2011 The Power of Innovation G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 A CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE ON GREEN ICT Network infrastructures to curb carbon emissions ITU Green Standards Week Rome, Italy Session 8: September 8 th 2011 Dr. Charles Despins

2011 The Power of Innovation G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 Green ICT in Canada Prompt: Industry-university R&D consortium headquartered in Montreal, Canada; Mixed public & private sector funding; 30 industry members and 12 university members; Focus on various industry vertical markets (Green ICT since 2008). Sources: Climate Check, WWF Canada ICT in Canada: Represents 1 megaton of GHG emissions (<1%); Application in various sectors could curb GHG emissions by 20 megatons per year: M cars off the road - 7% of Canadas annual Kyoto obligations. Estimated annual benefits: $7.5B-$12.9B. 2

2011 The Power of Innovation G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 From energy efficiency to GHG emission reductions Many Green ICT R&D initiatives focus on energy efficiency: Cost driver e.g. for the data-intensive wireless industry; A theme on which ICT researchers traditionally excel. However, the link between energy efficiency and GHG emission reductions can be but is not always direct … ICTs operate 24/7 and produce scope 2 GHG emissions If power grid is based entirely on fossil fuels, the link between energy consumption and GHG emissions is direct … BUT … Power grids are often a mix of fossil-fuel (cheap) and clean energy (more expensive) sources … utilities will leverage energy efficiency gains to limit the use of clean energy sources. In such cases, energy efficiency gains thus translate into zero gains in terms of GHG emission reduction … 3

2011 The Power of Innovation G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 Green ICT: maximizing economic & environmental benefits 1. Integrate ICT design with power generation considerations Requires holistic approach involving different ICT subsectors, power generation and sustainable development experts 2. Develop GHG emission standards for ICT ISO14064 protocol is difficult to apply in the ICT sector The ITU is a leader in developing such standards to quantify the GHG emission reduction potential of ICTs. 3. Tap research funds targeted to GHG emission reductions In many jurisdictions, these funds are managed by environment departments who may not always sufficiently aware of the G-ICT opportunity The ICT research community has yet to significantly tap these sources of funds … 4

2011 The Power of Innovation G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 The carbon market: cap & trade perspectives GHG emission limits are gradually being imposed throughout the world in various industry sectors The ICT sector is not one of these … so far … Taxes on fossil fuels are often directed to GHG emission reduction funds Cap & trade regimes are being proposed e.g. North America Purchasing & trading of carbon credits if emission caps are exceeded ICT GHG standards will allow the ICT industry to participate in thiscarbon economy Examples of cap & trade proposals and GHG registries Western Climate Initiative ( 7 USA states & 4 Canada provinceswww.westernclimateinitiative.org Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative ( 10 USA (northeast) stateswww.rggi.org 5

2011 The Power of Innovation G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 Greenstar (GSN): a zero-carbon telecom network pilot project 6

2011 The Power of Innovation G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 Greenstar (GSN): a zero-carbon network pilot GSN objectives and underlying principles: –GSN: an open architecture ICT service delivery network –Leverage virtualization concepts so that user applications can be moved, in a seamless way for the user, to data centers in close proximity to renewable energy sources. –Renewable energy use is also optimized within GSN: energy loss in transmitting power is higher than when data is moved over networks. –Development of ICT GHG emission standards (ITU link). –Utilize GSN to generate carbon credits in a perspective of selling such credits generated by relocation of service implementation within GSN. 7

2011 The Power of Innovation G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 Greenstar partners Partners (Canada): Université du Québec à Montréal SIGMACO Canadian Standards Association (CSA), Climate Change Division Spain Ireland USA BelgiumChina Partners (international): 8

2011 The Power of Innovation G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 Going forward … Extend virtualization concept to backbone and access portions of networks: e.g. Router and switching virtualization; Wireless access virtualization: Only 15% of energy consumed by a base station is radiated; Virtualize signal processing functions with radio-over-fiber architectures; Build upon initial work in GENI (USA) and 4WARD (FP7-EU). ICT is a (relatively unexploited) low-hanging fruit in terms of GHG emission reductions: Fossil fuel sources wont vanish in the foreseeable future … Climate change dilemma: reconciling economic and environmental benefits often perceived as difficult to achieve. ICT opportunities: intelligent transport systems, domotics, industry processes, etc. 9

2011 The Power of Innovation G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September 2011 Any jurisdiction exploiting renewable sources of energy can be a hub for the 21st century, digital, low-carbon economy. Virtualizing ICT infrastructure and co-locating data centers with renewable energy sources: Green benefit: energy efficiency (resulting from transmission of data instead of energy) and GHG emission reductions. Digital benefit: economic incentive for (regional) network deployments. Productivity benefit: economic incentive for investment in ICT products and services. Green ICT & the digital economy Sustainable development & economic development

2011 The Power of Innovation G-ICT Green Information & Communications Technologies © Prompt inc. ITU Green Standards Week, September For more information on Prompt Dr. Charles Despins President & CEO ext. 101 Mr. Jacques Mc Neill Green ICT Coordinator ext. 105 For more information on Prompt: For more on these G-ICT concepts: C. Despins et al., Leveraging Green Communications for Carbon Emission Reductions: Techniques, Testbeds and Emerging Carbon Footptint Standards, IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 49, no. 8, August 2011, pp