This week, Paris is hosting this year’s edition of Green Standards Week (GSW), an unmissable event for engineers, regulators, experts, government representatives and companies that know the value of rules or standards for building a green economy.
Organization of the event is in the hands of the ITU, with the support of such companies as Microsoft, Fujitsu, Huawei, Orange and Telefónica and sectoral associations like ETNO, TechAmerica and Digital Europe.
Telefónica will be present with a number of different sessions and presentations during GSW. This is our agenda:
Monday, September 17th: Silvia Guzmán, director of Sustainability and Corporate Reputation at Telefónica, will be taking part in the forum entitled Greener Smarter Better Cities, organized by the ITU and the European Commission. Specifically, Silvia will present the contribution of Telefónica’s Green ICT services to fostering the efficient use of resources in cities, according to the Company’s smart city model. The subsequent discussion is bound to bring up the need for standards to measure savings in resources such as energy, water and waste management for the development of efficient city-wide management models.
Tuesday, September 18th: Daniela Torres, Telefónica’s Line Manager for Green ICT and the Environment, as part of the panel entitled Greening the ICT Supply Chain, organized by the ITU, UNU and CEDARE, will speak about Telefónica’s Green ICT strategy and how it extends into the supply chain, especially under the low-carbon procurement model promoted by the Telefónica Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Office. The aim of this model is to speed up the achievement of our target for reducing energy consumption on networks, as well as ensuring energy efficiency attributes in the products we offer our clients.
Wednesday, September 19th: Silvia Guzmán, together with Malcolm Johnson, the director of the Telecommunication Standardization Board (TSB) of the ITU, will award the first prize, valued at 3,000 dollars (about 2,400 euros), in the Green ICT Application Challenge, a competition organized to reward the project that contributes the most to achieving Sustainable Energy for All.
Daniela Torres will be sharing her thoughts with other panellists on the subject of Greening the Economy through ICT Standards, organized by the ITU, TechAmerica Europe and Microsoft to discuss the importance of Green ICT services for companies such as Telefónica to promote a low-carbon economy by focusing on applications, cloud computing, M2M, etc.
Friday, September 21st: Andrés J. Figoli, Senior Legal Adviser at Telefónica International Wholesale Services, will joint a roundtable discussion as part of the day devoted to Submarine Communications Networks For Climate Monitoring and Disaster Warning, organized by the ITU, UNESCO-IOC and WMO.
In the course of the week, the following two technical documents, in which Telefónica has participated, will also be presented:
“Toolkit for environmental sustainability of the ICT Sector”: an ITU initiative including a detailed proposal in support of ICT companies in order to have environmental and sustainability principles included in their operations and organizations through the orderly use of standards and guidelines. The document has received inputs from close to 40 companies. Daniela Torres, Telefónica’s Line Manager for Green ICT and the Environment, has contributed by researching and authoring the chapter on general specifications and environmental KPIs.
“Review of mobile handset eco-rating scheme”: this document illustrates and describes the criteria and processes used by telecommunications companies and mobile handset manufacturers to define these devices’ environmental sustainability. The survey identifies the similarities and differences in the various eco-ratings used. Through Saul Jamieson, the Environment Manager at Telefónica O2 UK, and Daniela Torres, Telefónica has made a particular contribution to the technical contents, especially with its experience in rolling out its eco-rating model for the UK.
Lastly, in its conclusions, this document posits the need to standardize and develop a single tool for use by all stakeholders and now under discussion by ITU standardization group nº 5.
Green Standards Week offers the possibility to participate remotely through streaming video and audio. In addition, questions can be submitted through a moderator. If you prefer to follow the week on Twitter, use this hashtag: #GSW12
