EU GREEN WEEK 24-27 May

Brussels – Through its participation in the GREEN WEEK exhibition, ETNO will highlight the key role of broadband-enabled solutions and more energy-efficient broadband equipment in helping businesses and citizens to save energy and resources, in line with the theme of this year GREEN WEEK  ‘Resource Efficiency: Using Less, Living Better’.

“Thanks to their policies to optimise energy consumption of their networks, data centres and services, ETNO members have achieved a continuous decrease of their CO2 emissions, despite increase in data and voice traffic. A wider implementation of ICT based solutions by major emitting sectors could lead to a reduction of 15% of emissions worldwide by 2020”, says Danilo Riva, Chair of ETNO Corporate Responsibility Working Group.

Measures taken by ETNO member companies to reduce their carbon footprint and optimise their energy consumption include full free air cooling of data centres, telematics systems of fleet management and increased use of teleworking and video conferencing facilities.

ETNO member companies also have policies to ensure that end-user services and products are environmentally friendly, such as for instance modems and set top boxes. Through the Energy Task Force of its Corporate Responsibility Working Group, ETNO has launched the GREEN benchmark initiative which aims at developing more energy-efficient home gateways. The deployment of 25 millions of new home gateways both on ADSL and VDSL networks could contribute to a cut of CO2 emissions equivalent of those of half a million cars.

Solutions developed by ETNO members which can help citizens and businesses to reduce their carbon footprint and save energy include smart metering systems, sensor-based broadband applications for sustainable municipal management, systems for route and traffic management, video conferencing and teleworking, virtual hosting solutions, etc.

For the ICT sector to fully play its role in achieving the objectives recently outlined in the Commission Communication on a transition towards a low carbon economy, ETNO calls on policy makers to develop concrete incentives for companies in all sectors of the economy to opt for low-carbon broadband-enabled solutions.

Visit ETNO at the GREEN Week Exhibition on 24-27 May (Stand 43 – 2nd Floor, Charlemagne Building)

Click here to read the ETNO position on the EC roadmap towards a low carbon economy

ETNO’s 40 member companies from 35 European countries represent a significant part of total ICT activity in Europe. They account for an aggregate annual turnover of more than €250 billion and employ over one million people across Europe. ETNO companies are the main drivers of broadband and are committed to its continual growth in Europe.

For more information, please contact: Thierry Dieu, ETNO Communications Manager Tel:    (32-2) 219 32 42 Fax:  (32-2) 219 64 12 E-mail: dieu@etno.be