Understand the energy you consume in ICT: ICTFOOTPRINT.eu at REMOO

ICTFOOTPRINT.eu participated at REMOO Conference & Workshop, in Venice (Italy) on 12^th May 2017. REMOO is an annual international event, joining experts, researchers, industry leaders and investors from  countries all over the world, to meet and exchange knowledge, insights and experiences on multi-and cross disciplinary aspects of energy.

ICTFOOTPRINT.eu had a 20 minutes presentation on “Online Self-Assessment - Tool for Energy & Environmental Efficiency in the ICT Sector”, based on a scientific paper jointly submitted by authors from Trust-IT Services and Deloitte Sustainability for the REMOO conference.

The audience composed by scientists and researchers in the energy field and REMOO Committee, got to know the SAT-S (Self-Assessment Tool for ICT Services), an online tool which helps users (European ICT intensive organisations and in particular SMEs) to understand their carbon & energy footprint and take action to decrease the energy consumption in ICT.

Why should we care aboutICT Energy Management?

Energy management means monitoring, controlling and reducing energy consumption, improving the overall energy efficiency and allowing many benefits, such as energy cost reduction and lower levels of carbon footprint.

There is a pressing need for the European ICT sector to become energy efficient and sustainable. ICT industry accounts for approximately 2 percent of global CO2 emissions, a figure equivalent to aviation (Gartner 2007). Plus, ICT can save up to €600 billion & decrease 15% of carbon emissions in 2020, by becoming energy efficient (The Climate Group).

ICT standards for carbon footprint measurement and other initiatives help the sector to decrease its energy consumption and, consequently, its carbon footprint. However, only a few players are aware of their existence, have the knowledge to interpret them and the financial resources to implement them.

ICTFOOTPRINT.eu wants to help the ICT sector to decrease its environmental impact and to improve businesses' competitiveness thanks to higher levels of energy efficiency.

SAT-S: a fast, free, online tool to raise awareness on ICT footprint

The Self-Assessment Tool for ICT Services, known as SAT-S, is a useful, free, quick and easy-to-use tool to calculate the carbon footprint of ICT services. The tool is a first attempt to provide ICT-intensive organisations with a practical tool to position their ICT services footprint.

The SAT-S engine is developed based on a simplified Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) loosely based on Standard Methodologies, mainly from Green House Gas Protocol and ETSI. It has a user interface with a simple guided questionnaire, providing optional insights about the calculations and giving the user a customised report about his/her ICT service’s primary energy values and carbon footprint. In the report, SAT-S, also includes  some intuitive equivalents to trigger more interest and take action (e.g. emissions of an average car travelling for 1 Km).

The tool was built on the expertise of Deloitte Sustainability in the field of sustainability consulting, and on Trust-IT Services’ experience in developing solutions for the ICT sector, namely for cloud computing, future internet, big data and research infrastructures.

Standard Methodologies considered in the SAT-S and other initiatives related with carbon footprint measurement in ICT are listed in the online interactive Map of ICT Standards, with simple factsheets about each standard, available for download.

SAT-O: a holistic approach for organisations ICT carbon footprint

ICTFOOTPRINT.eu is currently working on an extension of the SAT-S: SAT-O, a Self-Assessment Tool for Organizations, allowing them to calculate their overall ICT carbon footprint due to the digital services provided & used by the organisations. SAT-O, to be launched later in 2017, will be a an evolution of SAT-S, including more complex calculations in the engine, without compromising the simplicity of the user interface.

Download the ICTFOOTPRINT.eu presentation here

Download ICTFOOTPRINT.eu paper abstract here