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This paper explores how companies and other stakeholders could assess the macro-level enabling potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), in other words, the ability of ICT to reduce the negative sustainability impact of other industry sectors at a society level, and identifies some important considerations for such assessments including impact trends, addressable emissions, boundary setting and ICT solution categories of particular interest. To illustrate the complexity of performing macro-level estimates of ICT’s enabling potential, this paper also discusses the 2020 enabling potential proposed by GeSI in their SMARTer2020 report. In addition, it investigates how organizations present GHG emissions reductions in different sectors where such reductions have already been achieved and finds that the claimed GHG emission reductions and energy savings would often need more details on calculations, methodology and background data., QC 20150410

There is a need for verification of the sustainability potential of an increasing number of smart city initiatives. This paper discuss a set of requirements necessary to consider when developing a methodology intended to evaluate the environmental and socioeconomic sustainability impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions at a city level. A smart city definition is chosen and a model of the city is proposed, dividing the city into service sectors where ICT solutions are expected to be implemented. Requirements on a quantitative methodology for assessing the sustainability potential of ICT solutions in cities are listed, including transparency in selection of city boundary and results, and the importance of setting realistic scenarios and using publicly available data. The methodology activities presented include defining system boundaries, building scenarios and assessing the solution at a city level, and scaling the solution between cities., QC 20130814

In this article we focus on the opportunities to use ICT to help cities reach their environmental targets and specifically how ICT can support reduction of energy use. We have developed an analytical framework to be able to identify ICT solutions opportunities that can support cities to decrease the energy use that origin from the inhabitants’ consumption in order to reach climate targets. We use a consumption perspective on energy and allocate all energy to the final consumers that are the individuals living in the city. The analytical framework can be used by city administrations and ICT solution companies for identification and mapping of ICT applications and solutions with opportunities for sustainable development in cities., QC 20130814

The positive and negative environmental impacts of information and communication technology (ICT) are widely debated. This study assesses the electricity use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to the ICT and entertainment & media (E&M) sectors at sector level, including end users, and thus complements information on the product level. GHGs are studied in a life cycle perspective, but for electricity use, only the operational use is considered. The study also considers which product groups or processes are major contributors. Using available data and extrapolating existing figures to the global scale for 2007 reveals that the ICT sector produced 1.3% of global GHG emissions in 2007 and the E&M sector 1.7%. The corresponding figures for global electricity use were 3.9% and 3.2%, respectively. The results indicate that for the ICT sector, operation leads to more GHG emissions than manufacture, although impacts from the manufacture of some products are significant. For the E&M sector, operation of TVs and production of printed media are the main reasons for overall GHG emissions. TVs as well as printed media, with the estimations made here, led to more GHG emissions on a global level in 2007 than PCs (manufacture and operation). A sector study of this type provides information on a macro scale, a perspective easily lost when considering, for example, the product-related results of life cycle assessments. The macro scale is essential to capture changes in total consumption and use. However, the potential of the ICT sector to help decrease environmental impacts from other sectors was not included in the assessment., QC 20100610. Uppdaterad från submitted till published (20101208)., Development of sustainability assessment tools for ICT