Equipment vendors Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei have pledged their commitment to lowering base station energy consumption as part of the mobile industry’s drive to reduce its carbon footprint. Kevin Tao – CEO of Huawei’s devices business – said the Chinese manufacturer had managed to reduce its base station power consumption from 2,000 watts to less than 500 watts per unit, and is targeting further reductions in emissions in the range of 20 to 30 percent.  He added that the firm has also made moves to make its packaging more environmentally friendly.

Meanwhile, Alcatel-Lucent’s Asia-Pacific president, Sean Dolan, outlined the work the vendor was doing to power its base stations from alternative energy sources. Alcatel-Lucent launched its ‘Alternative Energy Program’ at the Mobile World Congress in February. “Every one of the operators we work with is supporting this,” Dolan said. He added that Alcatel Lucent was working to reduce its own carbon footprint by 50 percent by 2020.

Huawei’s Kevin Tao also highlighted the energy savings that can be made on the devices side by customising devices for consumers. “We want to be the first to give a simplified, targeted device to consumers that they can customise themselves,” he said, noting that Huawei was already looking at this with regards to Android-based devices.

These vendor efforts follow yesterday’s high-profile launch of the ‘Green Manifesto’, developed by the GSMA and The Climate Group.