Committed to connecting the world

Environmentally sustainable digital transformation

Digital technologies play a key role in climate change monitoring, mitigation and adaptation. At the same time, the growing environmental footprint of digital technologies puts at risk the Paris Agreement goal of keeping the rise in global temperature to 1.5 °C. The challenge is in closing the connectivity gap, with close to one third of the world remaining offline, while leveraging ICTs for climate action in an environmentally sustainable manner. Enabling more people to get online and use the Internet can accelerate social and economic development, including by helping communities become more resilient to climate change through improved access to information and service delivery.

Increase transparency of ICT Sector GHG emissions and energy consumption

ITU’s work to improve the quality, collection and interpretation of ICT sector emissions and energy data supports policymakers with taking informed decisions to reduce ICT sector emissions and manage energy resources.

Activities include:
- Greening digital companies report.
- Measuring emissions and energy footprint of the ICT sector report.

Developing green standards and guidelines

Through the development of standards on ICTs, environment and climate change, ITU helps the ICT sector improve energy efficiency and cut CO2 emissions. ITU standards help measure the carbon footprint of ICTs, evaluating their environmental performance, facilitate measurement of the impact of ICTs on emissions, and support meaningful reporting and comparisons. Standards also support the business case to go green and inform consumer choices with climate-friendly business procurement.

Activities include:

- ITU-T SG5 green ICT standards directory.

- GHG emissions trajectories for the ICT sector standard.

Strengthening capacity

ITU works with its members to enhance green ICT practices within the Sector and among its stakeholders through guidelines, trainings and events to include capacity for the environmentally sustainable use of ICTs.

Examples of our work include:
- ITU Academy online courses.
- Circular and sustainable public procurement guideline and standard.
- Green data centres guideline and standard.

Enhancing multistakeholder collaboration

ITU provides a unique platform to broad public-private membership, encompassing 193 Member States and over 1000 companies, universities, and international and regional organizations. This makes it best placed to facilitate multistakeholder collaboration on a global scale to drive climate action and sustainable development using digital technologies.

Examples of our work include:
- Green Digital Action (GDA) initiative.
- Coalition for Digital Environmental Sustainability (CODES).