The ETSI Summit on Sustainability - How ICT developments and standards can enable sustainability and have a positive impact on society, took place on 30 March 2023 and focused on the key role of the ICT industry and related standardization activities to support Green initiatives.

Overview

As the Telecoms Industry looks to future challenges and opportunities, the topics of sustainability and particularly energy efficiency have emerged as among the highest priorities for the industry.

This year, the ETSI Summit focused on the key role of ICT in supporting Green initiatives with a specific focus on the status of the ongoing and future work in related technology standardization.

This exclusive summit targeting the ICT community and related industries was an opportunity to discuss the status and future directions for sustainability topics relating to the communications domain and those domains where digitization may help reduce C02 emissions and improve efficiency.  

The presentations, debates and open discussions touched upon the current technologies that enable energy efficiency, CO2 reduction, circular economies, eco-design, and also looked to the future requirements.

The programme of this one-day event was structured around the following main streams of discussion:

  • What is the role of ICT in sustainability? Get insights on how ICT can help save energy, and reduce waste both for its own industry as well as supporting other industry sectors.
  • What are the principal enabling technologies? Deep dive on some of the key technology and standardization activities supporting Green initiatives that are conducted by the ETSI Technical groups as well as 3GPP and oneM2M.
  • What are the gaps and pending actions to further address sustainability in standardization? Help identify and participate in the debate on new development areas and opportunities for ETSI and its partners.

Target Audience 

  • The ETSI Summit brought together key decision-makers from ETSI members and beyond, including operators, manufacturers, service providers, regulators and policymakers, end-user industry sectors and researchers.
  • High-level management and technology experts exchanged and openly debated about standardization priorities, helping to shape the work of ETSI in the years to come. 
   The summit times are CEST.

08.30 Check-in
09:00 Welcome Address
Luis Jorge Romero, Director General, ETSI
09.05 SESSION 01: The Sustainability Challenge and Global Green Initiatives  
Session Chair: Bettina Funk, ETSI GA Chair 
The session examines several regional and global initiatives working on sustainability and seeks to identify synergies and areas of cooperation.   
09:05 Some Standardization Needs for Green Digital Twin Transition
Emilio Davila Gonzalez, European Commission
09:20 ITU Sustainability & Working with ETSI  
Dominique Wurges, ITU-T SG5  
09:35 IEC Sustainability & Working with ETSI  
Alfonso Sturchio, IEC TC111 
09:50  ISO/IEC/JTC1 Sustainability & Working with ETSI
Thomas Wegmann, Liaison officer ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 39
10.05 The work of GeSI toward Energy Efficiency (and other sustainable technologies)
Luis Neves, GeSi
10.20 Green Future Networks
Anita Doehler, NGMN Alliance
10.35 Coffee and Networking Break 
11.00 Session 02: The Role of ICT in Sustainability
The session comprises two interactive panel sessions examining 1) Operators objectives and plans for Sustainability and 2) several initiatives being taken by solutions providers to meet those objectives.
Session Chair: David Boswarthick, ETSI
 

Operators Panel
Moderated by Anita Dohler, NGMN Alliance e.V.
The purpose of this panel is to examine what are the sustainability plans, challenges & priorities for Operators

