ACTIVITIES :: Sustainable Growth :: Policy

Policy

The 2009 Recommendation "Mobilising Information and Communications Technologies to facilitate the transition to an energy-efficient, low-carbon economy" (C(7604)2009)  is a first step towards creating a policy framework that will allow the energy-saving potential of ICTs to be widely recognized and exploited.

The Recommendationinvites the ICT industry to develop a framework to capture its energy intensity and GHG emissions, adopt and implement common methodologies by 2011.

This task for the industry has been taken up as a priority in the Commission's Digital Agenda for Europe (DAE) in Key Action 12.

See the message from Vice-President Neelie Kroes.

Results so far

• Coordination Meeting of Standardisation Activities for assessing the Environmental Impact of ICT
• ITU-T International agreement on ‘Green ICT’ methodology
• ETSI approved Technical Standard on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of ICT equipment, networks and services: General methodology and common requirements
• GSMA Energy Efficiency Methodology Incorporated in ITU's New Global Standard

It also calls upon Member States to agree on a common minimum functional specifications for smart metering and set up a coherent timeframe for the rollout of smart metering by 2012.

Results so far

• Smart Meter Report: "A joint contribution of DG ENER and DG INFSO towards the Digital Agenda, Action 73: Set of common functional requirements of the SMART METER