ICT in Organizations
Current Status of the ITU-T SG5
Recommendation
Gilbert Buty
Standard Manager
Corporate Standardization Department
Alcatel Lucent
International
Telecommunication
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011
Union
The views expressed in this presentation are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the ITU or its Membership.
Scope
This recommendation is intending to allow organizations to
assess their scope 1, 2 and 3 GHG emissions and
energy consumption.
This Recommendation covers:
 The assessment of the life cycle environmental impact
of ICT Goods, Networks and Services used by an
organization (“ICT in organizations”).
 The assessment of the environmental impact of an ICT
organization (“ICT organizations”) .
 The interpretation of these impacts.
 The reporting of these impacts to ensure a fair and
transparent communication.
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011
Scope
 This recommendation does not cover:
 GHG removals which have not been considered (not
of high priority for this first version), and
 Rebound effects since these aspects still belong to
the research domain.
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011
How to use it
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Define the organizational boundaries
Define the operational boundaries
Choose the base year
Select the quantification methodology and calculate
Look if you need to recalculate
Evaluate the uncertainties
Communicate with the GHG Report
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011
Organizational boundaries
The organizational boundaries

define which parts of the organization should be
included in the emissions measurement (main units,
subsidiaries, joint ventures..).
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should include all operations and subsidiaries owned
and/or operated by the organization.
The inclusion of jointly-owned facilities and operations may
be determined either on an equity share or control
basis.
The following decisions should be made and documented:

Facilities taken into account.

Consolidation methodology used.
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011
Operational boundaries
To identify which emission sources that should be included
in the assessment.
The following sources of emissions should be identified:
 design and production of equipments used by the
organization.
 design and production of consumables used by the
organization.
 design, production and usage of software and services
purchased by the organization.
Emission sources including the disposal of all ICT
equipments or the disposal of consumables or the end
of life associated to software and services purchased by
the organization may be considered.
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011
Operational boundaries
Emission sources including the following activities may be
considered:
 The emissions of daily, regular migrations and business
travels of IT departments staff;
 The emissions resulting from freight of purchased ICT
equipments coming into the organization;
 The emissions resulting from freight of ICT equipments
within the organization premises;
 The emissions resulting from freight of ICT equipments
going outside the organization premises when
decommissioned.
For each of the three scopes (direct emissions, indirect
emissions and other indirect emissions), the selected
emission sources should be clearly described and
documented.
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011
Base Year
As a principle, the publication date of this
Recommendation (ITU base year) should be the base
year for an GHG emission and energy consumption
assessment.
However, a different base year could be chosen when:

The organization estimates that the quantity and/or
quality of available verifiable data for this particular
different year guarantee a more accurate evaluation
of its GHG emissions and energy consumption.

The organization has already put in place an
assessment and reporting process based on a
different base year, compliant with this ITU
Recommendation.

The activities carried out by the organization generate
unusual fluctuations of GHG emissions and/or energy
consumption in such a way that the ITU base year
might not be significant.
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011
Calculation Phase
Use the L.1410 Recommendation Part I
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Prepare the inventory
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Data collection
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equipment collection
select emission factors
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011
Recalculation
This covers the following aspects:

Structural changes which include mergers,
acquisitions...

Discovery of significant errors contained within the
“base year” emission calculations.
Similarly, should new data become available on source
emissions that was not previously available, an
adjustment to the “base year” emissions will be
required.
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011
Uncertainties
An uncertainty assessment for GHG emissions and
removals should be performed in accordance with ISO
14064-1 clause 5.4 .
Due to these uncertainties, the GHG inventory should
primarily be used for the following purposes:

Identification of opportunities to improve
environmental performance of the organization.

Information to decisions-makers about typical
environmental performances of an organization.

Selection of relevant indicators for monitoring of
environmental performance.

Aggregation of GHG emissions to a sector level based
on scopes 1 & 2 reporting.
On the contrary the GHG inventory is not suitable for:

Direct comparisons of the environmental load
between different organizations.

High accuracy aggregation of GHG emissions to a
sector level based on the scope3 reporting.
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011
Reporting
This part describes how the organization should prepare
the GHG report to inform external and internal
readers.
The energy and GHG report content should contain:

a description of the reporting organization and person
responsible
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the reporting period or periods covered, including the
base year
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a documentation of organizational and operational
boundaries
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Data collection policy and emission factors,
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the results of energy consumption assessment and
GHG emissions assessment (scope 1 & 2),
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a statement that the energy report and the GHG
inventory report has been prepared in accordance
with the principles outlined in the present ITU-T
Recommendation.
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011
Reporting
For other indirect GHG emissions, the following reporting
structure applies:
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Supply chain

Own activities
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Operation of products
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EoL
Not (yet) explicitly mentioned whether scope 3 reporting is
mandatory or optional
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011
Timing
 Recommendation
 To go for consent (hopefully) after the upcoming meeting
in Seoul (September 2011)
 To be updated (very likely) in the course of 2012
 EEC benchmarking exercise
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011
Conclusions
 This Recommendation intends
 To offer the necessary knowledge to meet the
societal demands of a low-carbon economy and the
challenge of higher energy prices
 It is intended :
 to be flexible enough to address the Industry's complex
needs but
 to be prescriptive enough to address some of the
regulators' concerns
 to include works performed by other Industrial fora.
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011
Thank You
Should you need further information, please contact
gilbert.buty@alcatel-lucent.com
or
jean-manuel.canet@orange-ftgroup.com
or
any of the wonderful experts we have in SG5
(list available on the ITU website)
ITU Green Standards Week, Rome, Italy, September 5 – 9, 2011