Broadband ISP KCOM Targets Net Zero Carbon Emissions by 2040
Hull-based full fibre network builder and ISP KCOM, which serves much of East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire in England, has today announced plans to reach Net Zero carbon emissions by 2040 – some ten years ahead of the UK Government’s official target.
The target of 2040, which is similar to the goal set by other operators like Virgin Media (VMO2), will apparently be supported by a raft of “green initiatives” to help KCOM reduce its carbon footprint including introducing electric vehicles and using solar panels for its offices, as well as to joining a carbon offset scheme planting woodland in Yorkshire.
Not to mention how the ongoing work to replace their legacy copper landline network with a full fibre one will also play a role in all this (here). The project, which will take 2 years to complete, is one of the biggest infrastructure schemes in the company’s history and will start transferring homes and businesses from copper to FTTP in Beverley during April 2023.
KCOM added that the environmental impact of the network upgrade is huge, reducing KCOM’s electricity usage by 35%, while also reducing its carbon emissions by a quarter. Other initiatives KCOM has unveiled include working with “urban mining” company N2S to reclaim precious rare earth metals, such as copper, platinum and gold, from KCOM’s old IT and exchange equipment.
Tim Shaw, KCOM Chief Executive Officer, said:
“Climate change is the biggest challenge facing the planet today and now is the time to act. As a major employer in our region, it’s important that we take a lead and do what we can to show we’re serious about reaching Net Zero and combatting global warming. We no longer have the option of standing by and hoping for someone else to come up with a solution.
We already work with great local initiatives such as the Oh Yes! Net Zero campaign and The Waterline Summit, but today we are putting our money where our mouth is and making our pledges to reach Net Zero by 2040, which is ten years ahead of the Government’s national targets. It will be challenging but we believe it the right thing to do for our business, our customers, our region and our planet.”
End.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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Good luck to them. But i’d be surprised if they’re still here in 2040!
Their service lately has been the worst it’s ever been, well, as far as I can remember anyway.
Widespread outage for around 12 hours on Sunday, which caused loss of business for some companies (Card payments weren’t working)
The intermittent latency spikes and pauses/lag when trying to browse web pages is starting to get rather annoying.
No known issues though… As per.
Here we go another sham ESG statement sponsored by Blackrock.
Of course the biggest challenge of the planet is the magical sun monster which missed his deadline every single decade, not the threat of a nuclear WW3, AI takeover or even the fact that people are barely able to buy eggs. Let’s scare people to distract from all the problems that our agenda is causing
Kcom has had a monopoly for too long
Not sure an East Yorkshire telco can do much about the price of eggs, Skynet becoming a reality or nuclear war started by the potentially senile psychopath in the Kremlin.
If you are so apparently concerned by those it’s quite strange a random company informing they plan on becoming carbon neutral is so distracting.
For myself if I were preoccupied by the threat of nuclear war or AI taking over I can’t say KCom going carbon neutral would be especially distracting. It certainly isn’t distracting me from the cost of living.
Excellent. Resilient as the planet is there is a pretty fine balance that allows us to thrive. The less we tip the scale either way the better, and good to see some corporate responsibility. Corporate and personal responsibility are nearly always good things.
Net zero can never be achieved, it is almost impossible
Every sane person knows that but something that can have the goal post moved indefinitely will do just that. It is literally pure propaganda to justify more control like climate lockdowns literally happening in Oxford and forcing people to become poor
The only reason why a private company is parroting this globalist nonsense is because of contractual obligations from woke funds
Net zero across the human race race isn’t nearly impossible it’s expensive. Much as building the infrastructure that supports fossil fuels was expensive.
As they deplete fossil fuels will become more expensive so it’ll make business sense to move away from them.
The nations that start early will have competitive advantage in the net zero technologies. Can’t afford not to be in there.
Nothing to do with this announcement of course. Just a general observation. Storing the power is the problem, not generating it. Offsetting can go as far as literally taking CO2 out of the air once the electricity is there to power it.
Not impossible. Expensive.
It is impossible due to the simple fact that any living breathing creature emits CO2 and any actor using it as a metric has an unscientific agenda behind
Not sure you quite understand the concept of a ‘net’ something. As in the balance of a positive and a negative in this case equalling zero.
Plants are living things. They consume CO2 and produce oxygen. More plants and less CO2 emissions = net zero and balance restored.
I’m sure they will raise prices to help fund this pointless endeavour, I just want reliable internet for as cheap as possible
You will pay more green taxes in the name of the holy goddess Greta. The commie London mayor certainly believes that stealing £12 per day in the name of the weather is justified
Kcom already has ripoff prices on their services, 30 quid for 5mb upload. Too bad they collude with BT to not have them overbuild like they do on the other altnets. At least they will lie to their customers saying price increases will make the temperature 0.00001C less warm
Factually inaccurate on the ‘collusion’ between BT and KCom with regards to overbuild. KCom are overbuilding BT right now and have been since 2020.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/01/isp-kcom-invest-100m-to-expand-uk-fttp-broadband-network.html
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/09/kcom-uk-unveil-major-10gbps-fibre-expansion-and-retires-copper.html