Key Economic and Environmental Perspectives on Sustainability in the ICT Sector

Abstract

Telecommunication networks have become as critical to the 21st century development as were railways, roads and canals, to the 19th Century developments and is now seen as enabler to a more sustained business, environment and society as a whole. Still fascinating has been and is the exponential rate of growth in this industry. This is one sector where the next revolution is always just around the corner whether known or unknown. The telecoms industry is categorized by high rates of innovation in a rapidly changing technological environment. This in turn is associated with an immense range of sustainability concerns and challenges for the Telecoms service providers, the service users and the whole industry and its far reaching influence on other industries. This paper discusses three key aspects of such challenges namely; the question of sustainable power/energy supply for the industry when the change is resulting in increasing energy and operational cost, the exploitation of technologies advancement for sustainability and their business and environmental benefits.