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| Rec. No. | Title | Summary | Status | Approval Date |
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L.1022
| Circular economy: Definitions and concepts for circular economy for information and communication technology | Recommendation ITU-T L.1022 contains a guide to the circular economy (CE) aspects, parameters, metrics and indicators for information and communication technology (ICT) based on current approaches, concepts and metrics of the CE as defined in existing standards, while considering their applicability for ICT.
In this Recommendation ICT is defined based on the definition given by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (See [b-ISIC] in the Bibliography).
This Recommendation discusses the special considerations and challenges in a broader and more in-depth context for all ICT defining parameters, metrics and indicators with the intention to guide the vertical standardization of material efficiency for ICT.
The guidelines also aim to examine the kindsprovide overviews of CE related regulation and standards that are available and to assess their relevance for ICT product groups citing examples of interrelated relevance throughout the text of the Recommendation. | Consented / Determined | na |
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L.1203
| Colour and marking identification of up to 400 VDC power distributionfor information and communication technology systems | Recommendation ITU-T L.1203 defines the requirements and guidelines for DC power distribution identification by colour and marking in Telecom/ICT installations (wire, cables, electric distribution boards, interconnections, etc.). It avoids confusion and errors between the different AC and DC power interfaces and distributions used in buildings and inside Telecom/ICT systems, as 400 VDC power feeding interfaces standardized in Recommendation ITU-T L.1200 is used more, increasing power density of ICT equipment, energy efficiency, simplified reliable power feeding architecture, costs optimisation, etc. Recommendation ITU-T L.1203 supports the progressive introduction of up to 400 VDC installations in cohabitation with the existing -48 VDC and AC distribution. | Consented / Determined | na |
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L.1309
| Energy saving design for data centre considering harmonization of Cloud and Edge | With the rapid development of digitalization across most industry sectors, data processing through data centres has become increasingly necessary. As a result of the many different types of data application scenarios in areas such as the Internet, finance, transportation, and smart homes, cloud data centres and edge data centres have gradually been established to meet these needs.
With the widespread deployment of cloud and edge data centres, energy savings have become increasingly important for data centres worldwide.
The objective of this Recommendation is to clarify the requirements for designing the energy-saving aspects of cloud and edge data centres and to promote their wider adoption on a large scale in the future.
| Consented / Determined | na |
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L.1312
| Guidelines on Multi-Dimensional Environmental Metrics and Management for Data Centres | This Recommendation establishes a multi-dimensional framework for assessing the environmental performance of data centres across their life cycle. It defines a set of metrics covering energy efficiency, resource efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact, and provides a method to aggregate these into a comprehensive evaluation metric. In addition, it identifies key metrics across life cycle stages and offers guidance for their effective management, supporting improved environmental sustainability and informed decision-making for data centre design and operation. | Consented / Determined | na |
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L.1331
| Assessment of mobile network energy efficiency | Recommendation ITU-T L.1331 aims to provide a better understanding of the energy efficiency of mobile networks. The focus of this Recommendation is on the metrics and methods of assessing energy efficiency in operational networks.
The networks considered are those whose size and scale could be defined by topologic, geographic or demographic boundaries.
This Recommendation explains how to extrapolate the measurements made on partial networks to the level of the total network. Such a simplified approach is proposed as a way of making approximate energy efficiency evaluations at the level of network elements and cannot therefore be considered sufficient for the entire network operation including, for example, transport. | Consented / Determined | na |
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L.1401
| Guidelines for Data Annotation for GHG emissions Verification Knowledge Graph | This Recommendation provides guidelines for data annotation for GHG emissions verification knowledge graphs. It specifies requirements, principles, and methods for data collection, ontology modelling, data annotation and data quality management to support the construction, maintenance, and application of GHG emissions verification knowledge graphs.
