ICT for Sustainable Growth

Policy

 

On March 12th, 2009, the Commission adopted a Communication on mobilising Information and Communication Technologies to facilitate the transition to an energy-efficient, low-carbon economy [COMM(2009) 111]. This has been followed by the Recommendation on mobilising Information and Communications Technologies to facilitate the transition to an energy-efficient, low-carbon economy [C(2009) 7604] adopted on October 9th 2009.

This Recommendation states that the ICT sector should lead the transition to an energy-efficient and low-carbon economy. The Commission calls on the ICT sector to agree on common methodologies for measuring energy consumption and carbon emissions by 2010. As a result, more reliable data should be available to set ambitious sector targets for energy efficiency and emission cuts by 2011. These sector targets should aim overtaking the EU's 2020 targets already by 2015.

Addressing EU Member States and the ICT sector, the Commission's Recommendation aims to unlock energy efficiency potential through more public-private partnership initiatives, like the ones recently launched by the Commission on energy efficient buildings and green cars [IP/09/1116], but also through partnerships between the ICT industry and defined strategic sectors.

The key potential benefits are illustrated by following points:

• If we are to make significant strides towards a low carbon society, we will need behavioural change at all levels of society. But we need to empower people for this to happen. ICTs can empower citizens and businesses to act by providing them with reliable data about their energy consumption: data that can tell them how much energy they are using and where, data that can enable them to compare their own energy expenditure – and carbon emissions - with others.
• Introducing ICTs into energy metering enables individuals at home to receive improved data on, and improved capabilities to manage, their energy consumption. As smart meters are being rolled out, it is important to ensure that real benefits of smart metering are extended to consumers and not just to suppliers of energy.
  
• Two of the most energy-consuming activities today are the operation of buildings and the transport of goods and people. Between them they account for 70% of energy demand in Europe. Both the public and private sectors have a stake in buildings and in transport services. But they face the same difficulties as the individual at home in identifying where energy is being wasted and what changes and choices need to be made to improve performance and save costs.
• ICTs can simplify the collection, processing and management of data such that it is readily available and easily accessible, and they can enable timely and informed decisions to be made in complex circumstances. The availability of reliable data – that is measured in a coherent and verifiable way - can help identify common inefficiencies, best practices and best opportunities for progress at sectoral and macro-economic levels.

There is clearly a need for the ICT sector to measure and manage its own footprint and develop a means to generate accurate and comparable data about its own energy and environmental performance.