The telecoms industry has four main goals when it comes to going green and achieving sustainability, says the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), a technical planning and standards development organizations for the industry, who more or less summed it up in its Report on Environmental Sustainability earlier this month.

Developed by the ATIS Exploratory Group on Green (EGG) on behalf of the ATIS Board of Directors, the report holistically assesses areas of sustainability in relation to the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. Chaired by Harald Braun, President and CEO, Harris-Stratex Networks, companies represented in the EGG included Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, BT, Bechtel, Cisco Systems, Ericsson Inc., Juniper, NetTraffic, Nortel, Qwest Communications, Verivue, and Verizon Communications.

In a nutshell, ATIS says that the telecoms industry should considered initiatives in four areas when it comes to going green:

Educating policy makers and legislators on the ICT industry’s position to help develop greenhouse gas reducing solutions

Developing and implementing internal sustainability policies and programs — taking into account the Triple Bottom Line (economic, ecological and social success)

Enacting simple energy saving practices to reduce the consumption of energy, such as performing energy audits on a per facility basis and outlining actions towards reducing energy consumption, such as retiring and de-powering obsolescent or underutilized equipment.

Pro-actively seeking ways in which ICT solutions can be readily adopted in reducing the carbon footprint of a number of industries, including transport; power; logistics; and others.

The report evaluated various sustainability aspects including: the ICT sector’s definition of “sustainability”; a review of the ICT sector’s current “green” initiatives; an examination of energy efficiency practices and alternate energy sources; an outline of the business drivers behind the ICT sector’s sustainability actions; and a demonstration of the ICT industry as an enabler of applications and services that improve energy efficiency in other sectors. The report also includes a number of considerations and recommendations that, if applied, can enable the ICT community to achieve greater sustainability vis-à-vis network facilities, enterprise and home networks, applications and services, and corporate operations.

“The ATIS Report on Environmental Sustainability broadly addresses a burgeoning area in ICT,” said Susan Miller, ATIS President and CEO. “This report provides a roadmap toward industry’s continued sustainability, and ensures those actions are balanced against industry’s environmental responsibility, social acceptance, and economic viability. Going forward, applications of the identified methods can enable industry to improve efficiency and reduce its carbon footprint.”