In December 2019, the European Commission presented the European Green Deal with the ambition of making Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, boosting the economy, improving people's health and quality of life, caring for nature, and leaving no one behind.

Digitalisation will be at the core of this ambitious program and fibre is key to align the digital and sustainability agendas. As the most sustainable telecommunication infrastructure technology, full-fibre is a prerequisite to achieving the European Green Deal and making the European Union’s economy more sustainable.

The need to work collectively towards a more sustainable society has become a strategic objective of policy makers and the vast majority of private organisations alike. With this context in mind, the sustainability Working Group of the FTTH Council Europe has been created with two key objectives:

  • Promote full fibre as the most sustainable access network technology and enabler of multiple applications which can contribute to reducing the carbon footprint of our activities. Remote working and learning being the most obvious examples.
  • Support all stakeholders of the Fibre to the Home value chain in their efforts to make their respective activities more carbon neutral.

Insights from the Committee

 

 

FTTH Council Carbon Footprint Project Whitepaper

Mar 20, 2024
Reports & Studies | Sustainability Committee |

This whitepaper, an initiative of the Sustainability Committee of the FTTH Council Europe and officially presented at the FTTH Conference 2024 in Berlin, describes the FTTH Carbon Footprint Platform operational model and how the FTTH sector can jointly use this platform to respond to the ambitions and agreements towards decarbonization and Net-Zero, and the increasing regulations on ESG reporting, such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive ( CSRD).

The FTTH Council Europe's Carbon Footprint Platform aims to ensure companies can use the same standardized methodology and enhance the quality of sustainability information available to investors and partners throughout the chain, as demanded by legislation and guidelines such as the CSRD. This approach also makes it possible to communicate the decarbonization of the entire FTTH sector and create synergies around greenhouse gas (GHG )emission mitigation.

The more companies take part, the greater the accuracy of reporting and the easier it becomes to identify improvement opportunities and levers for individual companies and the sector. The focus is on “scope 3” of a company's carbon footprint: this refers to all indirect emissions that occur in a company's value chain, excluding those from scope 1 and scope 2 sources. Given the wide range of activities covered by Scope 3 emissions, accurately measuring them can be challenging. However, addressing Scope 3 emissions provides significant opportunities for reducing the overall carbon footprint and building more sustainable and resilient supply chains.

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