A recent study by the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (gesi.org) suggests that the internet releases around 900m tonnes of CO2 a year – 1.9% of the world’s CO2 emissions and as much as the aviation industry. In addition, the use of precious metals and rare earth minerals in IT equipment leads to even greater environmental impacts.

NRENs, and the wider ICT community have a responsibility to ensure they are working to be as environmentally sustainable as possible. One of the first steps is to create an Environmental Sustainability Policy.

Environmental Sustainability Policies help organisations and staff by giving guiding principles towards a sustainable future. An environmental policy is top management's declaration of its environmental commitment.

EMAS

For NRENs, such policies can be a key tool to demonstrate their environmental priorities to both the higher education community as well as the general (international) society. The GÉANT Green Team believes having an environmental policy is an important step towards a truly sustainable organisation.

The GÉANT Green Team is working hard to help promote environmental sustainability across the R&E community. We have developed a policy template to help NRENs to create their own environmental policy. By sharing experience and best practices across the NREN community we can make sure NRENs are doing their best to support sustainability. The goal is to have a large part of the NREN constituency adopt a policy, and use it to define objectives and targets for improving their environmental performance.

By developing and promoting an environmental policy, NRENs can motivate their teams to work for a sustainable future. These policies can reflect the basic principles guiding an NREN into improving their environmental performance.

Included in the template are examples of how the statements can be put into effect.