The Recommendation supports the consistent and interoperable annotation of GHG emissions-related data derived from multiple sources, including industrial processes, energy consumption activities, supply chains, and carbon accounting systems. It provides guidance for knowledge representation, semantic association, information exchange, and data integration among GHG emissions verification systems, applications, and services.
By establishing a standardized data annotation framework, this Recommendation facilitates the development and deployment of knowledge graph-based GHG emissions verification solutions and supports the effective organization and utilization of GHG emissions verification data. | Consented / Determined | na |
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L.1413
| Guidelines for the assessment of the carbon footprint of a smartphone | This Recommendation provides specific principles and requirements for evaluating the carbon footprint of smartphones. In the context of environmental impact assessment where continuous improvements are searched, this Recommendation aims to improve the accuracy, consistency and transparency of carbon footprint assessments results for such products.
The Recommendation establishes a guideline tailored to smartphones, including guidance on handling smartphone-specific aspects such as the contribution of key components, the modelling of use-phase electricity consumption, the transport of globally sourced parts, and end-of-life treatment. It is intended to help stakeholders comprehensively understand the carbon emissions across the entire smartphone life cycle and to identify key mitigation strategies, from design and material selection to software optimization and circular economy practices.
The work will consider relevant existing frameworks such as ITU-T L.1400-series of Recommendations (in particular ITU-T L.1410), ISO 14067, and the Eco-rating initiative on smartphones, to ensure consistency with these frameworks.
| Consented / Determined | na |
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L.1414
| Guidelines for the assessment of the carbon footprint of a server | This Recommendation provides general principles to evaluate the carbon footprint of servers, a product category characterised by continuous operation, power consumption that varies significantly with load levels, integrated cooling subsystems, and a use phase that typically dominates the total life cycle emissions. In the context of environmental impact assessment where continuous improvements are searched, this Recommendation aims to improve the accuracy, consistency and transparency of carbon footprint assessments for such products.
The Recommendation establishes a guideline tailored to servers, including guidance on server-specific aspects such as the contribution of high-impact components, the modelling of use-phase electricity consumption under different load levels, the handling of extended operating lifetime through refurbishment and reuse in secondary markets, and end-of-life treatment with emphasis on high-value component recovery. It is intended to help stakeholders comprehensively understand carbon emissions across the entire server life cycle and to identify key mitigation strategies, from hardware design and material selection to workload optimisation and circular economy practices.
The work considers relevant existing frameworks such as ITU-T L.1400-series of Recommendations (in particular ITU-T L.1410), ISO 14067, to ensure consistency with these frameworks.
| Consented / Determined | na |
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L.1415
| Guidelines for the assessment of the carbon footprint of Lithium-ion Battery Products for ICT application | This Recommendation provides general principles for guiding relevant parties to calculate the product carbon footprint of lithium-ion battery products and improve the transparency and consistency of carbon footprint assessment of lithium-ion battery products for ICT application.
Lithium-ion battery products do not fall within the scope of information and communication technology goods, networks and services. However, to maintain consistency with the assessment framework for the carbon footprint of ICT products, the chapter structure of this Recommendation references the Recommendation ITU-T L.1410.
The content includes general requirements, goal and scope definition, inventory analysis for product carbon footprint (PCF), impact assessment of PCF, interpretation for PCF and so on. It will help relevant stakeholders to better understand the carbon emissions of lithium-ion battery products and identify the emission reduction potential of such products in all aspects of the entire life cycle.
| Consented / Determined | na |
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L.1472
| Requirements for the creation of an ITU database on energy consumption and GHG emissions of the ICT sector | This Recommendation provides the requirements to support the creation of an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) database on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the Global information and communication technology (ICT) sector at worldwide level and at a national level. The guidance is intended to support ITU in establishing such a database. | Consented / Determined | na |
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L.1492
| Framework of greenhouse gas emission management system for virtual power plant application | This Recommendation provides a framework and functional requirements for a greenhouse gas emission management system (GHGEMS) for virtual power plant (VPP) applications. The Recommendation defines a three-layer architecture consisting of a data layer, a computation layer and a management layer. The data layer supports multi-source data acquisition, pre-processing, storage. The computation layer supports greenhouse gas (GHG) emission accounting, energy efficiency assessment, greenhouse gas emission forecasting and greenhouse gas emission reduction contribution accounting. The management layer supports emission monitoring and visualization, decision support on greenhouse gas management, VPP dispatching coordination and user carbon disclosure. This Recommendation is intended to guide the construction and operation of GHGEMS for a variety of VPP operational scenarios.
