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

 

 

Sustainability Committee Drives Sector Progress on CO₂ Benchmarking and EU Taxonomy Inclusion

Oct 16, 2025
Committee News | Sustainability Committee |

Since the beginning of 2025, the Sustainability Committee has been working actively to encourage as many Council members as possible to join the FTTH Eco Platform. To date, more than 30 companies have joined — a strong achievement that the Committee aims to expand further by the end of 2025 and into 2026.

This summer, the Sustainability Committee launched the collection of CO₂ emissions data from participating organizations. Members have been asked to share their corporate carbon footprints, while manufacturers are also invited to provide life cycle assessment (LCA) results for record-keeping purposes. The collected data serves as the foundation for sector-wide calculations, providing participants with valuable, actionable benchmarking insights and enabling a clearer understanding of the fiber sector’s overall CO₂ footprint in Europe.

The first consolidated results will be shared with participants in November and further discussed during the Sustainability Committee meeting at the upcoming General Assembly.

The Sustainability Committee has consistently highlighted the importance of ensuring that the fiber sector is included in the EU Taxonomy. A key step toward this objective is the development of the Code of Conduct for the Sustainability of Telecommunications Networks. Over the summer, the European Commission opened its final consultation round on the second draft of this Code. Encouragingly, several of the FTTH Council’s comments submitted during the first consultation were adopted and reflected in the updated version.

The Sustainability Committee submitted additional input on the second draft at the end of September, and it is expected that by 2026, it will become clear whether the fiber sector will be formally integrated into the EU Taxonomy.

View all