With a wise energy and environmental efficiency strategy, global emissions can be reduced by up to 15% by 2020. By moving into the sustainable economy, you can improve your business’ energy efficiency which in turn can lead to cost savings and give you an advantage over competitors. Moreover, the improvement of the brand image is one of the main benefits of an environmental efficiency strategy such as ecodesign (in 2014, 81% of the companies surveyed in the EU identified “image improvement” as the top benefit, followed by an “increased motivation of the employees” and a “higher ability to develop new designs”. Source: IDP and Pôle éco-conception (2014) La profitabilité de l’écoconception – une analyse économique).

ICTFOOTPRINT.eu will guide ICT small businesses on how to implement actions towards lower environmental footprint and greater and deal with related complex legal and administrative procedures. ICTFOOTPRINT.eu will provide ICT organisations with:

- Guidance and tools to calculate energy and carbon footprint of ICT using standards and methodologies.

- Information on certifications, best practice reports and how to customise to core business.

- Support through a Frequently Asked Questions page and helpdesk.

- Documents focussing on methodologies and success stories to raise awareness on benefits of adopting measures to reduce carbon footprint.

- Access to the ICTFOOTPRINT.eu marketplace where users can access a database of sustainable ICT service offers.

- Opportunities to showcase relevant best-practices.

Through the ICTFOOTPRINT.eu marketplace, ICT Service Providers will be able to promote their sustainable solutions (products and services) to SMEs willing to adopt products and services with low carbon and energy footprint.

ICTFOOTPRINT.eu will provide support on products, services and companies which aim to improve energy efficiency and decrease carbon footprint levels in the ICT sector.

ICTFOOTPRINT.eu will help public administrations to play an active role in defining, implementing and assessing public policy within sustainable developments in order to reduce the direct footprint of the ICT sector in their communities. With ICTFOOTPRINT.eu, Public Administration can:

• - Showcase green procurement procedures and policies.
• - Find out about Success Stories of cities which are improving energy efficiency in ICT
• - Contribute to the Policy Action Plan Strategy Report, which will shape future policies.
• - Provide feedback on the implementation of the ICT methodologies framework.
• - Access information on the competitive advantages to local businesses and industry, by placing incentives for green aware initiatives, and using the ICTFOOTPRINT.eu platform for procurement procedures.
• - Provide tax reductions to ICTFOOTPRINT.eu certified end users as an indication of measurement of their carbon footprint with the ICT methodological framework.
• - Avoid proliferation of multiple environmental labels, reporting schemes, certification schemes.

ICTFOOTPRINT.eu engages with SDOs involved in the development of ICT-specific energy and/or carbon footprint methodologies (including Life Cycle Assessment). ICTFOOTPRINT.eu will help SDOs by providing opportunities to:

- Showcase methodologies on the ICTFOOTPRINT.eu web platform and monitor development.

- Contribute to ICTFOOTPRINT.eu Policy Action Plan Strategy Report.

- Receive practical feedback on the workability of different standards and metrics.

- Align between the different methodologies, and simplification of the framework. 

- Have access to a comprehensive action plan with recommendations from real experience.