NGMN - Green Future Networks - Eco Design v1.0

Green Future Networks
Network Equipment Eco-Design and End to End

Service Footprint
by NGMN Alliance
Version: 1.0
Date: 19-July-2021
Document Type: Final Deliverable (approved)
Confidentiality Class: P - Public
Project: Green Future Networks
Editor / Submitter: Ana Maria Galindo Serrano (Orange)
Contributors: Steffen Wasmus (Deutsche Telekom), Gloria Flik (KPN),

Yaji Park (KPN), Ana Galindo Serrano (Orange), Samuli
Vaija (Orange), Ove Persson (Ericsson), Marie Odini
(HPE), Anders Andrae (Huawei), Kai Numssen
(Telegärtner), Alexandre Gabriel (TNO)
Approved by / Date: NGMN Board / 9th July 2021
© 2021 Next Generation Mobile Networks e.V. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from NGMN e.V.
The information contained in this document represents the current view held by NGMN e.V. on the issues
discussed as of the date of publication. This document is provided “as is” with no warranties whatsoever
including any warranty of merchantability, non-infringement, or fitness for any particular purpose. All
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document is disclaimed. No license, express or implied, to any intellectual property rights are granted
herein. This document is distributed for informational purposes only and is subject to change without
notice. Readers should not design products based on this document.
NGMN e. V.
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Abstract
The main goal of the present White Paper is to give an overview of the existent procedures and
visions for eco-design of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) network equipment.
In order to introduce network equipment eco-design principles, this White Paper investigates
the strategy to reduce the environmental footprint and then presents the basis of circularity. It
presents a method called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which allows to assess the network
equipment environmental footprint with an accurate level of precision and completeness. A
view on the materials footprint and the role of critical raw materials as part of product’s eco-
design is given considering the associated supply risks. Other important topics dealt in this
White Paper are network equipment re-manufacturing and refurbish benefits as well as
innovation in packaging inspired in eco-design principles. To finalize, the status of work on the
development of a methodology to measure the end-to-end services footprint is presented.
Network Equipment Eco-Design and End to End Service Footprint Page 2 (61)
Version 1.0, 19-July-2021
Table of Content
1 Executive Summary.......................................................................................................................... 4
2 Environmental Challenges Overview from a Circularity Perspective ....................................... 7
2.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 7
2.2 Environmental Footprint Reduction Strategy ...................................................................... 8
2.3 Important Circular Aspects to Consider ............................................................................. 10
3 Assessing and Reducing the Environmental Footprint of Network Equipment ................... 12
3.1 The Business Model Effect on Environmental Impacts.................................................... 12
3.2 Life Cycle Assessment, Standardized Way to Estimate Environmental Impact............ 13
3.3 Using LCAs to Guide Eco-design Processes ....................................................................... 14
3.4 LCA and Components Eco-design ....................................................................................... 17
3.5 The Life Cycle Impact of a Radio Base Station for Cellular Mobile Communication ... 19
3.6 Application of the Product Circularity Method .................................................................. 22
3.7 Materials of Interest............................................................................................................... 26
3.7.1 Materials Footprint – Understanding Impact of Materials from 4 Perspectives ..... 26
3.7.2 Critical Raw Materials as Part of Product’s Eco-design................................................ 30
3.7.3 Polymers Circularity in Eco-design ................................................................................. 33
3.7.4 Regulated Substances in Electronics.............................................................................. 34
3.8 Methods Used to Determine Re-manufacturing and Refurbish Benefits ..................... 36
3.8.1 Base station Remanufacturing Trade-offs .................................................................... 36
3.8.2 Enterprise Server Remanufacturing Trade-offs ........................................................... 38
3.8.3 Home Network Equipment Refurbishment Trade-offs .............................................. 39
3.9 Procedures for Integrating Eco-design into the Product Development Process ......... 42
3.10 Packaging Innovation by Eco-design ................................................................................... 44
3.11 Eco-rating, Eco-labels, Eco-information .............................................................................. 47
3.11.1 European Green Deal and Circular Economic Action Plan 2.0 - Digital Product
Passports with Sustainability Information for all Products? .................................................... 48
4 End to End Services Footprint....................................................................................................... 49
5 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 53
6 References ....................................................................................................................................... 55
1 Executive Summary
This White Paper is one of four NGMN's Green Future Network Phase 1 project deliverables.
The main goal of the present White Paper is to give an overview of the existent procedures and
visions for eco-design of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) network equipment.
