International standardization of environmental assessments at ITU-T
ICT services hold great potential to reduce CO2 emissions across society by increasing the efficiency of production processes and reducing the need to physically move people and materials. However, evaluation and comparison of the effectiveness of deploying ICT services like teleconferencing or e-commerce on a per-service basis requires the calculation of standard units for evaluating equipment energy consumption or different methods of transportation. These evaluation methods need to enable comparisons not only in Japan, but worldwide, making standardization all the more important.
Through the Focus Group on ICTs and Climate Change founded by the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG) in July 2008, the International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T*) has begun to develop internationally standardized methods for objectively evaluating the level of climate change mitigation made possible by utilizing ICT. The NTT Group is actively participating in this initiative.
* ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union Telecommunication Standardization Sector)
A department of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a United Nations agency that makes policy recommendations for developing international standards in telecommunications. Japan has participated in the ITU as a Council Member since 1959.
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Establishing an environmental label system for eco-friendly solutions
The NTT Group is working to establish an NTT Group Solution Environmental Label* System as a proprietary means of identifying those of its ICT solutions with notably low environmental impacts as eco-friendly solutions so as to better communicate their benefits to its customers.
*Environmental Label
A label that displays quantitative environmental information for a product or service (or explains that such information will be provided if requested). Japan's Ministry of the Environment has drawn up its Guidelines for Eco-Labeling in accordance with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).The NTT Group system is a self-declared environmental label (Type II) that is used for products that meet the criteria established by the declaring party's own standards.
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Assessing environmental contributions of research topics
Objective assessment of the positive environmental contribution of eco-friendly ICT services and products is a vital aspect of the R&D that goes into them. To this end, the NTT Information Sharing Laboratory Group conducts quantitative evaluations of environmental contributions for a range of specific research topics.
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Evaluating CO2 reductions enabled by thin client systems*
Calculations performed at NTT Communications regarding CO2 reductions enabled by the use of thin clients and free address (non-fixed seating) systems for offices with 1,000 users revealed that the resulting reduction in required office space and computer terminals would translate into an annual 46.3% reduction in CO2 emissions.
CO2 reductions through thin-client system deployment
*Thin client systems
A method for server-side management of application software and files so as to give only the minimum required processing capabilities to employee computers (clients) in corporate information systems. Since no data files are saved on the client side, thin clients can be used by any number of employees, thus reducing the number of clients needed.
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Studying the effects of i-channel service on CO2 reduction
Comparing CO2 emissions derived from the acquisition of news, weather, and other various types of information through the use of FOMA's i-channel service to the acquisition of such information through conventional media, NTT DOCOMO found that the average i-channel user achieves a CO2 reduction of approximately 2 kg per year. Based on the total number of i-channel users at the time the study was conducted, this result is equivalent to the amount of CO2 absorbed annually by 2.36 million cedar trees.
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