  • Saima Ansari, Deutsche Telekom
  • P. Balaji, Vodafone Idea
  • Marc Grant, AT&T
  • Luca Pesando, TIM
  Solution Providers Panel
Moderated by Joe Barrett, GSA, Global Mobile Suppliers Association
The purpose is to examine what the current solutions and remaining challenges on Sustainability are.  
  • Howard Benn, Samsung
  • Raffaele Bolla, 6Green Project
  • Ralf Bucksch, IBM
  • Susanna Kallio, Nokia
12.45 Lunch & Networking Break
14.00 Session 03: ETSI Activities Supporting Technologies for Sustainability
Session Chair: Nick Sampson, ETSI OCG Chair
This session will present the sustainability standards work that is ongoing in ETSI and our Partnership Projects oneM2M and 3GPP.
14.00 TC EE’s Approach to Sustainability 
Benjamino Gorini, TC EE Chair 
14.15 The Work of TC ATTM and OEU for Green and Sustainable Networks and Cities   
Lynn Reiner. TC ATTM TM6 Chair
14.30 3GPP’s Approach to Energy Efficiency  
Jean-Michel Cornily, Rapporteur for 3GPP EE work items  
14.45 oneM2M Work on IoT for Sustainability  
Dale Seed, Chair oneM2M SSC 
15.00 Q&A 
15.15 Coffee and Networking Break 
15.45  Session 04: What More Can Telecoms Do to Ensure Global Sustainability Targets are Reached?  
Chair:
Dirk Weiler, ETSI Board Chair
This session will address alternative perspectives on the principle challenges and gaps that need to be urgently addressed. What more can be done, both in ETSI and beyond, and what could be future directions/actions for the industry?  
15.45 Environmental Impact of ICT – Data Centers
Bruno Lafitte, ADEME
16.00 ISO Net Zero Guidelines – a Global Basis for Net Zero Action
Emily Faint, BSI
16.15 ECOS: Driving Environmentally Friendly Standards, Policies and Laws
Mathieu Rama, ECOS
16.30 Event Wrap up 
Dirk Weiler, ETSI Board Chair
17.00 Close of the Event

summit saima ansariSaima Ansari, Deutsche Telekom AG
Saima Ansari is working at Deutsche Telekom AG as Senior Partner Manager. In this role, she is responsible for ensuring that Deutsche Telekom's technology vendors work together to significantly reduce the energy consumption in DT's networks and create a much more sustainable E2E production model. In addition, she is leading “Green Future Networks” project at NGMN Alliance addressing the environmental sustainability challenges in the telco industry.

summit balajiP Balaji, Vodafone Idea Limited
A pioneer in the Telecom Sector with a career spanning 30 years, he has held leadership positions in all 3 verticals of the sector - Technology Providers, Device companies, and Operators. A member of the Core Leadership Team at Vodafone Idea (an Aditya Birla and Group and Vodafone Partnership), which planned and executed the World’s largest telecom merger. Currently, leads the Company's Regulatory, Public Policy, and Government Relations activities along with Industry Advocacy, Communications, Reputation Management and CSR functions.
Prior to this, he was the Managing Director of Nokia India and Sony Mobile India. Has been a member of the Global Leadership Team of Lucent Technologies, Ericsson, Nokia and Vodafone. Has experience of driving sales, marketing, strategy and operations. In his varied leadership experience, he has led large transformation and M&A projects, turned around companies, set up start-ups and JVs with Indian conglomerates and MNCs like Tata Group, AT&T and Lucent Technologies.
Passionate about Nation Building Initiatives, such as local manufacturing and exports, R&D and skills/ capacity development, he has also mentored start-ups. He holds leadership positions in industry bodies as Chairman of ASSOCHAM Digital Communications Council, Member of National Council of FICCI, AIMA, CII, EBG. He is the Vice Chairman of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and Telecom Export Promotion Council (TEPC), as well as Vice President of Telecom Sector Skills Council (TSSC). Has also held office as the President of Telecom Equipment Manufacturer Association (TEMA).

summit joe barrett

Joe Barrett, Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA)
Joe Barrett is President of the Global mobile Suppliers Association (GSA), the leading industry association representing mobile suppliers worldwide. Prior to GSA, Joe worked at both Nokia and Qualcomm representing each company on the GSA Executive Board and helped drive the mobile technology agenda to position GSA as the trusted global supplier’s voice in the industry.
Joe started his career in the Royal Navy and then at BT. He moved into the embryonic mobile industry in 1985 and has worked in roles including product marketing, marketing & communications, business strategy and business planning. He was part of the 3G strategic business team at Nokia, and helped Flarion establish OFDMA as the technology for 4G and now 5G.
Joe holds an MSc. in Marketing from the University of Glamorgan and the CIM Advanced Diploma in Marketing. 

