Motivation

SG5 is responsible for studying ICT environmental aspects on electromagnetic phenomena and climate change. In addition, SG5 has been appointed as a lead Study Group to progress the work on ICT and Climate Change.

With the introduction of concepts of environmental sustainability, and standards such as ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 in telecommunications segments, safety and environmental aspects have become of great importance.

As a result of climate change, the interest on environmental issues is growing in areas including life cycle analysis of products and processes, environmentally friendly materials and waste disposal.

Environmental sustainability can be defined as the ability to maintain the qualities that are valued in the physical environment taking care of the aspects of the environment that produce renewable resources.

ICT is increasingly expected to play a key role in tackling global environmental issues such as minimizing the burden on the environment and helping prevent the depletion of resources. Recycling of ICT equipments and facilities has a major impact on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions since considerable amounts of rare metals can be obtained from them without mining the rare metals in producing countries.

Products used in outside plant are typically manufactured using thermoplastic materials, lead, copper, wood, concrete, iron and preservative substances or antioxidants are added in order to ensure the long term performances of products. The replacement and final disposal of these materials is a goal for all environmentally correct countries. Moreover, new classes of materials that minimize environmental impact have to be studied, also taking into account that huge quantities will be deployed as Developing Countries extend their networks.

On the other hand, not only materials and equipment, but also the related installation and operation processes can affect the environment. Therefore the mitigation of these sources of environmental damage must also be studied.

It is important to develop environmental requirements for equipments and facilities such as mobile phones and routers in order to reduce impact on the environment. It is also important to study safe, low-cost social recirculation of ICT equipments through recycling and reuse.

Question

Study items to be considered include, but are not limited to:

• How to ensure the safety and environmental procedures/products used in ICT equipments/facilities, avoidance of hazardous materials and final disposal?
• How to ensure that the products and procedures used in ICT equipments/facilities cause minimum environmental effect?
• What are the procedures to analyse the effect on the environment of existing and new products under development and how can we minimize them?
• An up-to-date status of technologies for recycling and directives worldwide.
• How to mitigate e-waste and to reduce potential GHG emissions that will be made without recycling?

Tasks

Tasks include, but are not limited to:

• Motivate ITU members to share their national experiences and spread the collected knowledge related to environmental and sustainability aspects of laws or directives.
• Determine process to analyse the effect on the environment of products (materials, hazardous materials avoidance, manufacturing processes, operational procedures and disposal) and ways to minimize them.
• Search for new technologies of compounds / materials and operational process to use; the study group must identify the market needs and provide timely standardisation solutions.
• Assess environmental effects of recycling related to ICT facilities, equipments, etc.
• Analyze safe, low-cost social recirculation of ICT equipments through recycling and reuse.
• Prepare a questionnaire about environmental sustainability practices and regulations in outside plant (2010) and ICT equipments/ facilities (2012).
• Prepare a handbook of environmental sustainability in outside plant (2012) and ICT equipment/facilities (2012).
• Prepare a new recommendation L.lca (The use of life cycle analysis in outside plant). (2011).
• Revision of Recommendation L.45 (2010)
• Prepare a new recommendation L.recy (Recycling of copper and optical fibre cables) to have it up to date, regarding its usefulness (2011).
• Maintain and modify Recommendations L.2 (2009), L.24 (2009) and L.63 (2010).
• Study the solution to mitigate e-waste. For instance, the universal charging solution for the mobile phone and related telecommunications terminals, consider to prepare a new recommendation L.adapter (Universal power adapter solution for the mobile phone). (2009-2010).

Relationships

Recommendations:

• – L-series

Questions:

• – 14/5, 18/5, Q5/15, Q6/15, Q7/15, Q8/15, Q16/15, Q17/15, Q18/15

Study Groups:

• – ITU-T SG9, SG15 and SG16

Standardisation bodies, forums and consortia:

• - IEC TC46, TC86, GSMA