Introduction to ‘Green ICT’ Environmental issues are becoming a part of the agenda in almost any kind of technology policy debate. Information Communication Technology or ICT is often seen as the technical solution, which can help us avoid climate change as well as other environmental problems. At the same time the production and use of ICT equipment is energy consumptive and an increasing share of the energy consumption is related to ICT. This special issue of Telematics and Informatics on ‘green ICT’ addresses technology as well as strategic and policy issues concerning the relationship between ICT development and the environment. It focuses on the role of ICT in development of more intelligent processes for sustainable production and consumption. This includes: Direct effects: Consumption of energy and non-renewable resources in the ICT sector. How can hardware and software production and network architecture become greener? Enabling effects: How can ICT reduce energy consumption in other sectors: Video conferencing instead of travelling, home work place, intelligent traffic systems, smart buildings, etc. Systemic effects: Green ICT as a model for innovation. How can green ICT change the way we live and work and result in a reorganization of production and consumption. This special issue covers a variety of topics, ranging from the effects of ICT on environmental sustainability; the relation- ship between ICTs, the environment, and climate change; cleaner technologies and smarter ICT applications; intelligent management of energy consumption; the importance of innovation and new technologies in tackling environmental challenges; green ICT business models and innovation strategies for green ICT; and education, training and public awareness on green ICT. The issue opens with a rather philosophical and reflective essay by Benjamin Cramer on ‘‘Man’s Need or Man’s Greed: The Human Rights Ramifications of Green ICTs’’. Cramer contends that here is burgeoning enthusiasm for the benefits of ‘green’ ICTs. However, a common oversight among environmental activists and conscientious consumers, not to mention policy- makers, is the assumption that usage of a product is the only segment of that item’s lifecycle with environmental impacts. Pre-manufacture and post-disposal challenges tend to be forgotten in state or corporate boosterism about ‘green’ technol- ogies in telecommunications, with the costs being suffered by peoples and ecosystems far away from consumers. Further- more, human rights are at stake, with a conflict brewing among modern conceptions of human rights concerning telecommunications, development, and environmental protection. Cramer argues that these unappreciated environmental and human rights factors must be considered by policymakers who promote the benefits of ‘green’ ICTs. The article analyzes the conflicts between ‘green’ ICT boosterism, by policymakers and manufacturers, and the human rights of the persons other than consumers who are affected by the ICT product lifecycle. The article combines a qualitative review of the environmental impacts of ICTs with a policy analysis of international human rights regulation. Cramer concludes with an argument that the nations of the world should acknowledge communications- and environment-oriented human rights when formulating technology policy and telecommunications policy, with a discus- sion of the political and social ramifications of failing to acknowledge these burgeoning human rights issues. Inge Røpke and Toke H Christensen, observe that, though the environmental implications of ICT have been studied since the early 1990s, the assessment of the energy impacts of ICT integration in everyday life is still inadequate. The purpose of their article is to complement the existing research by applying a perspective from which everyday life takes centre stage. A theoretical framework for describing and analysing the energy impacts of everyday life is outlined, based on a combination of practice theory and time geography. The framework is applied to a discussion of how ICT co-develops with changing everyday practices and energy-demanding features of everyday life. Based on empirical findings, the authors explore how the use of ICT affects practices in relation to time and space, and they argue that the changes may increase energy consump- tion considerably. Their findings do not suggest that the integration of ICT in everyday practices inherently results in a more 0736-5853/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2012.05.001 Telematics and Informatics 29 (2012) 335–336 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Telematics and Informatics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tele