ICTs and the Environment – ISACC Perspective

Jim MacFie

ISACC

DOCUMENT #: GSC13-PLEN-03

FOR: Presentation

SOURCE: ISACC

AGENDA ITEM: 6.9 (Plenary) ICTs and the Environment

CONTACT(S): Jim MacFie

Submission Date:June 26, 2008

Highlight of Current ActivitiesJanuary 29, 2008, Plenary• ICT and the Environment

– Industry Canada

• Electronics Product Recycling Standards– Electronic Product Stewardship Canada

• Smart Metering– Triacta Power Technologies

• Saving the Planet at the Speed of Light– CANARIE

• Energy Efficient Ethernet– IEEE 802.3az

Strategic Direction

• No clear operating ‘standards’ for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) recycling industry in Canada

• Founded Electronics Product Stewardship Canada working with regulators to implement shared responsibility stewardship model with roles for industry, government, and consumers.

• EPSC drafted the Electronics Recycling Standard to establish basic criteria electronics recyclers must meet

• Incorporates concerns and feedback from electronics manufacturers, environmental groups, and electronics recyclers

• Goes beyond provisions of ISO 14001 and addresses specific issues resulting from recycling electronics– Enhanced requirements for Environment, Health & safety– Prohibits use of prison labour– Prohibits shipping material to developing/non-OECD countries– Reinforces downstream accountability of waste

Strategic Direction

• More efficient computers and network equipment – Marginal gains

• “Zero carbon” data centers at remote renewable energy sites linked by optical networks

• New Internet architectures with servers, computers and storage collocated at remote renewable energy sites such as hydro dams, windmill farms, etc

• New routing and resiliency architectures for wired and wireless networks for massively disruptive topology changes due to setting sun or waning winds that power routers and servers

• New grid and data storage architectures with distributed replication and virtual machines

• New stats and measurement analysis of bits per carbon (bpc) utilization, optimized “carbon” routing tables, etc

Challenges

• Measure of value for energy efficiency is lacking

• Some considerations:– watts normalized per bit, per line, per subscriber– busy vs. idle values– network element vs. end-to-end application– instantaneous vs. time integrated

• Test specifications will also be required

Next Steps/Actions

• ISACC is willing to partner with GSC members on energy efficiency metrics and recycling harmonization.

• ISACC proposes a new GSC Resolution on ICTs and the Environment and has provided draft text.