Telefónica turns the lights off to cut debt

Telefónica has resorted to turning the lights off in order to cut its well-known debt; and from the sounds of things, it might help a little.

It wouldn’t be an overwhelming surprise if the Spanish telco is using energy efficiency as a way of alleviating pressure coming from its well-publicised debt. Latest word from Telefónica confirmed the sum sits at just under €50 million after chopping a few million off in Q3, so it’s getting there.

By instigating the Global Energy Management Policy (available here in Spanish) for three years leading up to 2020, Telefónica is banking on a saving of roughly €90 million – which would help at least a little towards clearing some of that €50 billion.

The initiative revolves around reducing reliance on fossil fuels for energy across its global operations, and has pledged to move to sustainable and renewable clean sources for 50% of its electricity by 2020 and 100% by 2030.

Telefónica reckons this will lead to the bulk of its savings and that energy consumption per traffic unit will be reduced by half, as well as decreasing Greenhouse Gas emissions by 5%.

“We are aware of our responsibility to reduce our own carbon footprint as well as the role that we can play with IoT and Big Data solutions to improve the management of transport, energy, water, waste etc. in other sectors,” said José Maria Álvarez-Pallete, President of Telefónica. “In the last few years we have advanced on both fronts and now we are taking another step, with new targets for 2020.”

Telefónica has been doing its best to find some way of wiping that debt off of its books, to be fair to it. We all know it tried flogging O2 to Three in the UK over 2015 and 2016, until the big meanies over at the European Commission put the kibosh on those dreams. It then tried to float its infrastructure subsidiary Telxius, but that didn’t go so well.

If those two plans had come together, it could have taken nearly €20 billion off the debt – a handy sum. For the time being though, it’s going to have to take good care of its debt and regularly check its Experian Credit Rating to help get back in the black soon.

To help, though, Telefónica has signed a sweet deal with Nestlé to connect its professional coffee makers and other caffeine-based “solutions” around the world. The deal will see the telco provide IoT connectivity to operators in more than 50 countries to more than 2,500 customers. Tasty.