New digital tools to reduce carbon footprint

BT has announced new digital tools to allow multinational customers to manage carbon emissions by measuring and optimising their network’s carbon footprint.

The Carbon Network Dashboard and Digital Carbon Calculator give a real-time view of power consumption and track the carbon impact of running applications and cloud workloads across a network.

The Dashboard employs machine learning to analyse historic usage to detect and predict anomalies, show which devices are consuming the most power and forecast total energy use.

Data on carbon intensity from regional power grids is used to help understand how electricity consumption translates into carbon emissions, and BT plans to encompass real-time information about renewable energy on national grids and in data centres in the near future.

The Calculator scans the customer’s network inventory to estimate its carbon footprint and can track how this responds to changes and upgrades over time. The tool helps prioritise devices for replacement with functionality to upload an inventory of network equipment for analysis.

The launch of the new tools will be extended to BT’s UK enterprise customers in the near future as part of the company’s manifesto pledge to help customers avoid 60 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by 2030.

According to Gartner, Scope 3 emissions — those generated across an organisation from its supply chain through to product or service delivery — are the most challenging to measure yet can account for over 95% of the total.

Sarwar Khan, head of digital sustainability, Global, BT said, “With customers hosting more of their applications across multiple clouds, networks are now increasingly vital for all elements of business performance, including carbon impact.

“Our new tools empower customers to reduce their Scope 3 emissions by optimising their network or scheduling digital workloads when renewable energy is available, helping them to achieve their net zero goals.”

Image credit: iStock.com/pearleye