How T-Mobile is cutting carbon while cultivating connections
T-Mobile US, Inc. is an American wireless network operator headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, serving 119.7 million postpaid and prepaid customers. Here, the company’s Enterprise ESG and Sustainability Manager, Conrad Farner talks to the Energy Efficiency Movement’s Mike Umiker about the company’s approach to energy efficiency.
Conrad Farner’s initiation into sustainability came as a child, watching gas prices spike and realizing how dependent society was on such fossil fuels. “It really motivated me to want to do more to influence positive environmental change,” he says.
After studying environmental engineering and implementing sustainability initiatives in manufacturing environments, making a positive change is exactly what he and the team are doing at T-Mobile, America’s supercharged Un-carrier.
T-Mobile manages tens of thousands of cell sites—structures where antennas and electronic communications equipment are placed to create cells in a cellular network—across the country, along with thousands of retail stores and all the network infrastructure needed for of a leading wireless provider.
“It’s really important to our customers and us that we manage that footprint responsibly,” Farner says.
As part of this effort, in 2023 T-Mobile became the first in U.S. wireless to set a target to achieve net-zero emissions across its entire carbon footprint by 2040. The target will require a focus on optimizing energy consumption, Farner says.
“Our strategy, when it comes to reducing Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, is about reducing energy consumption and investing in more energy-efficient technologies,” he notes.
The company has been optimizing its operational footprint following its 2020 merger with Sprint Corporation, for instance by eliminating duplicate sites.
“We’ve done a ton of work around strategically decommissioning tens of thousands of cell sites across the U.S. to make sure we’re operating efficiently and not consuming more than we need,” says Farner.
Energy consumption per petabyte
T-Mobile has been retiring legacy technologies and right-sizing its equipment—a seemingly simple measure that the Energy Efficiency Movement’s Case for Industrial Energy Efficiency report shows could have major impacts, such as saving $1 million a year in one published example.
T-Mobile is also improving the efficiency of its buildings through measures such as upgrading heating, ventilation and air conditioning, and installing energy management systems and LED lighting.
T-Mobile is targeting a 95% cut in energy consumption per petabyte of data transferred on its network by 2030, compared to a 2019 baseline. “At the highest level, it’s just making sure we’re using energy more efficiently,” Farner says.
“We’re trying to decouple increased data consumption and increased energy consumption,” he adds.
In this, T-Mobile—like other mobile operators—has technology on its side. Fifth generation (5G) networks are up to 90% more energy efficient per traffic unit than 4G networks, according to a 5G energy efficiency from Nokia and Telefonica.
Reducing network energy consumption is critical, says Farner. “Roughly 90% of our energy consumption comes from our network,” he points out. “We’ve got tens of thousands of cell sites and that’s really where the bulk of our energy consumption is taking place.”
On the way to reducing that footprint, Farner says T-Mobile has discovered the value of an incremental approach to energy efficiency. “I don’t think there’s ever one single project that can get you energy efficient in one fell swoop,” he says.
“It really is oftentimes a combination of different projects that gets you to that end goal. It makes the most sense to start with the low-hanging fruit. That’s what we did, with LED lighting [and] lighting controls—things with a high payback.”
Analyzing different projects
Another insight from T-Mobile’s energy efficiency journey so far is that it can be beneficial to carry out projects in a sequential manner, tracking impacts along the way. “There are so many opportunities out there when it comes to energy savings, it can become daunting trying to figure out where to start,” says Farner.
To prioritize actions, it helps to consider what is most important to the business, its customers and the environment, he says. “Aligning yourselves with the corporate purpose when you’re analyzing different projects can be helpful.”
With many obvious energy-saving measures now having been carried out, Farner says “the rubber is really going to hit the road” as T-Mobile strives to meet the targets it has set. “We’ve got the goals and the ambition in place,” he says. “Now it’s: ‘How do we get there?’”
Part of the answer could depend on technology, with T-Mobile looking at software to help optimize radio equipment energy use. Further advances could come from the application of artificial intelligence to network operations, helping adjust energy consumption to variables such as weather and data traffic.
Ultimately, says Farner, the ambition for T-Mobile is not only to improve its own energy efficiency but also to help its customers reduce their utility bills and carbon footprints through the application of telecommunications technologies.
“There’s a huge opportunity for us and our partners and customers to have solutions in place that really optimize energy efficiency,” Farner says.