Digitalization and sustainability are two fundamental aspects of global future development and they complement each other. Digitalization requires systematic innovation and calls for cooperation with global industry partners and research institutes to drive green, low-carbon development. ICT industry partners should work closely with different industries and domains, assume responsibilities, ensure that we are moving in the right direction, strengthen cooperation, and work together to promote the development of green and low-carbon industries using digital enablement methods. We should leverage digital innovation enablement methods and promote discussions at the higher levels, just as we did for the creation of an EU data taxonomy. We are not only a participant in the green transformation process, but also a pathfinder and designer. We need to understand the stakeholders in different industries. ICT and digitalization should enable green development. We need credible standards to guide the evaluation of enablement. GeSI and the European Commission are working together to develop a method for measuring the positive impact of digital technologies. This approach will be incorporated into the EU taxonomy.

The UNFCCC-GIH advocates for the use of systematic innovation to serve more people around the world, for example, enabling the transformation of zero-carbon cities in the future. It’s important to expand the scope of existing digital solutions and accelerate the creation of new solutions to address climate change and achieve our sustainability goals. We need to innovate based on actual needs. We need to come together to discuss systematic innovation and promote the implementation of methodologies to address climate change and sustainability issues such as zero-carbon transformation. This is the approach we propose: Set goals, identify challenges, design innovative solutions, work with partners across industries and domains around the world to discuss how to enable green development through innovation, and build measurement and evaluation mechanisms based on policies and standards. It is necessary to get ICT, vertical industries, and cities onboard to break away from the siloed innovation model. Work towards achieving the UN’s security and peace goals by identifying green city topics on a city by city basis, creating UNFCCC-level working groups, getting regional partners involved, supporting mutual learning and experience sharing on regional and global scales, hosting open discussions, seeking collaborative solutions, and supporting and enabling the gradual development of zero-carbon cities around the world. A showcase from Huawei in enabling green development through innovation and by building future-ready zero-carbon cities: Use digital technologies and batteries to support grid connections and the reuse of renewable energy.

To reduce carbon emissions and increase our carbon handprints by enabling industries through ICT and digital tech, we need to agree on a consistent definition of a methodology and continually optimize it. This is a key requirement for the successful promotion of certain practices in industry scenarios and the ongoing deployment of enablement solutions. Within the EU, AIOTI is working with organizations such as GeSI, ITU-T SG5, and ETSI TE CC to develop a global methodology for enabling green industry development through ICT. The methodology has been verified in multiple testbed projects in Europe to ensure that it can be used for green applications and to promote green practices. In the future, we will work with related standards organizations to discuss and support the carbon handprint methodology in the EU data taxonomy. This is a scenario-specific approach to supporting the green development of both Europe and the entire world.

According to ITU’s analysis, 15–40% of global greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced through ICT. The energy industry is also looking for ways to use digital and AI to reduce their CO2 emissions. This is why the ITU-T SG5 L.1480 standard was established. Carbon handprints have many far-reaching, positive effects, such as reducing carbon emissions by changing our production methods and lifestyles. However, we also need to consider the possible negative effects. The next step is to use the ITU-T SG5 L.1480 standard as a blueprint for expanding and supporting corresponding tests and verifying standard applications, and then work with related research labs to promote the certification.

The ITU-T SG5 L.1480 Working Group has initiated a project and set up the corresponding Carbon Handprint Standard Working Group in ETSI’s Technical Committee (TC) for Environmental Engineering (EE). All of our work, progress, and documents will be aligned and discussed in a timely manner by the two working groups. The carbon handprint standard is refining scenarios and simplifying methods. ETSI TC EE will complete this work in the second half of 2024. We are also working with GeSI, EGDC, and AIOTI to optimize this method, and clarifying the complementary and collaborative relationships between this method and other green series standards. With regards to the work on incubating the green data platform for the evaluation and certification of reductions in CO2 emissions, we think that this can be implemented after further discussion and by setting up these topics in the corresponding standards organizations.