summit howard benn

Howard Benn FIET, FITP, Samsung Electronics R&D Institute, United Kingdom
Howard started his career in the fixed telecommunication sector (Plessey) back in 1982, did his degree and PhD at Bradford University, moving into radio based communications in 1989. He started working in ETSI GSM standards committees in 1993, helping create 3GPP and chairing 3GPP RAN 4 from 1998 to 2007. He has been a board member of ETSI since 2008, is currently advising the ICANN board on mobile technology, and a member of a number of advisory boards for UK universities and research programs. His current role is ‘Vice President Communications Research’ for Samsung Electronics R&D Institute in the UK, managing a team of engineers covering ETSI, 3GPP, and GSMA. Recently has become a visiting Professor at Bristol University, and an honorary Professor at Queens University Belfast. He also sits on the UK5G government advisory committee looking at the future of communications technology in the UK, and an advisor to the UK government on international free trade agreements.

summit david boswarthicDavid Boswarthick - ETSI - Programme Committee Member
David Boswarthick is currently the Director of New Technologies in ETSI, where he is responsible for tracking technology trends and evolutions as well as capturing ICT research & development activities that are ripe for standardization.
He devotes himself to new business / technology development through the creation of strong links and enablers towards the R&D community, academia, National, EU, global research projects and the creation of new or augmented standards groups in ETSI.
David has more than 30 years’ experience in the telecommunications sector, which includes over 23 years’ working in ICT standardization supporting both 3GPP and ETSI Technical and strategic groups.

summit raffaele bollaRaffaele Bolla CNIT- University of Genoa
Prof Raffaele Bolla is a full professor of telecommunications networks and cyber security at the University of Genoa. He is the director of the CNIT National Laboratory of Smart and Secure Networks (S2N) and is the coordinator of the master’s degree course in Internet and Multimedia Engineering (IME). His research group leads, coordinates, and participates in several ongoing EU and national projects. He is responsible for CNIT's participation in ETSI and has substantial experience in standardization, especially on ICT energy efficiency issues. He supports the JRC in Ispra in defining the BroadBand Code of Conduit. He is co-author of more than 200 scientific publications. His research interests concern the orchestration of 5G and 6G networks integrated with edge computing capabilities, Ai's application to network management and optimization, the sustainability of networks and ICT in general, and network security.

summit ralf buckschRalf Buscksch, IBM
Ralf Bucksch is responsible for Technical Sales at Sustainability Software and Industry 4.0 and for the development of complex software architectures. Since 2004 he had various IBM management positions at national and international level. Mr. Bucksch joined IBM with the acquisition of Rational Software. Ralf Bucksch studied mechanical engineering at the Stuttgart University of Cooperative Education, specialising in design, and computer science at the Esslingen University of Applied Sciences.
LinkedIn (URL) https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralfbucksch/
Twitter (@usuario) @BuckschR

summit jean michel cornilyJean-Michel Cornily, Rapporteur for 3GPP EE work Items - Huawei
Jean-Michel Cornily holds a PhD in computer science. He works as an OA&M standards expert and represents Huawei in 3GPP SA5. During the past years, he has been rapporteur of several 3GPP study and work items related to energy efficiency and energy saving for the mobile network. Jean-Michel has been working for Orange for 20+ years as a OA&M standards expert. He has actively contributed to the white paper 'Metering for Sustainable Networks' issued by the NGMN Green Future Networks project in January 2022.

DAVILA GONZALEZEmilio Dávila-Gonzalez, EC Directorate General CONNECT
Emilio Dávila has worked since 2013 in the Unit dealing with Innovation within Directorate General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT). He is responsible of coordinating ICT standardisation strategies and how ICT standardisation can support EU policies and regulations, liaising with Standards Development Organisations active in ICT, building bridges between research and standardisation and how standardisation contributes to innovation.