To illustrate those procedures, the document presents an analysis for base stations, Home
Network Equipment and servers. The other three papers focus on sustainability challenges and
initiatives in mobile networks, network energy efficiency, and metering.
Assessment of ICT equipment, and especially the ones required to set up the future networks,
are complex. Thus, assessing their environmental footprint requires dedicated methods in
order to achieve an accurate level of precision and completeness. The Life Cycle Assessment
(LCA) methodology, which is based on the ISO 14044 standard, has been developed to answer
this question, and standardization bodies such as the ITU-T have developed dedicated
recommendations for ICT, like L.1410 which provides best practices to carry through life cycle
assessment. With the help of this recommendation, the overall quality of life cycle assessments
carried out by the ICT sector can be improved. This will, on one hand, help manufacturers have
a better understanding of the environmental footprint of their equipment portfolio, and on the
other hand, at an operator or end user level help perform studies at service level with
consistent data. Thus, these players can provide transparent communication to their
customers on the subject.
In order to introduce network equipment eco-design principles, this White Paper first
investigates in Section 2 the strategy to reduce the environmental footprint and then presents
the basis of circularity, in the context of ICT, which deals with length of use, second life, reuse
of parts and recycling. Generally speaking, circularity of products is becoming increasingly
important and more precisely, the concept of circular economy for the telco ecosystem appears
as a very vast area, where important optimizations can still be achieved. This implies a hierarchy
in the way equipment is treated in order to reduce its impact on the environment and to
minimize the use of materials. The latest leads to the principles and approaches with which the
hardware of the equipment should be designed, taking into account longevity, reparability and
upgradability. Furthermore, to succeed in the implementation of real circular economy in the
ICT, different sectors need to work together with global optimization goals as strategy.
The White Paper presents the methodology to be used first in order to assess the
environmental footprint of network equipment by using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in
Section 3. This shows which phases of the life cycle have the highest contribution to the
different environmental indicators and should help identifying different key contributors.
Second, it explains how to use this LCA to guide the eco-design process in order to reduce the
environmental footprint of network equipment. This is performed by highlighting key points
which have a high contribution to the different environmental footprint indicators and
identifying the different aspects to prioritize. An example of LCA impact on radio base station
and components is presented, as well as how to use the product circularity method.
In addition, a focus on materials of interest for the sector is presented. A view on the materials
footprint and the role of critical raw materials as part of product’s eco-design is given
considering the associated supply risks, showing that active communication and actions by
every player in both upstream and downstream of the product value chain is required to
achieve circularity of these materials. It also shows that an LCA should be aware of which
materials are covered by the chosen method and how the reserves are calculated.
Then, this White Paper focusses on the methods used to determine re-manufacturing and
refurbish benefits for base stations, enterprise servers and Home Network Equipment. A
general view on the procedures for integrating eco-design into the product development
process is presented.
Despite the fact that network equipment packaging could be considered irrelevant when
compared with other equipment environmental impacts, ICT companies are looking for
solutions to reduce this source of pollution and waste. With this aim, this White Paper presents
an innovation inspired in eco-design and applied to packaging called Lean/Smart Packaging. A
glimpse into the current existing eco-rating, eco-labels and eco-information in the ICT sector is
included, with the aim of presenting examples for inspiration in order to get a standardized
information for network equipment.
To finalize, Section 4 presents the status of works on the development of a methodology to

measure the end to end services footprint. The target would be to evaluate how much energy
is used to provide access to a certain service, taking into account the service’s full life cycle,
including devices. According to the different studies, this area still requires some research and
innovation.
NGMN aligns its partners regarding environmental impact, critical materials usage, and
environmental footprint. Working towards improving sustainability, this White Paper concludes
with the following main recommendations and findings:
• NGMN encourages vendors, operators, research institutions and other ecosystem
players to participate in standardization efforts on the equipment environmental
footprint reduction to share knowledge, develop and adopt common approaches.
• In order to reduce the environmental impact, NGMN strongly recommends that
operators include requirements related to circular economy and environmental
footprint assessment in their purchase process requirements.
• It is further strongly recommended that vendors expand their activities regarding
circular-economy and environmental footprint assessment in their system definitions,
specifications and products’ designs, taking into account eco-design principles, critical
materials usage, refurbishing and re-manufacturing.
• NGMN sees a strong need for the industry to increase the efforts in developing common
methodologies to bring solutions to the complex question of assessing services
environmental footprint. This might be realized for example through collaborative
partnerships between actors with different expertise.
• NGMN is currently defining its phase two of Green Future Networks activities and will
take important open industry topics including these recommendations into
consideration.
