"Digi to halve carbon emissions"

This is very interesting. My staff Hafiz emailed this to me this morning (read). Very good initiative by Digi to reduce carbon emission. Being a communications service provider, telcos are actually well placed to provide long term and sustainable solutions for carbon emission reduction. Basically, more talk time means lesser travelling.

I think what's missing from Digi's effort is the integration of this initiative as part of their core business strategy, i.e revenue income. For now, they're just trying to create awareness on climate change. I'm not sure whether they realise this, but in a bigger context, they could potentially generate new and substantial revenue stream. This so called "Deep Green" programme aims to reduce CO2 by about 50,000 tonnes in four years time. 50k tonnage of Co2 savings can be traded in the carbon exchange!

And this is just the beginning. What they're talking about are carbon savings generated internally, coming from within Digi. Again, they're missing the bigger picture. This is so typical. It's a good example of how telcos are being self centric.

Wouldn't it sound nicer if Digi says that they want to be the enabler platform of carbon reduction? That they can help other industry to reduce their carbon emission as well? That they provide the solutions to carbon issues? I don't know. Perhaps its already part of their long term plan to do this. But really, creating awareness is just another CSR gimmick! It's time Digi's yellow men has a new friend. A green one!

I feel the telecommunication industry is really under valued. People still see it as a liability. And it doesn't help when telcos continuously engage in price wars. It only destroys the true value of communication services. But I feel Digi is doing the right thing for now. They're heading towards the right direction.

I hope other telcos can emulate this but do more by being customer centric. After all, it's not about postpaid vs prepaid, wireless vs wireline or Wimax vs GSM. Too much emphasis given to technology. It's about enabling K-Economy, enabling economic growth of the country and changing lifestyle of every citizen in this country. And that's invaluable!