‘By 2017, we target to keep our absolute emissions on the level of 2011’

How have you faired in the ‘Corporate Responsibiliy and Sustainability Report' 2012?

In 2009, we set a target to reduce our carbon footprint by 40% in 5 years and in 2012, we achieved the target which was one year earlier. So that was quite an achievement.

Another accomplishment was that we started an education program about 2 years ago called ‘connect to learn', where we have been focusing on secondary education.

The third area is our core portfolio on the base station side where we launched 2 solutions-AIR (Antenna Integrated Radio) and PSI. Both of these are part of our core portfolio and designed to reduce energy consumption of networks by 40%.

We have reduced business travels by 16% and increased the use of video conferencing by 60%. On product transportation, we reduced emission by 12% and on the facility side per employee we reduced it by 3.6% but the total facility emission increased because we have expanded to more markets.

What is the target for 2013?

We have a long-term target that by 2017 we will keep our absolute emissions on the same level of 2011 while continuing to grow the business. So, this is quite ambitious for the next 5 years and then on the portfolio side, we don't know as yet but actually we are refining the new measurements at the moment.

The Jaipur facility has recently bagged Challengers Award for reducing carbon foot print.

PwC has audited this report, so is there any number on the amount of savings done by Ericsson?

Well, we don't give out the financial figures. PwC audits our annual report on our finances but they are in our sustainability report on the sustainable criteria, but I would say, in general, whenever we are doing something on environment we are usually saving things, so you always have a close bonding in terms of cost of production and same thing on the network side in which we have reduced energy by 40%.

That's having a pretty substantial opex but we don't really put the dollar or the rupee value.

Areas where Ericsson needs to work upon in 2013...

Ericsson in India has done a phenomenal job but globally, the challenge is e-waste. And the challenge is to get back the equipment because sometimes we couldn't tap the grey market and we don't resell.

In Ericsson, we take it back and recycle it properly on a global level. In 2012 we recorded that less than 5% of our waste was going to land-fill which was beyond any requirement and any legislation and we have really optimized the process for taking it back and some of the biggest part we get in India so we have a really strong system here but globally it's still a challenge.