Page 51 - Turning digital technology innovation into climate action

Turning digital technology innovation into climate action

6.3 Supporting the transition to a circular economy (CE) Chapter 6

As part of its mandate to minimise the environmental impacts of the ICT sector, ITU-T SG5 has
developed a series of international standards that provide ICT producers, designers and cities moving
towards to a CE with the relevant tools and guidelines to achieve this. These include:

• ITU-T L.1000 ‘Universal power adapter and charger solutions for mobile terminals and other
hand-held ICT devices’: provides high level requirements for a universal power adapter and
charger solution that will reduce the number of power adapters and chargers produced and
recycled by widening their application to more devices and increasing their lifetime. The solution
also aims to reduce energy consumption. The longer life cycle and possibility of avoiding device
duplication reduces the demand on raw materials and waste. The universal power adapter and
charger solution is designed to serve the vast majority of mobile terminals and other ICT devices.
• ITU-T L.1020 ‘Circular economy: Guide for operators and suppliers on approaches to migrate
towards circular ICT goods and networks’: suggests approaches of CE for information and
communication technology (ICT) goods and networks. It focuses particularly on the next steps
in improving circularity in the operators′ supply chain. The Recommendation provides a guide
on how operators could work with their supply chain to improve CE aspects for ICT goods and
networks through a manifesto intended to improve the circularity of products through supply
chain actions, but it does not provide metrics. The objective of the guide is to provide options
to improve circularity and to enable operators and their suppliers to create business models for
the promotion of circular networks for an optimum solution that uses all the loops of circularity
– from sharing to recycling. Specifically, the manifesto calls for the following:

a. increasing usage rates through sharing or virtualization;
b. extending the operating life-time of equipment through simplified maintenance and reuse;
c. the reuse/redistribution of equipment or components on other types of functions or in
other countries;
d. refurbishment and remanufacturing; and
e. recycling of all materials without using landfills or incineration at the final stage.

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