Green Future Networks: Network Equipment Eco-Design and End to End Service Footprint

The main goal of the present White Paper is to give an overview of the existent procedures and visions for eco-design of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) network equipment. In order to introduce network equipment eco-design principles, this White Paper investigates the strategy to reduce the environmental footprint and then presents the basis of circularity. It presents a method called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which allows to assess the network equipment environmental footprint with an accurate level of precision and completeness. A view on the materials footprint and the role of critical raw materials as part of product’s eco-design is given considering the associated supply risks. Other important topics dealt in this White Paper are network equipment re-manufacturing and refurbish benefits as well as innovation in packaging inspired in eco-design principles. To finalize, the status of work on the development of a methodology to measure the end-to-end services footprint is presented.