2 ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES OVERVIEW FROM
A CIRCULARITY PERSPECTIVE
2.1 Introduction
Production of ICT network infrastructure equipment causes unneglectable Greenhouse Gas
(GHG) emissions and also consumes a large amount of resources. These include, but are not
limited to, various metals and plastics. Scarce or problematic materials are also used, such as
Critical Raw Materials (CRM), conflict minerals and rare earth elements. When made from
primary sources (i.e. materials derived from mined ores or crude oil used for plastics), these
materials are referred to as primary materials and the supply chain starts from the mine and
the oil wells which both have to be considered as part of the life cycle impact of the product.
The impact of materials is thus beyond the immediate use of resources and energy and also
needs to consider a wider range of impacts. In particular, as mine and oil production is
associated with land use and pollution, they both are associated with impact on the landscape,
biodiversity and natural habitats. This implies two things, origin of materials becomes
important as standards for protecting these differ a lot. Likewise, using secondary materials
(i.e. recycled materials) instead of primary materials in products helps addressing those and is
an important eco-design action alongside designing products for recyclability. Moreover, using
recycled materials is also associated with lower GHG emissions, this effect could be substantial
for materials relying on energy intensive processes such as aluminium.
In order to close the loop and work towards full circularity, equipment need to use recycled
materials and be recycled at end of life, and move towards phasing out primary materials.
Looking at the use of materials, two main material fractions need to be considered; metals and
plastics. While the recovery and reuse of some metals such as aluminium, copper, steel, etc. is
already relatively well established, the use of recycled plastic still needs to be expanded.
Besides the environmental problems associated with mining, primary raw materials are a finite
supply source. Dwindling deposits and increasing demand have driven up prices and this trend
will continue even more strongly in the future unless a growing portion of demand is satisfied
by secondary raw materials, ecology and economy go hand in hand.
Turning to the other aspect of circularity, equipment should have a recyclability rate as close to
100% as possible. At the end-of-life, the actual recycling and recovery rates (collection plus
recycling/recovery of total produced equipment) are, in many regions legally regulated, such as
the directive 2012/19/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 July 2012 on Waste
Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) [1]. However, the recycling rates therein just
constitute a conservative minimum and although this is a multifaceted challenge, the ambition
of designers should be to ensure products prepared for high recyclability. Again, this is
something that has an impact on hardware design approaches. Materials and components
need to be selected and combined also with recyclability in mind. Laminated or composite
materials should be avoided, as separation into their constituents takes additional efforts and
resources. Consideration needs also be given to materials that are just present in single digit
milligram or even sub-milligram amounts. Typical examples for those materials are Gold,
Indium, Tellurium and rare earth elements as these are hard to recover. In addition, their
deposits in the earth’s crust are small and diluted which causes high mining impacts when
primary materials are used. Distribution between countries is also uneven and several
materials concentrates in very few countries which exposes supply chain to political
dependencies, which renders a reduced use of such materials even more critical. Wherever
possible, such materials should be replaced by more common materials reducing supply
related risks. Besides metal and the raw material mentioned earlier, plastic continues to be
largely used and recycling aspects for this material should also be taken into account.
At end of life, preferably after a second life, recycling of materials is the main objective, and this
recycling needs to be economically feasible in order to happen. This is again a multifaceted
challenge where increased interest in recycled materials and internalizing environmental costs
helps to set relevant price levels. However, in any case, equipment needs to be designed for
disassembly and separation into the different recycling fractions in a way that simplifies both
automatic and manual processes. Here, the same considerations apply as for reparability.
Hardware architecture may even be conscious of recycling fractions, that is, consider whether
components may be grouped into sub-assemblies in a way that a certain sub-assembly
contains only materials of the same recycling fraction. In any case the overall impact
throughout the life cycle should be a guiding star to optimize the design and different impacts
need to be considered together, such as use of energy, recyclability, use of recycled materials.
2.2 Environmental Footprint Reduction Strategy

Circularity of products and material flow is becoming increasingly important. The concept of
circular economy, which is closely related to materials efficiency, has become very popular and
needs to be further implemented. This concept includes a multitude of aspects associated with
prolonging the lifetime of products and increasing the circularity of subsequent steps, including
aspects such as durability, repair, reuse, upgradability, remanufacturing, recyclability, use of
recycled materials and use of critical raw materials. In Europe, assessment of these aspects has
been addressed by a set of standards developed jointly by CEN, CENELEC [2] and ETSI [3]. These
are horizontal standards but lay out the different aspects associated with circularity.
