Greenpeace takes aim at Airtel on diesel use

International environmental activist group Greenpeace is training its guns on India’s largest mobile telephony operator, Bharti Airtel, to force the company to switch from diesel to renewable energy sources to power its telecom towers.

Last week the group released a detailed report on the use of diesel for powering India’s telecom towers and the damage it inflicts on the environment. Greenpeace is targeting Airtel specifically and is working towards creating awareness among its subscribers.

“Greenpeace is a corporate client of Bharti Airtel, so we have a moral responsibility to start this campaign with our own service provider,” said Abhishek Pratap, senior campaigner with Greenpeace. “Plus, Airtel is the visible face of India’s telecom industry and that helps.”

An online petition has been signed by nearly 50,000 people, including a large number of Airtel subscribers. Alongside the online campaign, Greenpeace activists are patrolling Airtel customer outlets in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata to talk to subscribers about the issue and seek their participation.

Greenpeace released on May 18 Dirty Talking, a research report which highlights the environmental impact of India’s telecom sector, putting together some telling numbers.

According to the report, Indian telecom sector emits over 6 million tonne of carbon dioxide from burning diesel for powering telecom towers that do not get supply from the national grid.

And these companies spend around Rs12,600 crore every year on running diesel generators to make up for the supply shortfall.
Majority of the 400,000 odd mobile towers in India are located in rural and semi-urban areas where electricity is scarce. Diesel and/or battery is required from 7 to 21 hours in a day, to keep the services uninterrupted.   

The sector currently requires 14 billion units of electricity every year to power its network infrastructure and the same is projected to grow to around 26 billion units by 2012.

Shortfall in supply means nearly 60% of the power requirement of telecom towers is met by diesel-generated electricity. Greenpeace estimates that each tower currently consumes an average of 4,000 litre of diesel every year, implying an annual consumption of about 1,800 million litre every year.

Greenpeace also has a problem with telecom sector making “unfair” use of government subsidy on diesel. According to its estimate, government loses about Rs2,600 crore every year on that count.

Greenpeace activists followed up the report with four letters to Sunil Bharti Mittal, asking for disclosure regarding Airtel’s current carbon emission, deadline for switching from diesel — ideally by 2015, percentage of renewable energy being currently used and for lobbying with the government for a favourable renewable energy framework.

“We only got one response and that too not from Mittal but from his office, which did not address any of the four issues we raised but instead talked about development work being done by the group,” Greenpeace’s Pratap said.

When contacted an Airtel spokesperson directed DNA to industry lobby Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) as it is an industry issue and not specific to Airtel.

“As this is an industry-wide issue, I do not believe it is appropriate to single out any one company for a response,” said Rajan Mathews, COAI director general, who has already met with Greenpeace representatives to discuss the issues raised in Dirty Talking.

“It is factually incorrect to say that the industry has been subsidised because of its consumption of diesel. The industry had no choice but to use diesel generators because of the unavailability or limited availability of grid power,” Mathews said, adding that failure to meet rollout obligations or quality of service levels would result in heavy penalties for the telecom firms.

COAI, Mathews said, has been asking the government to provide grid power to our telecom towers but that is yet to happen. Government has also failed to “initiate any alternate energy sources, like solar farms, wind farms, etc” and hence “as such, (telecom) industry cannot be blamed for its continued dependency on diesel, anymore than the (Indian) Railways can be blamed for not switching to electricity.”

Among constructive suggestions, COAI wants the government to use the 5% universal service obligation, or USO, levy to offer telecom firms subsidy to switch to solar and other alternate energy sources that require high up-front investments.

Further, the government should encourage telecom infrastructure sharing, release more efficient spectrum so that less number of towers are required and finalise a formal carbon credit policy so that there is an incentive for telecom firms to reduce their carbon footprint as well as use it for investment into alternate energy sources.

Even as Greenpeace and the telecom industry have stated each other’s cases, the activists are already making plans to take the campaign to the next noise level in signature Greenpeace-style.