There’s been positive news on the sustainability front from operator MTN in Cameroon, which has announced a renewable energy initiative.

The operator has announced the signing, on 2 June in Yaounde, of a collaboration framework agreement with the country’s Rural Electrification Agency (AER) to supply its rural sites with solar energy.

The document was initialled by Moussa Ousmanou, General Manager of AER, and Stephen Blewett, CEO of MTN Cameroon, in the presence of representatives of the Ministry of Water and Energy.

This agreement specifies the terms and conditions under which AER will provide MTN Cameroon with energy produced by its solar power plants. The energy is intended to power MTN Cameroon’s network infrastructure in rural areas, particularly the relay stations.

In fact the agreement is already underway. MYN reports that implementation of this agreement is ongoing at pilot sites in the West and Littoral regions.

This deployment will be extended to all 10 regions of the country in the coming months and will accelerate MTN Cameroon’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategy, of which, it says, reducing carbon footprint is one of the main objectives.

In fact this deal aids the sustainability plans of both government and MTN. Ousmanou of AER pointed out that Cameroon as a whole plans to increase its renewable energy capacity to at least 25% of total production by 2030, while, as Blewett explained, under what it calls Project Zero, MTN seeks to reduce its carbon footprint by 50% by 2030.

Source: Developing Telecoms