As outlined in Section 3, the relative importance of different parts of the life cycle varies
between equipment categories. Typically, products associated with networks and data centre
tend to have a longer life span and operate 24/7, which makes the majority of GHG emissions
and several other impacts associated with their usage, if world average conditions are
considered. However, for end-user equipment with short life span and for networks and data
centre operating on a low-carbon electricity grid, a substantial portion of the lifetime GHG
emissions and other impacts are allotted to the production phase. Nevertheless, if indicators
such as abiotic resources depletion is considered even for these long life span and 24/7
equipment, the manufacturing phase will be the most important to consider. This implies a
hierarchy of how to deal with this equipment to reduce their environmental impact and
minimize the use of material:
1. Length of use: The longer the equipment is used, the better the GHG emissions during
production are spread over the lifetime. Therefore, certain design aspects need to be
considered. See Section 3.5 for a method to assess criteria related to product
durability. Note that for products where the use stage impact dominates, phasing out
of products before their technical lifetime ends may be a preferred strategy. To
understand which strategy to apply when for such products, a more detailed analysis
is required as highlighted in Section 3.8.3.
2. Second life: If products are phased out before their technical life ends, a subsequent
secondary use needs to be facilitated. In principle the same design considerations
apply as for the primary use. See Section 3.8 for examples on repair/remanufacturing.
However, to enable this to happen it is important to have a user interface that helps
to preserve and erase personal data in a safe and simple process, and to support
portability of content.
3. Reuse of parts: If 1 and 2 are exhausted, because e.g. the equipment is worn out
and/or beyond economic repair, identification and reuse of any usable part is a
preferred option. See Section 3.8 for examples on repair/remanufacturing.
4. Recycling: When 1 to 3 are exhausted (potentially after several iterations), material
recycling as close as possible to 100% needs to be possible. See Section 3.5 for a global
method on setting up circularity scoring.
2.3 Important Circular Aspects to Consider
This envisioned hierarchy of utilization leads to the principles and approaches with which the
hardware of the equipment should be designed. This is also reflecting the materials efficiency
aspects as outlined in Section 2.2.
Longevity
Extending the lifetime means that the equipment should maintain its function over the
extended lifespan. From the design perspective that means that circuitry and mechanical parts
are designed with this in mind. Likewise, components need to be also selected with life
expectancy in mind. Typically, this is already the case for network equipment with high
reliability requirements and long life spans associated with more substantial investments, while
consumer devices designed for a fast moving mass market have a longer way to go. Mean Time
between Failures (MTBF) is the expected time between inherent failures of a system during
normal operation. MTBF calculations are sometimes used as a tool to predict the life
expectancy of equipment, so that design choices can be controlled and adjusted if necessary.
There are norms that allow a standardized calculation which include [4], SN29500 of Siemens
AG [5], Reliability Prediction Procedure for Electronic Equipment SR-332 of Telcordia
Technologies [6] and Reliability prediction of electronic equipment Mil-HDBK-217 of the US
military [7]. Even with a predicted sufficient life expectancy, deficiencies in assembly and bad
component batches from pre-suppliers can still limit the factual life expectancy. As a
consequence, manufacturing should be accompanied by adequate quality assurance to
prevent this from happening.
Reparability
To further extend the operational life of equipment, it needs to be designed with reparability
in mind. For network products operating in a business-to-business context, modularity at
subsystem (e.g. different board configurations) or at function level (e.g. radio technology in a
base band unit), and repair processes are already common place and part of basic product
design. The borderline between continued use and disposal is determined by the availability of
repair solutions and the repair cost. Particularly, the wage of repair technicians drives cost and
hence the arrangement of parts and sub-assemblies should minimize the time and effort
needed for disassembly and assembly. This in turn is dependent on the design approach:
• Accessibility of parts and sub-assemblies: These should not be mutually obstructive.
Any solution where access to a certain defective component requires previous
dismounting of several other parts or sub-assemblies not affected by the defect is to be
avoided. Conversely, all parts or sub-assemblies should be accessible in such a way that
they can be replaced directly without affecting other working components or sub-
assemblies.
• Use of fasteners: The connection of mechanical parts should be by screws of ideally a
uniform size and that of electrical components by plugs and sockets. Conversely,
soldering joints require extra equipment in the workshop and take more time.
Particularly bad is the use of gluing joints. Opening those usually takes severally minutes
of heating and may damage other components, making worse the defect by attempting
to repair it.
