Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has tasked stakeholders in the telecom industry to fashion out environmentally sustainable service models for the industry.
The Executive Commissioner (Stakeholder Management) of the Commission, Mr Adeleke Adewolu, gave the task in his opening remarks at the 2023 World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD), held in Abuja on Wednesday.
He, however, stated that the Commission is unwavering in its commitment to serving telecom consumers better and also mitigate negative impacts of increasing infrastructure on the environment.
He said the Day is one of the most important dates in the NCC’s annual calendar of events, being “a day we set aside to celebrate our most important stakeholder group, that is, our consumers.”
According to him, the theme of the 2023 WCRD was in tandem with the resolve of the NCC to design more environmentally sustainable service models with which it can truly serve its consumers better.
The theme of WCRD 2023, “Empowering Consumers through Clean Energy Transition”, “allows us to carefully examine the unintended side-effects of our critical social infrastructure on our environment,” he said.
Adeleke stated that there was a growing need for all critical stakeholders to take a holistic view of the available infrastructure in the telecom sector, vis-a-vis, their impacts on the environment.
This, he said, became pertinent, given the increasing number of customers in the country who leverage on communications infrastructure in all aspects of human endeavours.
“The Nigerian telecoms industry today boasts of over 226 million voice customers and over 156 million internet customers, as at 31 January, 2023.
“These consumers leverage on communications infrastructure for social interaction, health service, access to education, banking, etc,” he said.
The NCC topshot also observed that network operators were still rolling out more infrastructure to meet up with the growing volumes of consumers and service diversity.
The infrastructure, he noted, were needed for coverage in new areas (mostly rural) and for network expansion in the already saturated urban markets.
“Emerging technologies like 5th Generation (5G) mobile services will also require more infrastructure.
“These infrastructure components are mostly powered by fossil fuels to ensure 100 per cent availability,” he added.
Adeleke however expressed fears about the likely negative impact of the increasing infrastructure, both on the environment and the consumers.
He, therefore, tasked participants at the event to critically look at how to make available service models that can ensure a sustainable environment.
He asked: “Are there more environmentally conscious means by which we can power network infrastructure and reduce our carbon footprint?;
“Telecoms infrastructure have helped to reduce other environment-impacting activities such as travel –can we quantify these benefits and do they offset the negative impacts?;
“Have we convinced everyone about the safety of electromagnetic emissions?;
“Can we find a balance between environmentally-friendly network operations and cheaper services; or do we have to choose one over the other?;
“How can we improve the quality of the environment through our network services and how can we grow public consciousness about responsible services using telecoms infrastructure?”
He called on all the stakeholders to provide answers to the questions, even as he said the organisers of WCRD 2023 must have carefully designed a programme of events that will help to do just that.