| Consented / Determined | na |
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L.1493
| Framework and methodology for assessing ICT-based virtual power plants to climate change mitigation | This Recommendation aims to establish a methodological framework for assessing the contribution of VPP to mitigating climate change. As the global net-zero process accelerates, VPPs, as a key means of integrating distributed energy resources and enhancing system flexibility and low-carbon dispatch capabilities, are increasingly valued. However, there is currently a lack of unified methodology globally to measure the GHG emission reduction effects achieved by VPPs.
This Recommendation will propose unified terminology, definitions, methodologies for setting assessment boundaries, assessment model, and methodologies for identifying technological pathways, which are supporting the assessment of GHG emission reduction by enablement of different types of Virtual Power Plants operation. | Consented / Determined | na |
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L.1802
| Energy saving strategy for deep learning computing | This Recommendation identifies energy-saving strategies and technologies for deep learning AI computing procedures. It also provides best-practice recommendations on when and how these technologies should be used in deep learning AI computing, thereby reducing the energy consumption of AI computing centres or AI computing platform systems.
| Consented / Determined | na |
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L.1901
| Framework and Requirements of Environmentally Sustainable Computing | This draft Recommendation provides environmentally sustainable computing framework and requirements for the ICT sector and enterprise ICT systems in other sectors. Environmentally Sustainable Computing (ESC) not only focuses on ICT infrastructure in data centres and telecommunication rooms, but also considers the entire infrastructure, cloud computing platforms and applications in a coordinated manner to ensure environmental sustainability across the whole service. It helps improve efficiency and reduce GHG emissions in the ICT sector, while further expanding the role of ICT-enable technologies in reducing carbon emission across other sectors globally.
| Consented / Determined | na |
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L.1411
| Guidance on simplified life cycle assessments of Information and Communication Technologies | | Approved | 2026-05-22 |
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L.1421
| Methodologies for greenhouse gas emissions accounting for base station sites | With the continuous large-scale application of 4G/5G, as well as the rapid research and application layout of future 6G technology, the construction and application scale of communication base stations have been accelerating, which has led to a surge in energy and resource consumption. Whether through direct or indirect emissions, telecommunications operators generate a relatively large amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the process of maintaining the normal operation of base stations, with relatively diverse sources.
This draft Recommendation makes a brief introduction of base station sites, with description on classification and facilities composition which are supporting the networking business belongs to telecom operators. After that, we identify the source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which are from the telecom operators’ activity on operating base station sites, in Scope 1, 2 and 3 based on the guidance of GHG Protocol, ITU-T L.1420, ITU-T L.Suppl.57 and other relevant standards. Then, an accounting method is provided to support the assessment of the GHG emissions of Base Stations sites. This draft Recommendation identifies the relevant categories in Scope 3 to be considered in base station sites related activities from telecom operators.
The development of base station sites is booming with large-scaled application of the 5th generation (5G) mobile communication technology, relevant GHG emissions from the activities by telecom operators should be much particularly looked at. Based on study and output of this Recommendation, it may help identify the key approaches on GHG emissions reduction for base station sites in the future.