summit anita doehlerAnita Doehler - NGMN Alliance
Anita Doehler has extensive international experience in various business areas including senior management positions with mobile network operators, vendors and consulting firms. From 2016 until 2020, she held senior management positions at Accenture Industry X.0. Prior to joining Accenture, she worked at Vodafone Group for 16 years, before at E-Plus and Philips, among others. Anita holds a Dipl.-Ing. degree in Telecommunication Engineering as well as an Executive MBA degree. Furthermore, she is a Systemic Business Coach. Anita is passionate about driving technology innovation for the benefit of human and societies and supporting the world’s leading operators, vendors and research institutes as CEO of the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance.

summit emily faintEmily Faint, BSI
Emily Faint is the Net Zero Policy Manager at the British Standards Institution (BSI) and the Policy and Engagement Lead for the Our 2050 World collaboration. Emily manages the collaboration between the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the UN Race to Zero campaign and the UNFCCC Global Innovation Hub, convened by BSI. She is also an Oxford Net Zero Associate.
Emily was a lead facilitator of the ISO Net Zero Guidelines International Workshop Agreement process and a contributing author to the UNFCCC Climate Champions Pivot Point report. Her interests are focused on net zero governance and the role of standards in accelerating the transition from voluntary to regulated action on net zero. Before joining BSI, Emily worked at the UK Government’s Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) as a Senior Policy Advisor on the UK’s Net Zero Strategy and governance.

summit beniamino goriniBenjamino Gorini, ETSI TC EE Chair, Nokia - Programme Committee Member
Beniamino Gorini has the master degree in Electronic Engineer from Politecnico of Milano, Italy and since 1987 he has been working in telecommunication industries in Research & Development department and in product compliance & regulatory matters. He is now in charge of the Environmental Compliance laboratories in Nokia Italy and highly contributes in Nokia for the standardization on Environmental matters.
Since more than 35 years he has been involved in standardization bodies (i.e. IEC, ITU-T, ETSI, CENELEC) with main focus on environmental and eco-environmental, electromagnetic compatibility, power supply distributions/interfaces and safety topics for ICTs. He has various roles in International Standardization bodies and, to cite few of them, he is currently chairman of the ETSI TC “Environmental Engineering” and Vice-chairman of ITU-T SG5 “EMF, environment, climate action, sustainable digitalization, and circular economy”.

grantMarc B. Grant, AT&T
Marc has 30 years’ experience in the mobile telecommunications industry and 25 years with AT&T. His contribution to mobile broadband wireless communications spans emerging technologies, radio system performance aspects, spectrum needs and band arrangements.
He chairs the Radio Aspects SWG in ITU-R WP 5D, successfully completing major ITU reports on the Technology Trends and Requirements for 3G (IMT-2000), 4G (IMT-Advanced), 5G (IMT-2020), and, most recently, 6G (IMT-2030). Marc has been on the Board of ETSI since 2008, serving as vice-chair from 2014-2018. He is vice-chair of the NextG Alliance Roadmap Working Group. He has served in various leadership positions in 3GPP since 2000.
Marc lives in the small community of Comfort, Texas, USA, in the heart of Texas wine country and has a B.S. Engineering Management from Amberton University in Garland, Texas. He holds several patents covering various aspects of wireless communications.

summit susanna kallioSusanna Kallio - Nokia
Susanna has a long career in standardization – working more than 25 years in different international standardization organizations, like 3GPP, ETSI, ITU-T, ISO, CEN/CENELEC, etc., past 10+ years in telecom specific sustainability standardization in ETSI, ITU-T, and CEN/CENELEC. Her main focus in environmental topics is Circular Economy and Life Cycle Assessment methodology. She is very passionate about sustainability.

summit bruno lafitteBruno Lafitte - ADEME
Mr Lafitte holds a PhD in physics. He has been working for 14 years in ADEME (the french national agency for ecological transition) as an expert in ADEME for lighting and 4 years on information and communication technologies (ICT). On ICT, Mr Lafitte is working mostly but not exclusively on data centers due to ongoing regulations at national level, European level with the European Commission and broader international level with the International Energy Agency (IEA). Mr Lafitte has been also working as an international consultant for 5 years for various organizations, mostly the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United for Efficiency (U4E) initiative.

