The NTT Group's Vision for Environmental Contribution
In May 2006, the NTT Group announced its Vision for Environmental
Contribution -a statement of its approach to reducing
the environmental impacts of human society as a whole
through the provision of ICT services.
Our efforts to contribute to environmental protection have up
to now been based on the NTT Group Ecology Program 21,
our basic concept regarding environmental issues. Activities
have included reducing the environmental impacts of our own
business and developing environmental technology to reduce
the environmental impacts of society as a whole.
Our Vision for Environmental Contribution clarifies our basic
concept for providing ICT services that will enable our customers
as well as society as a whole to reduce environmental
impacts. It also defines our CO2 reduction target for 2010 and
the activities we intend to undertake to achieve that target.
;)
Achieving our Vision for Environmental Contribution
Our Vision for Environmental Contribution is a statement of our
approach not only to reducing the environmental impacts of our
business activities and implementing initiatives that benefit the
environment such as afforestation and environmental education,
but also to contributing to environmental conservation
through our business activities themselves by expanding the
availability of ICT services.
The increased availability of ubiquitous broadband services
which enrich the lifestyles of our customers and bring them
greater convenience while reducing environmental impacts will
also help us to achieve our goal of reducing CO2 emissions by
10 million tons by 2010 as set down in our Vision for Environmental
Contribution.
Promoting ICT from the standpoint of environmental conservation
NTT WEST-CHUGOKU
Finding ways to contribute to the environment through our business
"We've been working to reduce the amount of paper and electricity
used and waste generated, but there's a limit to how
much we can do." "Can't we reduce environmental impacts
through our business operations themselves?"
These are questions that came up in heated discussions held
in the spring of 2002 at NTT WEST-CHUGOKU (then NTT
WEST Hiroshima Branch) on how to contribute in environmental
conservation and earn ISO14001 certification.
"We believed that ICT services could reduce environmental
impacts, but had no concrete evidence to prove it. This made
it difficult to convince other people," recalls Hirofumi Moriwaki
of NTT WEST-CHUGOKU.
Turning point: NTT Group workshop for environmental personnel
Things changed in January 2003, when the NTT Group held
a workshop for personnel in charge of environmental issues.
The NTT Information Sharing Laboratory Group reported on
a method for quantifying and measuring the effectiveness of
ICT services in reducing environmental impacts. NTT WESTCHUGOKU
decided that this could be used effectively to convince
customers of the benefits of ICT in terms of reducing
environmental impacts, and launched a joint study with NTT
Information Sharing Laboratory Group to calculate the actual
scale of those benefits. The first customer chosen to pitch
its findings to was RCC BROADCASTING CO., LTD., a regional
TV station that was planning to deploy new equipment
for migration to digital broadcasting services.
Live television broadcast system using B FLET'S
Conventional live television broadcast systems transmit microwaves
from outside broadcast vehicles to the main broadcast
station via relay stations. Instead of using microwaves,
NTT WEST-CHUGOKU proposed a digital live television broadcast
system that uses NTT's B FLET'S optical fiber network.
In order to make B FLET'S video transmission work for commercial
broadcast, NTT WEST-CHUGOKU's technical team
gained the cooperation of manufacturers and RCC Broadcasting
for the development of equipment and trial services.
Meanwhile, the Laboratory Group managed to calculate how
this system could reduce impacts on the environment. "Calculations
showed that it could reduce CO2 emissions by 70%,
proving that it would be highly effective in reducing environmental
impacts," says Takashi Sawada, Senior Research Engineer
(Supervisor) for the Environmental Management & Provisioning Project at NTT Information Sharing Laboratory Group.
Continuing to reduce environmental impacts by promoting ICT
Now used for live television broadcasts in the Chugoku region
in addition to traditional uses such as fixed cameras at
Hiroshima Station, professional baseball team Hiroshima Toyo
Carp's training ground, expressways, and golf courses, this
video relay system provides much faster, more flexible and
lower impact broadcasting than conventional microwave-based
systems.
These efforts were made possible through cooperation between
NTT WEST-CHUGOKU and RCC BROADCASTING, a company with a reputation
for progressive environmental policies, as proven by its status
as the nation's first regional broadcast station to acquire ISO14001 certification.
"We plan to calculate how various other solutions can also
reduce environmental impacts, and pitch them to local governments
and other bodies," says Hiroshi Omori, Manager of Business Promotion in the Planning Department at NTT WEST-CHUGOKU.
Contributing to environmental conservation through business activities
"I'm extremely happy that, with the help of our Laboratory
Group and RCC BROADCASTING, we were able to
prove that ICT services can reduce environmental
impacts. We pride ourselves on having launched these
efforts even before ISO14001 was revised in 2004 to
include the requirement for organizations to identify significant
environmental aspects in their environmental
management systems. Contributing to the environment
needn't involve anything special; it's something that any
company should be able to do simply through rethinking its
business and services from an environmental standpoint. I'd
like to see NTT WEST-CHUGOKU become a driving
force for environmental initiatives within the NTT Group."