The use of ICT to enable carbon handprints is one of the seven pillars of the green and low-carbon standards system for China’s communications industry. This pillar also includes energy conservation, comprehensive resource utilization, green manufacturing, peak carbon emissions, carbon neutrality, the co-construction and sharing of resources, infrastructure construction and O&M, and the use of ICT for enablement. We have released guides on using digital tech to enable green development in China’s steel and cement industries. The guides cover topics such as digitalization, intelligence, green development, and low-carbon development. The aim is to reduce the carbon footprints of these industries through carbon handprints. CCSA believes that using ICT to enable carbon handprints means using digital tech to produce as many products and services as possible using as little energy and as few resources as possible, and this improves energy and resource efficiency, reduces carbon emissions, and minimizes carbon footprints. Unlike carbon footprints, carbon handprints have a positive impact on climate change, and the larger the carbon handprint, the better.

The HPC large-scale data center system is a power-intensive system and needs to be optimized so that it runs as efficiently as possible. Monitoring and optimizing data center operations is key to achieving sustainability, but it requires a lot of effort, especially in complex environments. AI can be used to build digital twins of data centers, and this is the key to enabling green data centers and improving energy efficiency. Unusual changes in energy consumption may be caused by intrusions, configuration errors, or inefficient O&M. Identifying such irregularities, guiding and promoting energy efficiency optimization measures, and using deep learning models to detect irregular operating modes is the key to increasing operational efficiency in large data centers. For the majority of data centers, the most energy-intensive process is transferring data. In the future, the energy efficiency of data centers needs to be optimized in the context of the data transfer architecture. Ideally, data should be centralized in a hyper-scale data center instead of distributed across data centers, to avoid the need for transfers between different data centers.

In 2050, it is likely that the carbon emissions of ICT will account for over one third (35.1%) of global carbon emissions because of its large-scale deployment. AI will likely account for the highest proportion of ICT’s carbon emissions. Will applying ICT and AI to digitally enabled green development increase our carbon footprint, or will they increase our carbon handprint and enable global zero carbon? Obviously, we hope that ICT and AI can play an active role in increasing our carbon handprint, but we need to also identify the negative effects that they could have. AI may increase energy consumption. Innovation labs should explore and analyze different ways and algorithms to reduce energy consumption and increase efficiency. We could increase energy efficiency and drive green development by using AI algorithms with smaller volumes of data and which require less processing. We can use AI industry mechanisms and policies to ensure that the development of AI is aligned with our green and sustainable development goals.

EIT Digital Europe is Europe’s largest digital innovation ecosystem. Our aim is to build a strong digital Europe. More and more EU startups and growth-stage companies are embracing green transformation through digital tech. Currently, EIT Digital covers more than 3,500 talented student innovation groups and more than 1,000 European innovation communities, and it has already received and distributed 16 million euros of funding for innovation projects. We work with more than 60 universities and 350 industry partners to run sub-offices in 23 European countries and regions and collaborate with more than 500,000 scholars. Our organization inspires talented student groups, and supports startups through the growth stage to guide systematic innovation towards social projects, and to enable green practices and applications. We focus on green digital innovation, data skills, and promoting innovation through Green Champion competitions.

The Fraunhofer HHI F5G OpenLab is committed to providing an industry ecosystem, enabling the digital and green transformations of industries through F5G optical networks, and verifying the effects of green transformation. We apply the passive optical network (PON) technology in various vertical industry scenarios such as industrial manufacturing and healthcare to improve the energy efficiency of network and OT convergence. HHI believes that F5G networks can reduce energy consumption in industrial scenarios. HHI’s F5G OpenLab provides the capabilities for implementing, testing, and verifying standardized methods, such as ITU-T L.1333 (for NCIe network carbon emission intensity). The F5G OpenLab works closely with AIOTI and ETSI F5G ISG to improve methodology optimization, calculation, and evaluation capabilities. The next step for HHI is to conduct a quantitative evaluation of enabling green CO2 benefits (as defined in ITU-T SG5 L.1480 for first- and second-order effects).

