The Carbon Reduction Roadmap provides a comprehensive strategy for decreasing IHS Towers’ emissions, including a goal to reduce the Scope 1 and Scope 2 kilowatt-hour emissions intensity of its tower portfolio by 50% by 2030, using 2021 emissions data as the baseline1.
Under Project Green, the next significant step of its Carbon Reduction Roadmap, the company expects to spend $214 million in capex towards these efforts between 2022 and 2024, and to deliver annual Recurring Levered Free Cash Flow (RLFCF) savings of $77 million in 2025. This, in turn, is expected to generate an implied return on investment of 30%.
As a result, and as previously mentioned in second quarter results, IHS Towers is raising its 2022 capex guidance. The company now expects to spend $645-685 million (previously $545-585 million), including $110 million of the $214 million spent for Project Green, as it is also taking this opportunity to narrow its former range based on actual spend year-to-date.
Savings will be achieved by connecting more sites to the electricity grid and via the deployment and integration of battery storage and solar panel solutions. In scope for Project Green are IHS Towers’ operations in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Kuwait, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Zambia where reliance on diesel generators has been traditionally greater.
IHS Towers is one of the largest independent owners, operators, and developers of shared communications infrastructure in the world by tower count and is the largest independent multinational towerco solely focused on the emerging markets. The Company has nearly 40,000 towers across its 11 markets, including Brazil, Cameroon, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Kuwait, Nigeria, Peru, Rwanda, South Africa, and Zambia.