The challenge
Information and communications technology (ICT) can promote sustainability in significant ways. For example, software-based processes enable industrial companies to conserve a great deal of energy and shrink their carbon footprint. Yet ICT also presents companies with numerous sustainability challenges, since many devices—mobile phones, tablets, and laptops—contain conflict materials.
How big is the sustainability benefit delivered by individual ICT products and services? So far, the answer to this question has been difficult to quantify. Previous metrics focused almost exclusively on environmental impact. The Global e-Sustainability Initiative, an industry association, wanted to change this. In 2014, it set itself the goal of developing a consistent and practical system for evaluating the overall sustainability performance (not just the environmental performance) of individual ICT products and services.
Our role
Für die wissenschaftliche Entwicklung des Bewertungssystems holte GeSI das Öko-Institut als Partner an Bord. Stakeholder Reporting übernahm die Gesamtprojektleitung für die Konzept- und Implementierungsphase. In zwei Multi-Stakeholder-Workshops wurden internationale Experten in die Entwicklung des Bewertungssystems einbezogen. Zudem leisteten wir konzeptionelle Unterstützung bei der Entwicklung einer geeigneten Online-Lösung. Webinare und Anwendertrainings für die Mitgliedsunternehmen des Branchenverbands rundeten unsere Leistung ab.
The solution
- design a sustainability assessment framework (SASF): a management tool for assessing the sustainability performance of ICT products and services
- assess three sustainability dimensions (environment, human rights, and customer benefit, with numerous sub-criteria), while also assessing against sustainable development targets
- make the SASF available to all GeSI member companies in a pilot phase (started in June 2016)
- create the potential for future sustainability labeling that helps customers decide which services and products to purchase.
Transformational potential
- provide the first systematic assessment of the sustainability performance of ICT products and services
- SASF gives ICT companies another reason to make their products more sustainable
- SASF-based B2C communications can, over the long term, promote the marketing of sustainable ICT products.