Europe has invested heavily in fulfilling its commitment to sustainably maintain and expand its rail network. These efforts aim to make railways greener and safer, and improve the performance of railway systems and the services that they provide. Regional and international standardization organizations are also supporting these efforts. ICT will play an important role in the achievement of these goals. For some goals, new system solutions have been identified and are being developed, while for other goals, the ICT industry needs to bring together all relevant stakeholders to propose new ideas and develop strategic solutions. The aim includes making rail travel a more competitive mode of transport and improving preventive maintenance capabilities.

Trains are already an environmentally friendly mode of transport, but they do not serve less central areas well, such as suburbs. The disadvantages of rail travel include: 1) Trains are not suitable for travelling distances of 200–500 km because long-distance trains only go between large transportation hubs, so passengers need to spend a lot of time travelling from their homes to such a hub, and from the arrival hub to their final destination. 2) Trains are not fast enough and take too long. 3) In most cases, trains are not scheduled frequently enough and this can be inconvenient. The advantages of rail travel include: 1) It accounts for 8% of the total passenger traffic and 18% of the total freight traffic, but only 0.4% of the total carbon dioxide emissions. 2) Trains can be more comfortable than driving or flying, and passengers can work while on the train. If we can make train journeys as speedy and convenient as driving or flying, we may see car/plane users switch to train travel, and this could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 16 million tons each year and save up to 9.6 billion euros in environmental costs. We need to innovate a comprehensive Omni-Shuttle transportation service for picking up and dropping off passengers at railway hubs. This will address some of the disadvantages of rail travel, help us capitalize on its environmentally friendly characteristics, and help us move towards green and multi-modal intelligent transportation.

Autonomous networks support the creation of Zero Bit, Zero Watt capabilities by providing rule-based automation and execution, implementing closed-loop energy saving management, and monitoring traffic trends based on prediction models. Autonomous networks have a role to play in autonomous domains. Self-planning and self-configuration capabilities enable more accurate planning and quicker construction of efficient energy networks, and also help to reduce resource waste. For each type of network, the energy saving requirements at each autonomous level may be different. Therefore, it is important to specify the definition of energy-saving autonomous network levels in the network strategy design. The L3 network can self-optimize based on its surroundings and adjust the status of telecom sites to improve energy efficiency. The L4 network can predict network traffic and automatically adjust infrastructure stability. The goal of the L5 network is to be capable of cross-domain autonomous management and enable all systems to operate independently, in order to improve the efficiency, energy conservation, and inclusiveness of cities. CSPs can improve personnel and resource efficiency because autonomous networks reduce the workload and risks for all workers and promote a safe and secure working environment.

5G connectivity and energy structure transformation are the tools that can help us reduce carbon emissions during the initial evaluations of green enablement initiatives. 5G helps reduce emissions. 5G can connect multiple devices and make scenarios greener than they would be without ICT solutions. Digital and virtualized management makes workflows greener. Using 5G to connect virtualized data flows makes daily operations greener, less labor-intensive, and more efficient than they would be without ICT solutions. Fast communication between devices and the Internet of Things (IoT) lightens workloads and reduces the energy consumption required to complete the work. For example, in ICT scenarios, AGVs and other devices communicate and handle work that was previously done by laborers, and this makes the process more efficient than it would have been without ICT solutions.

We must reach a global consensus on energy reconstruction for carbon neutrality and intelligent connectivity and we must promote these through collaboration. We advocate for the clean and efficient use of energy to promote low-carbon transformations in the industrial, construction, and transportation sectors. It is imperative that we accelerate new energy planning and system construction, while also strengthening the construction of the energy production, supply, storage, and sales systems to ensure energy safety. Major challenges: What is the best way to build a next-generation energy system that is cost-effective and that can resolve the key bottlenecks of carbon neutrality that constrain safe, green, and economical energy? Scientific challenges: Energy systems of different scales, with different resource attributes, and at different stages of development have complex and diversified intrinsic rules. What characteristics should the next-generation energy system have and how should it evolve? Countries and regions such as China, Europe, and the United States have formulated energy system development plans to cope with climate change, and are building future-oriented energy systems based on the intelligent transformation of existing energy and power systems. The construction of a next-generation energy system designed to achieve carbon neutrality is one of the most suitable and urgent topics for international cooperation.