Innovating for impact: How tech can drive sustainability
Published by Colt Technology Services on October 8, 2025
Innovation and sustainability go hand in hand. As a global digital infrastructure business, we’re embedding ESG into everything we do, from smart buildings to intelligent networks.
In our latest Sustainability Report for 2024 you can see the full story on how we are accelerating sustainability transformations through innovation and technological solutions, but here’s a look at some of the highlights:
Smart buildings, smarter energy use
2024 saw the launch of our Smart Building Project which aims to deliver a fully-autonomous, AI-driven sustainable management platform, capable of reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions by as much as 30% and cutting manual building management work by up to 50%.
In December we launched a pilot at our headquarters in London, Colt House, which monitors, controls and improves the performance of the building’s core systems (e.g. heating, ventilation and air conditioning). This resulted in:
- Electricity savings of 8,400 kWh in six weeks and projected annual savings of 72,800 kWh (amounting to a 26.6% reduction in building electricity savings)
- Improved indoor air quality and comfort
The pilot resulted in Bertelsmann awarding us the Eco-Innovation Award 2024 for strategic IT suppliers. Following its success, we plan to fully deploy the system across our offices globally and launch a solution for our customers to help advance their sustainability goals.
Sustainable by design
Our award-winning Network as a Service (NaaS) offers smart pathing. This intent-based feature has been designed with sustainability at its core, helping customers to outsource network infrastructure, increase agility, reduce costs and lower their environmental impact.
With Smart Path, customers will be able to browse and select the network route themselves, directly from their NaaS portal, that best fits their strategic goals.
For example, they will be able to access the digital platform to:
- Select routes with lowest latency
- Define specific subsea routes to be used for resiliency reasons
- Meet sovereignty requirements by ensuring their traffic remains within a specified country or region
Smart Path will also provide customers with greater clarity around the incremental network carbon emissions linked to a specific circuit, to support their sustainability goals.
Cutting hardware, boosting efficiency
Through technologies like Universal Customer Premise Equipment (uCPE) and Virtual Customer Premise Equipment (vCPE), we’re helping customers:
- Cut energy use and cooling needs
- Reduce hardware requirements and e-waste
- Deploy smarter infrastructure with a lower impact on the planet
Partnering with purpose
While we want to lead the way to a more sustainable digital world and help our customers with their sustainability goals, we also look to work with like-minded partners.
We recently sponsored a report by the Global enabling Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) which shows in great detail the impact technologies like AI are having on the environment. The report also outlines specific methodologies businesses can use to track their impact more effectively.
Our partnership with non-profit The Arctic Arts Project is another example of how we’re helping to raise better awareness of our industry’s impact on the planet and push for change.
Read our Sustainability Report for 2024 to discover what else we’re doing to help our peers and customers move in the right direction. Or read our blogs on our path to net zero and our ongoing commitment to CSR which dive into even more detail.
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