Luis NevesLuis Neves, GeSI
Luis Neves is CEO of the Global Enabling Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) since 2017. Prior to that, from 2008-2017, Luis held the position of GeSI Chairman. Under Luis' leadership, GeSI has become a globally recognized “thought industry leader” organisation in the field of ICT- sustainability with strong focus on the enabling role and positive contribution of digital technologies to climate protection.
Before GeSI, Luis worked at Deutsche Telekom for over 15 years holding positions such as Head of Sustainable Development and Environment, VP of Corporate Responsibility and Chief Sustainability and Climate Protection Officer. Luis has also held positions and played relevant roles at European and international levels in organisations, such as the UN Global Compact Lead Group, Econsense -the German Sustainability Association, World Resources Forum Association and UNFCCC Momentum for Change Initiative.
Luis was born in Portugal and obtained a degree in History from the University of Lisbon.
Twitter: @luisfpneves
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/luis-neves-5a670ba/

summit mathieu ramaMathieu Rama - ECOS
Mathieu Rama – master’s degree in environmental law – is a programme manager at ECOS, where he contributes to the Ecodesign regulatory and standardization activities, and supports a number of EU projects, all with a focus on product policy, and in particular on circular electronics.
Prior to that, he worked as a policy officer for RREUSE (Re-use and Recyling European Union Social Enterprises), focusing on waste management and product policies that prolong the lifetime of products through re-use.

summit lynn reinerLynn Reiner eG4U (eGreen for Users)
Communication, telecommunications, research, and analysis have always fascinated her.
After devoting the beginning of her career to intelligence analysis (SIG-INT) in different government agencies in the United States, Lynn spent 11 years teaching at the French Education Nationale.
Motivated to leave a better planet for her three children, she is a spokesperson for digital eco-design in the broad sense in the NGO eG4U (eGreen for Users) as technical director of ICT Engineering and in the ETSI Technical Committee ATTM in which she chairs TM6.
There can be no ecologically sustainable digital technology without using what already exists. Lynn is convinced that digital technologies will play a major role in our future, but not without some common sense. The decisions made today will ensure that tomorrow’s digital systems will serve, or ruin, our human community and our planet.

Luis Jorge RomeroLuis Jorge ROMERO - ETSI
Luis Jorge Romero, Director General of ETSI, has 30 years of experience in the telecommunications sector.
At ETSI he has initiated a global standardization partnership for Machine to Machine communications, oneM2M. He has overseen the rapid development of ETSI’s Industry Specification Groups accelerating market penetration of new technologies and has enabled the first Open Source group in ETSI.
Luis Jorge has also successfully positioned the institute to take a leading role in 5G standardization through the 3GPP global partnership project and through initiatives such as ETSI’s Multi-access Edge Computing, Millimetre Wave Transmission and Network Functions Virtualization groups. He is now driving the implementation of the ETSI Strategy, an ambitious plan to prepare the institute for the future.
Previously he has held diverse Director positions in Spain, Morocco and Mexico, predominantly with Telefonica. As Global Director for International Roaming and Standards, and Director of Innovation and Standards, he oversaw Telefonica's participation in global standardization activities, and participated directly in the work of the Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance and in the GSM Association (GSMA). Before joining ETSI in July 2011, he held the position of Director General of Innosoft and was also a partner and board member of the Madrid-based Innology Ventures.

summit nick sampsonNick Sampson - ETSI OCG Chair - Orange
Nick and is currently a Vice-Chair of the ETSI Board, and Chair of the ETSI Operational Co-ordination Group. He is responsible for standardisation at Orange, and has represented Orange at both technical and governance level in national and international standards organisations and industry associations since 1996. Nick has a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and over 30 years’ experience in the telecommunications industry.

summit dale seedDale Seed - Convenor of the oneM2M IoT Sustainability Committee - InterDigital
Dale Seed is a Principal Engineer at InterDigital focusing on 5G/6G/IoT research and innovation and participates in several industry standards bodies including oneM2M, 3GPP, NextG Alliance, IETF and ETSI. Dale has 20+ years of research and product development experience and currently serves as Convenor of the oneM2M IoT Sustainability Committee.