In Scope 3 of GHG emissions related to base station sites activities, we have extensively referenced content from ITU-T L Suppl.57. This is to maintain consistency in relevant accounting from an organizational perspective (of telecom operators) while conducting GHG emissions allocation specifically for the operations and activities of base stations. To maintain synergy and consistency with this standard (ITU-T L Suppl.57), and to ensure convenience and coherence in reading and using the overall content of this Recommendation, appropriate clarification, summarization, and modification have been made to the referenced content. | Approved | 2026-03-09 |
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L.1520
| Enablement indicator of information and communication technologies to other sectors and best practices to achieve Net Zero goal | Recommendation ITU-T L.1520 defines the enablement indicators of information and communication technologies (ICT) to other sectors and provides ICT enablement evaluation methods. The application of the best practices provided in this draft Recommendation can help owners and managers of organizations in reducing the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission by applying ICT, such measures could also reduce other sectors' impact on climate change.
| Approved | 2026-03-09 |
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L.1801
| Guidelines for assessing the environmental impact of artificial intelligence systems | Recommendation ITU-T L.1801 provides a methodology for assessing environmental impact of artificial intelligence (AI) systems. The methodology is based on the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology standardized in Recommendation ITU-T L.1410 (or its equivalent ETSI ES 203 199) and the method for enabling effects for other sectors standardized in Recommendation ITU-T L.1480 (or its equivalent ETSI ES 204 087). The guidance in this Recommendation focuses on AI system specific aspects that need to be taken into account in the assessment. Aggregation of AI impact on the international, national, or regional level is not part of this Recommendation.
| Approved | 2026-02-06 |
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L.1041
| Resource saving, e-waste reduction and energy saving system methodology using twisted single-pair cable | Recommendation ITU-T L.1041 proposes a new system that simultaneously provides power supply and communications using a single twisted-pair cable. Traditionally, power and communications have been provided through separate cable systems. However, by twisting the power cable, this new approach enables both functions to be delivered through a single cable to all devices.
The new cable system offers multiple advantages including reduced cable resource usage, minimized waste generation and improved efficiency in installation and maintenance. It also promotes reuse and recycling of components, supports long-term utilization of cable systems and ultimately contributes to conserving both resources and energy.
In addition, this cable system limits power supply to a maximum of 90 W per cable (DC 60 V/1.5 A), which supports energy efficiency and the miniaturization and weight reduction of components and devices, while also enhancing electrical safety.
Furthermore, since power and communication can be provided simultaneously to all terminals, it enables energy consumption control through artificial-intelligence-based power management. This contributes to building a new ecosystem that supports the realization of a sustainable society.
| Approved | 2025-12-14 |
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L.1210
| Sustainable power-feeding solutions for IMT-2020 networks | Recommendation ITU-T L.1210 defines power-feeding solutions for IMT-2020, converged wireless and wireline access equipment and networks, taking into consideration their enhanced requirements on service availability and reliability and new deployment scenarios, along with the environmental impact of the proposed solutions.
The minimum requirements of different solutions, including power-feeding structures, components, backup, safety requirements and environmental conditions, are also defined.
This Recommendation is applicable to the powering of both mobile and fixed access network elements, in particular equipment that has similar configurations and needs.
| Approved | 2025-12-14 |
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L.1211
| Smart controlling methods for photovoltaic systems installed in base station sites | Recommendation ITU-T L.1211 establishes smart photovoltaic (PV) control methods for base station sites, mainly including DC power supply architecture, single-module control technology, voltage tracking technology and PV fault diagnosis methods to solve common problems such as low conversion efficiency, the impact of shadow on power generation, time-varying power generation, reliable power supply and high maintenance costs of a PV base station.
The Recommendation also considers the benefits of PV base stations in energy saving, carbon reduction and typical practices.
| Approved | 2025-12-14 |
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L.1308
| Guidelines for the implementation of low-carbon data centres to climate change mitigation and adaptation | Low-carbon data centres can effectively reduce energy consumption, reduce dependence on fossil energy, promote sustainable energy use, and reduce carbon emissions, which contribute to the global response to climate change, and reduce the negative impact on the environment. Low-carbon data centres can reduce operating costs, enhance the competitiveness of enterprises, and promote the data centre industry to be green and efficient.
