Telecom's Greenest Vendors: Ciena, Cisco, Ericsson and Nokia Lead, while Chinese Vendors & Fiber Suppliers Lag: Vendors' Slow Green Progress Dooms Telcos to High Scope 3 Emissions, Telcos Need to Overhaul their Procurement Systems

Report Overview

Following the November 2025 launch of the Telecom Energy & Sustainability (TES) service, a joint venture between MTN Consulting and Teral Research (TR), we are shifting our focus to the vendor landscape. While our debut study analyzed operators, this report provides a deep-dive analysis of energy use, efficiency, and carbon emissions within the Telco Network Infrastructure (Telco NI) vendor market.

Our research demonstrates that the vast majority of a telco's carbon footprint originates within its supply chain. Consequently, many operators spend millions of dollars annually on internal departments to audit supplier "green" practices. This independent study aims to streamline that process by providing a comprehensive assessment of the Telco NI supply chain, reducing the need for costly and redundant internal analyses.

Scope

This study focuses on a broad, diverse universe of Telco NI vendors. MTN Consulting has tracked the Telco NI market quarterly since 2018, mapping vendor sales to telco spending. This "green vendor" study assesses the energy and sustainability performance of these vendors. For telcos to improve their own energy KPIs, understanding their supply chain is vital. The supply chain accounts for a majority of telcos' scope 3 emissions, which average 66% of total emissions in the global telco market. Moreover, because energy costs are rising and volatile, assessing the energy efficiency of the gear deployed in networks is essential for telco success.

MTNC's quarterly Telco NI vendor share series tracks 137 suppliers overall from 1Q13 through the present. 109 of these vendors remained active as of 2Q25. This study covers 49 of those 109 vendors, providing a comprehensive analysis of 43 of them. These 43 companies accounted for 79% of the global Telco NI market in 2024 and include:

Accenture, Alphabet, Amazon, Amdocs, Amphenol, Arista, Ciena, Cisco, CommScope, Corning, CSG, Dell, Ericsson, Fiberhome, Fortinet, Fujikura, Furukawa, Fujitsu, Harmonic, HCL, HPE, Huawei, Huber+Suhner, IBM, Infinera, Infosys, Intel, Juniper, Lenovo, Microsoft, NEC, NetScout, Nokia, Oracle, Prysmian, Samsung, SAP SE, Spirent, Sumitomo, TCS, Technicolor (now Vantiva), Tech Mahindra, and ZTE.

An additional six vendors are tracked for energy metrics and scope 1 and 2 emissions but are excluded from scope 3 analysis due to a lack of credible public reporting: AsiaInfo, Capgemini, China Comservice, Hengtong Optic, Ribbon, and Sterlite Tech.

Top 20 Green Vendors

Setting aside scope 3 emissions for the moment, so we can assess all 49 suppliers, we conclude that the top 5 greenest vendors in the Telco NI world as of 2025 are Ciena, Spirent, Fortinet, Lenovo, and Accenture. This ranking is based on emissions intensity: specifically, scope 1 and 2 (market-based) greenhouse gas emissions in metric tons of CO2-equivalent divided by revenues.

Each of these five has a distinct business model. Only Ciena and Spirent generate over half of their revenue from telcos; the others rely on a wide range of verticals. Furthermore, not all would be considered traditional Network Equipment Providers (NEPs). NEPs manufacture their own gear and spend heavily on physical components, which typically results in higher energy consumption and increased scope 1 and 2 emissions.

Within the top 20 performers for scope 1 and 2 intensity, the leading NEPs are Ciena, Lenovo, Cisco, Dell, Ericsson, Infinera (now part of Nokia), Arista, and Nokia. These companies have invested heavily in lowering direct carbon footprints through rapid renewable energy adoption and carbon abatement techniques. Telcos purchasing from these top performers may reap benefits for their own emissions profiles.

When scope 3 emissions are included, narrowing the list to 43 vendors, the rankings shift. Nearly all top performers are software or services vendors, which typically have lower scope 3 footprints. The top 10 are: Accenture, Infosys, Amdocs, Tech Mahindra, TCS, HCL, Alphabet (GCP sold nearly $2B/yr to telcos in 2024), Spirent, Microsoft ($3.6B in 2024 telco NI sales), and CSG. Telcos shifting toward software-centric network operations can realize significant sustainability benefits from this strategy.

Global Trends

How are Telco NI vendors performing as a group? The 43 vendors included for full analysis represent $2.42 trillion in 2024 revenues, with $163.1 billion (6.7%) coming from telcos. These vendors consumed 216 million megawatt hours (MWh) of energy that year (+14% YoY); that's a bit more than half the total energy consumption of the global telco sector. These vendors emitted 858 million metric tons of CO2-equivalent across scopes 1, 2, and 3, about 2.5x the telco sector. This higher emissions intensity is largely due to carbon-intensive manufacturing.

To understand the impact on telcos, vendor numbers must be weighted by their actual sales to the telco market. Weighted averages reveal that, for the group of 43 vendors, the 2024 weighted average renewable energy adoption rate reached 45.2%, up from 39.5% in 2023 and 22.5% in 2019. This progress is driven partly by increased spending on software-centric vendors like Microsoft and the deployment of energy-efficient 5G solutions from vendors like Ericsson and Nokia.

Other key findings include:

• Energy intensity: The average vendor consumed 79.3 MWh of energy per $1M in revenues in 2024, the fifth consecutive yearly increase. This is partly due to growing reliance on webscale partners.
• Electric share of energy use: This rose to 91% in 2024, up from 89% in 2023 and 84% in 2019. This facilitates easier procurement of green electricity.
• Scope 1 and 2 emissions intensity (market-based): After averaging 23-26 MT CO2e/$M from 2019-23, this figure fell a bit to 22.2 by the end of 2024 due to the shift to renewables. This should continue to decline with increased adoption of green energy.
• Scope 1-3(m) emissions intensity: This critical metric represents the total carbon footprint adjusted for company size. It hovered in the 1,000 to 1,200 range from 2019 to 2023, but dropped below 1k to 933 in 2024. The 2024 decline was 19%, which is a promising start; 2025 data will confirm whether this progress can continue.

While these trends are positive, progress is slow. As climate change intensifies, telcos require urgent assistance in improving their environmental performance. Telco NI vendors must take more sweeping, dramatic steps to lower their carbon footprints, and forward-thinking telcos should reward these efforts during the procurement process.

Companies mentioned:

• Accenture plc
• Alphabet
• Amazon
• Amdocs
• Amphenol
• Arista Networks
• AsiaInfo
• Capgemini
• China Comservice
• Ciena
• Cisco Systems
• CommScope
• Corning
• CSG
• Dell Technologies
• Ericsson
• Fiberhome
• Fortinet
• Fujikura
• Furukawa Electric
• Fujitsu Limited
• Harmonic
• HCL Technologies
• Hengtong Optic
• HPE
• Huawei
• Huber+suhner AG
• IBM
• Infinera
• Infosys
• Intel
• Juniper Networks
• Lenovo
• Microsoft
• NEC Corp
• NetScout Systems
• Nokia
• Oracle
• Prysmian
• Ribbon
• Samsung Electronics
• SAP SE
• Spirent
• Sterlite Tech
• Sumitomo Electric
• TCS
• Technicolor
• Tech Mahindra
• ZTE