How Connectivity Is Powering a More Sustainable World

Sustainability is a Systems Challenge

Apple’s keynote address at Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June marked a changing of the guard: not only was it Tim Cook's last public duty as Apple CEO, but it also committed the company to integrating AI tools into its products.

Apple has been previously reluctant to climb aboard the AI bandwagon, decrying competitors for “integrating AI for AI’s sake”. At WWDC, however, Cook announced that Apple Intelligence (powered by Google’s Gemini AI model) will now be a centerpiece of future Apple products, featuring in apps and services across the product ecosystem.

This move has potentially irreversible implications for both the economy and the environment. Already, electricity use and emissions from AI data centres are projected to double over the next decade, with tech giants reneging on their environmental pledges as they race to integrate AI assistants and LLMs into their services. This recent doubling down on generative AI by the US’s most popular smartphone manufacturer has intensified this challenge, tying it directly to the world of telecommunications.

The timing is significant: since 2025, countless environmental safeguards and business regulations in the US have been rolled back, with many CEOs actively ramping down their Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) efforts. At the same time, wireless communications and the Internet of Things (IoT) are set for rapid global expansion.

The same industry can also provide possible solutions.

In recent years, developments like eSIM and 5G have offered lower-impact ways to serve a rising demand. This isn’t limited to the telecommunications sector either: connectivity, wireless technology, and IoT are now integral elements of more traditional sectors like transportation, logistics, and manufacturing.

The spiking demand for wireless services and generative AI places the connectivity industry at a crossroads. Telecommunications providers, governments, and IoT companies must explore digital alternatives to physical processes and emissions-generating supply chains and logistics.

Whether it's reducing traffic congestion, enabling shared mobility, or eliminating physical products, connected technologies allow organizations and governments to make smarter decisions based on real-time data.

Dematerialization at scale: the eSIM environmental impact

The eSIM is one of the most environmentally beneficial developments to emerge from the telecommunications industry in recent years.

These software-based alternatives to physical SIM cards allow users to download a SIM profile online, rather than insert it into a device via a plastic card. For individual customers, eSIMs provide a host of usability benefits: they can be accessed instantly, rather than ordered online or picked up in a store; they allow users to store multiple SIM profiles on a single device, switching between carriers as needed; and they support a wider range of devices, including smartwatches, wearables, and tablets.

For IoT businesses, the benefits are even greater: eSIMs can be instantly deployed and configured at scale to entire fleets of eSIM-compatible devices, with zero manual effort or intervention. It’s partly due to this capability that the IoT industry is set for such dramatic growth. Companies can now remotely manage global fleets from a single command center, slashing go-to-market times and encouraging international growth.

While the business and usability benefits are clear, the environmental advantages of eSIM may prove to be its most significant feature. With plastic SIMs, every physical SIM must be manufactured, packaged, transported, and eventually disposed of. Across billions of connections worldwide, this has significant consequences for the environment. In 2023, nearly four billion SIM cards were produced. Factoring in shipping and packaging, these were responsible for around 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions as well as significant plastic waste.

While SIM cards have shrunk in size since their 1991 debut, consumer SIMs are still typically packaged as pop-outs in a credit-card-sized plastic rectangle – meaning there’s been almost no meaningful reduction in plastic per SIM card in the last 35 years.

eSIM technology removes much of this physical supply chain by enabling connectivity to be provisioned digitally. Users can access mobile data without waiting for a SIM card to be produced, shipped, stocked, or installed. An eSIM is still technically a physical product – it's a tiny microchip, soldered into the body of a device during manufacture. However, eSIM chips can store multiple SIM profiles and remain in the device for its entire lifecycle. Moving manufacturing in-house, under the purview of the OEM, also limits the environmental impact.

Smarter mobility and sustainable connectivity models

Connectivity underpins shared mobility platforms and usage-based services, helping to reduce congestion, emissions, and overconsumption by shifting from ownership to access.

OEMs are incorporating eSIM and IoT-powered tools in their manufacturing processes to make smarter vehicles: eSIM-connected cars can receive over-the-air (OTA) software and security updates, while transmitting driver data to improve traffic congestion and navigation services. This has helped to position them as a core feature of the transport industry – McKinsey estimates that connected cars could make up a $1.5 trillion sector by 2030.

They’re also key to the emergent shared mobility sector. Shared mobility encompasses any personal transport method, often owned by either the state or a private enterprise like Uber.