Recommendation ITU-T L.1308 identifies the guidelines for the implementation of low-carbon data centres throughout their whole life cycle for climate change mitigation and adaptation, including:
1)Site selection stage: choose a suitable construction site, including the abundance of renewable resources, the suitability of the natural environment, sufficient natural energy sources, and accessibility to transport;
2)Design stage: including guidelines on architecture and environment, clean energy supply, cooling, power equipment, information technology (IT) equipment and water sources;
3)Procurement stage: including guidelines on building materials and electrical and mechanical equipment;
4)Construction stage: including guidelines on the on-site environment, construction vehicles and equipment, etc.;
5)Operational stage: including guidelines on renewable energy usage, monitoring and intelligent management system;
6)Decommissioning and recycling stage: including guidelines on demolition and recycling.
| Approved | 2025-12-14 |
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L.1322
| Multi-level metrics for thermal environment and thermal performance of data centres | Recommendation ITU-T L.1322 specifies a quantitative evaluation framework for the thermal environment of data centres characterized by high heat-flux density, stringent environmental requirements, and refrigeration systems with year-round operation. The framework defines multi-level indicators: room-, row-, cabinet-, device-, and chip-level, covering airflow organization and cooling effectiveness. The framework supports identifying hot spots, optimizing airflow patterns, reporting safety levels, and quantifying energy use and savings potential, and it enables comparison across data centres of different sizes, layouts, and airflow schemes.
| Approved | 2025-12-14 |
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L.1341
| Functional requirements for energy efficiency in intelligent Internet of things platforms | With the rapid growth of IoT platform technology, many sensors and devices can be connected. IoT applications require energy efficiency because most IoT devices run on constrained battery power. IoT applications involve many smart devices, making energy issues more essential for decreasing carbon footprints and costs. Moreover, energy efficiency is crucial because IoT platforms comprise many interconnected devices and services that require a lot of energy. With the strong emergence of AI nowadays, the IoT platform is integrated with AI to enhance the decision-making process in the IoT platform, improving the value of the data generated by the IoT platform. The integration between the IoT platform and AI functionality gave rise to a new paradigm called the intelligent IoT platform.
Recommendation ITU-T L.1341 specifies the functional requirements essential for achieving sustainable and robust energy efficiency in intelligent Internet of Things (IoT) platforms. These platforms, defined as comprehensive technological frameworks integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and edge computing, face significant energy challenges due to the computational complexity introduced by AI and the collective power demand of a massive volume of interconnected devices. Recognizing that the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and the immense scale of IoT deployments introduce significant energy consumption challenges, this document mandates a holistic approach to energy management across the entire system. This Recommendation first identifies considerations for energy management in intelligent IoT platforms in respect of hardware specifications, data collection and processing, AI models and operation and management. Functional requirements for energy efficiency in intelligent IoT platforms are then addressed in regard to intelligent data acquisition and processing, energy-efficient communication protocols, dynamic AI resource management, energy monitoring and management, AI-enhanced energy optimization and lifecycle energy efficiency management. In addition, best practices to improve energy efficiency in intelligent IoT platforms are given in Appendix I, with energy-aware IoT architecture design, energy-efficient data management, green networks and communication, AI-based energy optimization, energy harvesting and sustainable power solutions and cooperative energy saving techniques with the edge and cloud.
| Approved | 2025-12-14 |
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L.1385
| Smart energy solutions for the manufacturing industry | Recommendation ITU-T L.1385 provides smart energy solutions, which can be utilized in the manufacturing industry. It defines the framework for industrial smart energy management system for different manufacturing scenarios. This Recommendation also provides use cases and guidance for application of smart energy solutions to the manufacturing industry. On the premise of ensuring energy reliability, this Recommendation provides reference for the industrial sectors to improve energy efficiency levels in various aspects such as green energy transformation, energy monitoring, management, scheduling and decision-making.
| Approved | 2025-12-14 |