Orange Business puts eco-design at the heart of technology

With environmental challenges and the regulatory landscape continuing to evolve, integrating sustainability into technology is now non-negotiable. As part of its ongoing commitment to building a more responsible and sustainable digital world, Orange Business is embedding an eco-design approach into its product and services portfolio, and in alignment with its 2040 net-zero goals. 

Eco-design is central to embedded sustainability from a project’s inception, reducing emissions, improving energy efficiency and enabling a circular economy. However, structured governance and standardization are equally important, providing quantifiable benchmarks that move the industry beyond marketing rhetoric towards measurable actions.

Eco-design means building environmental responsibility into every stage of a product or service, from the initial concept through to disposal. The goal is to reduce environmental harm across the entire lifecycle, from raw materials to use and disposal.

Orange Business is heavily committed to investing in eco-design as a core pillar of its sustainability strategy, delivering technology and services that drive energy efficiency, minimizing waste and accelerating the decarbonization of business operations. 

Eco-design is an integral part of the Orange Trust the Future 2026-2030 strategy, which is the company’s commitment to people, society and the planet. Eco-design is a critical lever for the Group’s goal of net-zero by 2040 and an intermediate target of reducing carbon emissions by 45% by 2030. 

By reducing the environmental impact of its offerings and fostering a human-centric digital world, Orange Business is ensuring its operations align with ethical standards trusted by partners, stakeholders and customers. 

A governance framework is crucial in eco-design because it turns high-level sustainability goals into practical, measurable, and accountable processes, ensuring an assessable environmental impact is built into every stage of technology design and product lifecycle. 

Orange Business eco-design governance combines strict, audited internal methodologies with high-level corporate accountability to ensure its digital products and services are trusted as sustainable by design. All the company’s environmental claims are backed by rigorous data, strengthening customer confidence and trust. 

At the same time, Orange Business is continuously innovating and strengthening its sustainability governance, embedding it into the core business strategy and operations. Its carbon calculator toolkit, for example, is an integral part of the company’s sustainability and governance strategy. It is key in measuring, reporting and reducing carbon emissions as part of the Net Zero commitment. 

To illustrate this, Orange Business has achieved a 31.8% reduction in the carbon footprint of its recently announced Couverture Indoor Express. This carbon reduction was estimated with Orange Innovation expertise based on Life Cycle Analysis principles. This plug-and-play 4G cellular indoor coverage solution has been developed in partnership with Nokia in line with eco-design principles. One to ten optimized femtocells act as small base stations with a range of 30–50 meters in offices, consuming much less energy than traditional high-power microcellular base stations. 

Actions have been identified and prioritized based on their environmental impact, relevance to Orange Business clients, and implementation complexity: femtocells are shipped by sea rather than air to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Configuration of femtocells and frequency settings allow to optimize energy consumption. Self-installation eliminates technician travel, and the company fully uses recycled packaging across all shipments. 

Partnerships are a key strategic pillar for Orange Business’ sustainability governance framework and for accelerating green technology innovation. No company can meet Net Zero in isolation. 

For example, with its recently announced Flexible SD-WAN Essentials, Orange Business partnered with Ekinops to create a secure, intelligent connectivity solution that adheres to environmentally responsible principles. The one-box approach significantly reduces both physical equipment and energy requirements compared to the two boxes previously required. Orange Business has also looked at reusing equipment where possible. The routers, for example, are reusable within the recycling loop.

To advance carbon measurement, Orange Business developed Carbon Estimator, a tool that estimates carbon emissions on all its standard portfolio offerings. 

It enables salespeople to provide customers with an estimated carbon footprint on potential or existing purchases, such as cloud and IoT services. For a limited list of offers, it can support smarter decision-making, it establishes a foundational carbon baseline for their IT, which is key to tracking carbon reductions and setting year-on-year goals.

To summarize, strong governance is embedded in Orange Business corporate strategy, risk management and day-to-day operations. It is crucial to sustainability efforts as it sets out rules and structures for accountability enabling the company to deliver on its environmental and social commitments.

Orange Business is proud to lead in both developing and implementing eco-design standards. Standardization and independent third-party verification are critical to its approach, ensuring transparency, accountability and commitment to sustainability initiatives. 

By having products and services independently certified, Orange Business also strengthens customer trust and confidence.

French eco-innovation consultancy firm Ginko 21, for example, is providing independent support in Orange Business compliance process for the new X30-264 voluntary standard being set by AFNOR, the French standardization agency. The standard is designed to provide principles and methods for implementing an eco-design approach in organizations – from initial assessment to the execution of improvements aligned with circular economy principles.

ADEME, the French agency for ecological transition, is leading the experimentation program to test the standard. Orange Business is initially applying it to Couverture Indoor Express femtocells.

Orange Business is delighted to be among the first group of companies to complete phase one of this standard. This phase involved identifying gaps in the eco-design approach and defining corrective actions to ensure full compliance. 

Customers are increasingly expecting evidence that solutions are developed responsibly. These standards play a key role, assuring that products and services are designed through a fully documented process aimed at minimizing environmental impact. 

At Orange Business, the future of eco-design is seen as an essential and trusted proactive approach to advancing digital technology.

With environmental regulations tightening, customers are turning to eco-design to demonstrate responsibility across their operations and supply chains. Orange Business is thus actively working to adopt eco-design methodology into its products and services portfolio and collaborate with partners to accelerate innovation in this arena. 

In short, eco-design gives its customers reassurance, traceability and a practical way to reduce environmental impact across the products and services their businesses depend on. Possibility starts with the tech you trust.