Shared mobility is not automatically more environmentally friendly than private ownership: success depends on a range of factors, including “travel behavior, the design of shared mobility modes, and how such schemes are implemented, as well as local context.” Counterintuitively, micromobility services like e-scooters can be among the worst offenders, due to the vehicles’ relatively short lifecycles.

When applied correctly and tightly regulated by cities and local government, however, shifting vehicle usage from ownership to access can have the potential to limit the carbon emissions and wider environmental damage caused by personal transportation.

Not only are these wireless connections fundamental to the function of most shared vehicles, but they also allow local governments and fleet operators to collect and analyze vast swathes of real-time data from each vehicle, increasing asset utilization while reducing the number of underused vehicles on the road.

This is possible through a state-of-the-art wireless eSIM orchestration platform, like the 1GLOBAL eIM.

Connectivity for smart cities

Just as cities can use connected car data to promote a more efficient use of transportation infrastructure, the same principle allows them to lower emissions across other public services, from waste to housing.

From Cape Town to Copenhagen, municipalities are harnessing the IoT to improve efficiency through intelligent transport, smart waste management, and environmental monitoring - making cities cleaner and less resource-intensive.

Urbanization, or the process of populations shifting from rural areas to cities, is accelerating. The UN expects that, by 2050, 68% of humanity will live in cities (compared to around 55% today). Cities need smart solutions to facilitate these rising demands.

Sustainable IoT solutions for supply chains

From 2027 onwards, companies operating in the European Union and EEA will be legally obligated to disclose the environmental and social impacts of not only their operations, but every step of their wider supply chain.

This is required by the CSRD, or Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. Supply chain emissions can be over 10 times a company's direct emissions and provide a clearer image of their impact.

Over 80% of greenhouse gas emissions in consumer products come from the supply chain – as evinced by the CSRD, which highlights the chasm between a company’s reported, often localized, emissions and the wider footprint.

Historically, many supply chain decisions have been made with incomplete or delayed information. IoT connectivity changes this. Connected sensors and devices provide real-time visibility across logistics networks, allowing organizations to optimize operations continuously.

Real-time tracking and analytics allow businesses to identify inefficiencies before they occur, saving wastage across the chain.

Instead of responding to problems after they occur, connected organizations can proactively allocate resources and carry out predictive maintenance, reducing both operational costs and environmental impact. Notably, eSIMs feature multi-IMSI capabilities, which allow them to automatically switch between carrier networks, for example, to stay connected when crossing an international border or leaving a carrier’s coverage zone. This function is essential for accurate predictive maintenance and asset tracking in international companies and IoT fleets.

The hidden factor: connectivity itself

Taking yet another step back, it’s important to look at the connectivity itself. Downstream processes and devices can be as smart and efficient as possible, but they still require a source of mobile connectivity. This, too, must be optimized to limit carbon emissions and waste. Sustainability isn’t just about what connectivity enables, but also how it’s built and deployed.

Traditional telecom models rely on physical infrastructure, localized brands, and brick-and-mortar stores — some studies estimate that the telecommunications space is responsible for twice as many CO2 emissions as the aviation industry.

Once again, eSIMs offer an alternative that is both more practical and more sustainable. eSIM mobile plans can be downloaded online – for customers, this means instant access to mobile data, via a couple of taps in an app or website rather than standing in line at a kiosk or waiting for a delivery.

For the planet, it removes the need for physical sales locations, packaging, and logistics. The increasing integration of eSIM plans and mobile services into existing digital services like banking apps (a process known as embedded telco) shows how connectivity is shedding its physical form.

The future

While the corporate world continues to demonstrate that it will fail to pursue sustainability efforts when no longer legally required to, eSIMs and digital telco solutions prove that environmental and business can go hand-in-hand. In a wider sense, financial and environmental sustainability are two sides of the same coin: a company can only enjoy long-term business success when there is a long term.

While the eradication of superfluous physical supply chains and green telecom solutions can offer partial solutions, they must be implemented as part of a wider environmental strategy.

Digital connectivity solutions offer a step in the right direction. Coupled with a worldwide connectivity partner and eSIM supplier like 1GLOBAL, companies can scale their wireless processes internationally and still follow environmentally responsible practices.

To learn more about how 1GLOBAL IoT Connectivity can help achieve your sustainability goals, get in touch with one of our experts today.