Environmental Labeling of a LAN Network and Enterprise Telephony Services

Since January 1, 2022, the AGEC law (Anti-Waste for a Circular Economy law) requires internet service providers and telecom operators to communicate to their consumer subscribers the greenhouse gas emissions equivalent of their data consumption.

The Alliance Green IT (AGIT), CDRT, Act for Better Planet, APL Data Center, and ADEME wanted to go further and worked on building a method for assessing the environmental impacts of a LAN network and enterprise telephony services.

APL Data Center participated in establishing the framework for calculating environmental impacts, which is now complemented by a white paper and a calculator.

White Paper to Complement the Framework

The white paper aims to complement and illustrate the methodological framework for environmental assessment of a LAN network and enterprise telephony services, particularly through concrete examples, such as calculating the environmental impact of:

• Providing a LAN network for one year
• A one-to-one telephone call lasting one minute
• A one-hour video conference call

It also includes best practice recommendations to limit the environmental impacts of networks and telephony services.

Multi-Criteria Environmental Footprint Calculator

Furthermore, a multi-criteria environmental footprint calculator and its user guide are made available on the CDRT website.

With this calculator, telecom operators will be able to:

• Obtain initial environmental reporting elements internal to a company or organization;
• Inform their customers about the overall environmental footprint of delivered services: across three criteria: carbon, energy, and materials;
• Propose eco-designed, and therefore optimized, networks and services.

This tool is a first step and uses public data or data created through the working group's contribution; it will evolve as new environmental data is created in the telecommunications sector. This will enable better dissemination to a larger number of operators.