Energy Efficient ICT Infrastructure for a Greener Tomorrow Raffaele Bolla Department of Communication, Computer and Systems Science (DIST) University of Genoa Via all’Opera Pia 13, 16145, Genova (GE), Italy raffaele.bolla@unige.it Roberto Bruschi Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni (CNIT) Viale G.P. Usberti n. 181/A pal.3 43124 Parma (PR), Italy matteo.repetto@cnit.it Abstract‐ Information and Communication Technologies have been historically and fairly considered as a key objective to reduce and monitor “third‐party” energy wastes and achieve higher levels of efficiency. However, until recently, ICT has not applied the same efficiency concepts to itself, not even in fast growing sectors like telecommunications and Internet. As the Future Internet is taking shape, it is therefore recognised that, among other basic concepts and key aspects, energy efficiency should pervade the network infrastructure as a whole. Our vision is two‐folds and consists in (i) designing energy‐aware devices for next generation network, and in (ii) exploiting such devices for offering new “green” services to reduce the “third‐party” energy wastes. Introduction In the past, economy and performance have been the main driving factors in the development of mass products and services, while energy and ecology aspects have not been considered as much. Notwithstanding this approach, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have been historically and fairly considered as a key objective to reduce and monitor “third‐party” energy wastes and achieve higher levels of efficiency [1]. However, until recently, ICT has not applied the same efficiency concepts to itself, not even in fast growing sectors like telecommunications and Internet. Triggered by the increase in energy price, the continuous growth of costumer population, the spreading of broadband access, and the expanding number of services being offered by telecoms and Internet Service Providers (ISPs), only recently the energy efficiency issue has become a high‐priority objective also for wired networks and service infrastructures. In the last years, large set of telecoms, ISPs and public organizations around the world reported statistics of network energy requirements and the related carbon footprint, showing an alarming and growing trend. For example, as shown in [2], [3] and [4], energy consumption of the Telecom Italia network in 2006 has reached more than 2 TWh (ca. 1% of the total energy demand in Italy), increasing by 7.95% with respect to 2005, and by 12.08% to 2004. Similar energy requirements were reported by Telecom France with 2 TWh in 2006 and by British Telecom with 2.6 TWh in 2008 [4]. The European Commission DG INFSO report [5] estimated that European telecoms and operators had an overall network energy requirement equal to 14.2 TWh in 2005, which will rise to 21.4 TWh in 2010 and to 35.8 TWh in 2020 if no “green network technologies” will be adopted. The Global e‐Sustainability Initiative (GeSI) reported a similar estimation in [6], and weighted the carbon footprint of networks and related infrastructures at about 320 Mt of CO 2 emissions in 2020. GeSI reported that, during 2002, network infrastructures for mobile communication and for wired narrowband access caused the most considerable greenhouse contributions, since each of them weighs for more than 40% upon the overall network carbon footprint. The 2020 estimation suggests that mobile communication infrastructures will represent more than 50% of network CO 2 emissions, while, as far as wired networks are concerned, both telecoms’ devices (e.g. routers, switches, etc.), and broadband access equipment will cause ever growing and non‐negligible contributions, equal to 22% and to 15%, respectively. As the Future Internet is taking shape, it is therefore recognised that, among other basic concepts and key aspects, energy efficiency should pervade the network infrastructure as a whole to such extent as to become part of the network design criteria and to carry across multiple networking