GÉANT Special Interest Group – Sustainability (SIG-Sustainability)

Charter

I. Context and principles

1. GÉANT Special Interest Groups (SIGs) are established under the auspices of GÉANT in order to create an open forum where experts from its community exchange information, knowledge, ideas and best practices about specific technical or other areas of business relevant to the research and education networking community.

2. Motivations, aims and objectives:

The aim of this Special Interest Group (SIG) is to share information around each member’s sustainability ambitions. Each member has a different level of maturity and plans around environmental topics such as carbon footprint, regulatory requirements, responsible procurement, waste and water usage, supplier and client engagement and many other associated topics.

The aim of this SIG is to share each member’s plans and to learn together to develop the overall strength of the group in relation to sustainability. The group has the potential to consolidate potential purchases of environmental tools to ensure maximum value for each member of the group.

The main topics covered by the SIG would include, but are not limited to:

1. To provide a forum for gathering and exchanging experiences, ideas and knowledge of sustainability services within our domain.
2. To share information on sustainability projects and services within each members organisation.
3. To share information on regulatory requirements in relation to sustainability, e.g. CSRD.
4. To explore tools such as environmental dashboards that could be used by all members.
5. To share ideas and information around potential new funding sources in relation to sustainability.
6. To create a survey to ascertain the maturity and activity of each NREN in relation to sustainability.

The SIG will be known as SIG-Sustainability

2. Initiation

2.1 A GÉANT SIG can be initiated by any member of the GÉANT community based on the following conditions and steps:

2a. “At least 3 NRENs or other organisations support the creation of the SIG and are willing to actively participate.”

Three initial exploratory meetings have taken place, and it was agreed with all participants that there is enough common ground to warrant a new SIG with GÉANT. There were in the past GÉANT “Green Teams” which held similar ambitions; however, it is understood that these teams have dissolved.

There is increasing pressure from funding bodies and organisations such the European Union to ensure that ALL projects are run in a sustainable way and availability of funding may depend upon reaching specific environmental targets. It is imperative that NRENs are aware of these evolving standards and ensure compliancy.

Shared Microsoft Teams workspaces have been created with the initial group so that a common data store is available.

2b. “An initial Steering Committee (SC) of 3-5 individuals nominated by the supporting organisations is established by simple agreement of the requesting NRENs or other organisations.”

The following individuals agreed to be the first members of the SIG-MSP Steering Committee 

• Andy Byrne – HEAnet
• Laura de Kievit – SURF
• Clare Casey – JISC
• Dawn Hsu-hua Ng - GEANT

2c. “The SC informs GÉANT about the creation of the SIG by submitting the detailed Charter document.”

2d. “If GÉANT agrees, the new SIG has been created.”

2.2 “Once the SIG has been created, GÉANT will provide continuous support subject to yearly monitoring.”

3. Operations, composition, and roles

3.1 A SIG is to keep the strengths and interests of the community, to continue sharing and investigating within the spirit of openness and collaboration.

3.2 A SIG should act as a catalyst, organising virtual and face-to-face meetings, small workshops, training or BoFs co-located with other related group-meetings or relevant conferences.

3.3 Should the SIG produce any kind of results, these shall be made available in the public domain.

3.4 Participation in a GÉANT SIG is open to any clearly identified organisations or individuals, provided that the other SIG participants are sufficiently informed about their interest and intentions.

3.5 A SIG is collectively led by its SC (3-5 voluntary members) nominated by its participants and appointed by GÉANT for a two-year term of office that is interruptible and/or renewable.

3.6 The SC is responsible for the business of the SIG. The SC takes decisions primarily by consensus or by simple majority within the SC. If a decision cannot be made, GÉANT is responsible for the decision.

3.7 The SC is also responsible for producing brief annual reports to GÉANT about the progress of the SIG according to the pre-defined yearly plan and Key Performance Indicators.

4. Termination

4.1 A SIG has no pre-defined mandate or expiration date, but its support, subject to yearly monitoring by GÉANT, can be terminated if one of the following situations occurs:

• the SC has fewer than 3 members for a 3-month period;
• the SC collectively requests the termination of the SIG;
• the yearly assessment results are unsatisfactory;
• any of the SIG participants, subject to detailed investigation by GÉANT, explicitly requests the termination of the SIG;
• GÉANT decides to terminate the SIG.

4.2 Appeals by any of the SIG participants can be submitted to GÉANT; these shall be resolved within 3 months.

4.3 After detailed investigations of the aforementioned situations and potential appeals, the decision of GÉANT about the SIG support is final.

5. Resources and support

5.1 As long as the SIG is supported by GÉANT, GÉANT will provide the following services:

• mailing list(s) and public web archive(s) under the geant.org domain;
• maintenance of wiki page(s);
• website - on request and as decided to be appropriate by GÉANT;
• online survey tool - on request;
• social media, news, and annual report coverage – on request and as decided to be appropriate by GÉANT.

5.2 In the case of termination of GÉANT SIG support, the transition of services a), b), and c) to other providers is ensured by GÉANT.
5.3 Official minutes keeping, AV recording or other archiving is subject to discussion with the GÉANT employee assigned to support the SIG.

5.4 A SIG has no dedicated budget other than the expenses of GÉANT.

5.5 GÉANT may find internal or external funding sources (e.g., projects, commercial sponsors) to cover the expenses of SIG support, as appropriate.