considering the carbon footprint of a supply chain from raw material to end of life, reveals that a UAV has 40% less carbon footprint than human inspection using petrol vehicles.

Within manufacturing, the transition of factories to being smart (autonomous), digital (analytics) and virtual (connected and collaborative) leads to them becoming more sustainable so contributing to SDG12 – Responsible Consumption and Production.

Underpinning this is 5G connectivity, permitting pervasive IoT monitoring and providing the data to support data analytics, real-time video analytics for inspection, augmented reality for instructing operators and cloud control of machines. Collectively this leads to improved productivity, better resource utilisation and reduced wastage.

And 5G offers the opportunity to contribute to other SDGs too! Goal 3 relating to health and wellbeing is a timely example. COVID-19, with lockdowns and distributed working at scale has impacted the way in which healthcare is delivered, likely accelerating the shift to more virtual engagement for the longer term.

A 5G enabled remote consultation improves access to medical experts, whilst significantly reducing the need to travel, with associated carbon footprint reduction (SDG13). Looking ahead, 5G will support the move to increasingly interactive and immersive environments, extending beyond natural use cases such as gaming and entertainment, to wellbeing and stress – recently described by The World Health Organization as the ‘health epidemic of the 21st century’.

It is within the Smart City that perhaps the most diversified demonstration of 5G capability comes to the fore, helping to make human living spaces more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable (SDG11). Integrated with many other forms of emerging technologies, it provides a platform supporting the management of traffic and mobility, utility services (SDG6) and optimised environmental conditions.

It also serves all aspects of everyday living, whether in homes, workplace, health or education provision or in retail, hospitality or leisure. This coordinated approach drives a reduction in Green House Gas (GHG) emissions and will be an imperative to support major cities in their existing reduction efforts, for example, London, Berlin and Madrid seeing a 30% fall from peak levels in late 2019.

Reflecting on this piece, the critical impact of 5G upon climate change (SDG13) both directly and indirectly is clear. And we can see how 5G can positively impact the other SDGs too. The

implications for governments are twofold. First is the timely provision of 5G spectrum and incentivized support for network development. Second is facilitation of cooperation amongst all stakeholders, of which there are many including civic, industrial, educational and health. The time is now to come together and scale-up sustainable solutions to adapt, monitor, mitigate and actualise climate change – with Green 5G an integral catalyst for this endeavour.

Prof. Sally Eaves is a highly experienced Chief Technology Officer, Professor in Advanced Technologies and Global Strategic Advisor, Author and Speaker on Digital Transformation, Sustainability and Social Impact.

She specialises in the application of AI, Cloud, CyberSecurity, Blockchain, IoT & 5G disciplines for both business and societal benefit at scale. Sally is Senior Policy Advisor for the Global Foundation of Cyber Studies & Research and has founded ‘edtech’ enterprise Aspirational Futures to enhance accessibility, inclusion and diversity in education, technology and beyond. 

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