How AI-driven smart networks are fuelling sustainability gains

By Sanjiv Verma

Sustainability has become more than a buzzword in India. Businesses are increasingly realising the vitality of environmental stewardship driven by rapid urbanisation and regulatory compliance. The 2024 SAP Sustainability Study highlights that over 39% of Indian businesses intend to increase their sustainability-focused investments in the next three years. Additionally, understanding the strong relationship between sustainability and an organisation’s profitability, several key Gross Domestic Product contributing sectors have adopted new-age technologies to enhance energy efficiency and support sustainability goals.

One notable industry leading the charge is the hospitality sector. Hoteliers eagerly promote sustainability initiatives such as green design, energy efficiency, waste management, and local sourcing to positively influence guests. However, the opportunities for network-based, efficiency-driven sustainability improvements go far beyond this. In fact, an intelligent network potentially supports initiatives from waste-to-energy plants and water conservation measures to plastic-free zones.

Beyond the everyday green measures, there are grander, system-level opportunities to enhance the network’s resource-conserving efficiency. For instance, the capacity for network management to switch off connected devices, including HVAC and Wi-Fi services in vacant rooms to reduce energy use, already exists. However, now that can include rebalancing Wi-Fi coverage across a particular area, ensuring that the signal is where it needs to be—and nowhere else—at the scale the traffic demands.

AI is the Game Changer

Integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) monitoring and management into wireless networks is becoming a priority in the hospitality environment. With experience, AI can learn to predict occupancy trends, led by human supervision and approval. AI enables granular policy control over various connected technologies, Bluetooth, Zigbee, private 5G, and other services.

AI-managed networks support a wide range of sensors and controls, ensuring that power and water are used only when necessary. With natural resources becoming scarce, this is especially valuable for sustainable operations. Moreover, AI’s capacity to learn and automate helps the limited IT budget stretch further by enabling less-trained people to perform beyond their educated expertise through predictions and recommendations delivered through natural language models.

For most enterprises, efficiency and sustainability depend on the network, and AI-driven networks can help enterprises raise their sustainability profile.

#1

Energy use: AI helps hotels optimise energy use by automating systems like lighting and HVAC in unoccupied rooms. AI-controlled Wi-Fi networks adjust power based on occupancy, ensuring energy is used efficiently. This real-time optimisation reduces operational costs and helps lower carbon footprints. With human oversight, AI can apply successful configurations to the network, leading to continuous improvements in the network’s operations and carbon footprint.

#2

Water use: Hotels are increasingly adopting water conservation practices to reduce their environmental impact while maintaining guest comfort. They are also incorporating sustainable landscaping with drought-resistant plants and reusing graywater for non-potable purposes, further reducing water consumption.

An intelligent network can drive IoT sensors, smart water meters and rainwater harvesting systems to monitor and discover potential efficiencies and leaks and raise alerts when unusual water usage patterns are detected. By integrating these solutions, hotels are supporting sustainability and lowering operational costs, positively impacting both the environment and their bottom line.

#3

Waste management: The same AI capabilities that enable AI to monitor, react to, and learn from energy use also provide a means to streamline waste management. AI can identify specific waste types, such as food scraps, offering insights that can help minimise food waste.

IoT-enabled waste bins and smart recycling systems allow hotels to monitor waste levels in real time, notifying staff when bins are full. Additionally, machine learning algorithms are increasingly used to sort recyclables efficiently, ensuring more materials are diverted from landfills.

The Enterprise Perspective

Exploring sustainability within the hospitality sector demonstrates several potential applications of AI. However, these possibilities extend to various other industries. The diverse hospitality environment includes schools, hospitals, airports, stadiums, and corporate campuses. AI can now deliver deep insights into every phase, from procurement to resource management to day-to-day operations, enabling organisations to identify, optimise, and assess sustainability factors.

In 2025, better sustainability begins with operational efficiency in the network. Sustainability will remain a key focus and business necessity, with AI-driven smart networks steering sustainable practices to enhance customer experiences and fuel growth.

The author is a Vice President of RUCKUS Networks for Asia Pacific at CommScope.