summit alfonso sturchioAlfonso Sturchio, IEC TC111
Alfonso graduated in Electrical Engineering with Honors from “Federico II” University in Naples, publishing his thesis in an international journal (IEE) and writing scientific papers (IEEE). Then he worked for Fiat Research.



summit thomas wegmannThomas H. Wegmann, VDE e.V., has more than 30 years of experience in the field of ICT standardization both at technical and managerial levels in ISO/IEC, CENELEC and VDE|DKE.
Passionate about promoting a holistic system approach in standardization, he encourages standardization committees to actively liaise and coordinate their activities to the benefit of involved stakeholders and, eventually, users. Thomas has driven the development of several European and International Standards, such as the first European Norms on data centres (series EN 50600).
Currently, he is in charge of several international, European and national committees as well as coordination groups between the ESOs. Amongst others, he serves as Secretary of the CEN/CENELEC/ETSI Co-ordination Group on Green Data Centres and is the liaison officer between CENELEC/TC 215 and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 39 since the establishment of the latter in 2012.
Thomas received his Diploma Degree in Electrotechnology from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg.

summit weiler dirkDirk Weiler - ETSI Board Chair - Programme Committee Member
Dirk Weiler is Chair of the ETSI Board, ETSI representative to the European Commission's ICT Standardization Multi-Stakeholder Platform, Vice Chair of the German BITKOM Working Group Standardization, member of the CEN-CENELEC-ETSI Joint Presidents' Group and member of the German DIN Presidential Committee FOKUS.ICT.
He is Head of Standards Policy in Nokia, responsible for standardization policy and membership portfolio.
He is a frequent speaker, panellist or moderator in conferences and events on technology, standardization and IPR topics.
Dirk has chaired ETSI’s IPR Special Committee from 2008 – 2018 and ETSI’s General Assembly from 2010-2014.
Until 2006 he has held various management positions in development, research, intellectual property, standardization and marketing in Siemens. Since 1988 he has been working actively in standardization on technical as well as board level in various organizations.
He graduated in 1985 as Diplom-Physiker from the University of Cologne and the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Jülich, Germany."

summit dominique wurgesDominique Würges, ITU-T Study Group 5 Chair - Orange
Dominique Würges is currently Chairman of ITU-T Study Group 5 (EMF, environment, climate action, sustainable digitalization, and circular economy) and Director of Institutional Relations for Standardisation within Orange. He has responsibility for relationships with international organizations involved in standardization activities at national and international levels (ITU, ETSI, AFNOR, etc.), and participates in the governance meetings of these organizations. He served as Vice-Chair of ETSI General Assembly from 2018 to 2022. He is active in many issues addressed by SDOs and foras, such as Green ICTs, network security, relations between carriers, or evolution of the broadcasting standardisation system. Within European Commission, he is Member of the European ICT Standardisation policy multi-stakeholder platform for ICTs standardization, representing ETNO. He is also member of the French National Standardisation Organisation Strategic Committee (AFNOR CCPN). He has previously been Responsible for France Telecom’s External Relations and multilateral affairs, in charge of organizations focused on telecommunications questions, international negotiations, spectrum/radiocommunications issues, and before was Head of the data and directories Department of France Telecom.
Education: Diploma from the ENSPTT/ENA (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des PTT); Master’s Degree in Telecommunications and Broadcasting Management (Paris Dauphine); Diploma from Political Science Institute in Strasbourg.

  • David Boswarthick, ETSI
  • Bettina Funk, ETSI GA Chair, ITS
  • Benjamino Gorini, ETSI TC EE Chair, Nokia
  • Nick Sampson, ETSI OCG Chair, Orange
  • Dirk Weiler, ETSI Board Chair, Nokia

Presentations made during the event are available in PDF format.

  • The latest Edition of Enjoy! is on Sustainability.

  • In addition we are launching an online Survey on ICT Sustainability designed to gain feedback and insights on the topic of ICT sustainability from the different industry actors and will potentially be used to feed ETSI’s future work on sustainability standardization. This survey is opened until 16 April.
Any Questions? Contact us