Responsible Energy Use

Social issue: climate change caused by use of fossil fuels

KPN’s contribution: increasing energy efficiency through innovation and the use of renewable energy

What’s it about?
The world’s climate is changing because of the consumption of fossil fuels. The use of fossil fuels causes emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). These emissions increased by approximately 28% between 1990 and 2004. In the same period countries with emission obligations under the Kyoto Protocol (which includes arrangements for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases) achieved a 6% reduction of total CO2 emissions caused by the burning of fossil energy. The Netherlands has given a commitment to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases between 2008 and 2012 by 6% compared with the baseline year 1990.

How do we help?
We are helping to assure sustainable energy usage in the Netherlands. We are doing this by saving electricity wherever possible in our network infrastructure and CyberCenters. We are also experimenting with far-reaching innovation in cooling at data centers and when we choose new ICT hardware we are increasingly examining its energy efficiency and electricity consumption. It goes without saying that we purchase green electricity. In 2007 these measures produced a reduction of CO2 emissions of more than 67 kt (which represents a 19% reduction of emissions).

As more and more customers are housing their ICT equipment at KPN buildings, we are increasing the capacity of our CyberCenters. It means our total electricity consumption will increase. But that does not mean an absolute growth of electricity consumption in the Netherlands. Consumption is being shifted from the customer to KPN.