Another important aspect is the availability of spare parts as repairs are only feasible as long
as spare parts are available. The availability period for spare parts should be planned in such a
way that at least the expected life expectancy following longevity principles is covered. The ITU
L.1023 Recommendation [8] includes all these aspects of circular product design and will be
covered more in details in Section 3.9.
Upgradability/Modularity
Technology advances quite rapidly. New standards, such as 5G, may need to be incorporated
or additional bands to be covered for a given site. The equipment should be flexible enough to
allow simple upgrading. Otherwise, the equipment becomes prematurely obsolete and needs
to be disposed long before the end of its life expectancy.
For antennas one could think about modularity at band level. Thus, when a new generation of
radio mobile architecture is deployed only a portion of the antenna has to be replaced or
added. Also, such solutions exist for some network equipment. Looking at the network
infrastructure, usually certain types of equipment, in particular site equipment, do not undergo
technological advances, such as housing and power supply, and can continue to be used
despite rapid progress in network technology. A common way to handle upgradability (and also
expandability) of network equipment is to use modular approaches where elements that are
subject to technological change or expansion of capacity come as plug-in modules. This may
include additional signal processing functions, radio functions and antennas. A common
approach is to host modules in standardized racks that supply functions such as power supply,
heating and cooling with likewise standardized interfaces. A further option is to provide
expandable, upgradable functions as self-contained modules with built-in power supply,
heating or cooling. As always, the full life cycle impact need to be considered to understand
which approach gives the lowest total impact on a network level. In either case, this modular
thinking solves two aspects: enabling technological advances with just additional modules
saves a lot of resources and enables the part of the equipment not subject to technological
changes to be used until the end of its life expectancy. Even when a module reaches end-of-life
or becomes obsolete, disposing it creates much less electronic scrap than disposing a whole
base station. This also demonstrates how economy and ecology may go hand in hand. Network
infrastructure is the biggest investment item for network operators. Whenever a new
technology or new band coverage is required, it will be cheaper to purchase new plug-in
modules instead of complete base stations.
Many functionalities are provided by software, thus upgradability not only means upgradability
of hardware but also upgradability of software. This has several aspects. One is the length of
the software update period which should support the life expectancy of the whole equipment
assembly. Another aspect is that new modules need to come with standardized software
interfaces that allow simple plug and play solutions for their integration into the equipment.
The specification of these interfaces needs to remain stable for a sufficient period of time to
allow downward compatibility.
3 ASSESSING AND REDUCING THE ENVIRONMENTAL

FOOTPRINT OF NETWORK EQUIPMENT
3.1 The Business Model Effect on Environmental Impacts

The choice of business model influences the eco-design process and plays a major role towards
an efficient use of resources. An important distinction is whether products are sold or leased
to the end-user. Generally leasing setups are assumed to provide more incentives for keeping
products in use during longer time intervals, improve reparability, etc. One example of a leasing
setup is the Home Network Equipment which is rented by operators to the end-users in several
countries. If the user ends the subscription, has a failure on the device or wants to change the
type of subscription, the equipment is recovered by the operator. The device then enters a
refurbishment process that aims to ensure that the product has been tested and verified to
function properly, is free of defects and can be re-rented to another subscriber. Typically, this
involves the following steps:
• Fault detection: Check if the product is functional (e.g. if a firmware reset/update is
required). If a fault is found at electronic level, the device is sent for repair.
• If the product is functional, its aesthetics condition is checked to replace any damaged
part. The idea is to have good enough looking product to be able to reuse or to resell it.
• Provision of replacement product: The user is provided a replacement product.
The environmental benefits of the product-service-system business model (i.e., in which the
product is only provided to the customer to support a service) were for instance demonstrated
for Home Network Equipment [9]. This study compares a business as-usual model (equipment
are sold to the customers) to a business model including refurbishment. In the second one
even if the equipment has to be recovered from the customer, transported to a refurbishment
plant and some parts have to be swapped (mostly casing parts, the main electronic board is
almost reused every time) as there is no need to manufacture a new product for each
customer, the environmental benefits are quickly achieved. Figure 1 shows the potential
environmental footprint reduction for two environmental indicators. It has to be noted that
several key factors, such as the mechanical design of the equipment or the location of the
refurbishment (and thus distance to ship the equipment) will affect the result.
Figure 1. Environmental footprint comparison between both business models (adopted from [9])
3.2 Life Cycle Assessment, Standardized Way to Estimate

Environmental Impact
The eco-design principles focus on reducing the environmental footprint of an equipment,
network or service entire life cycle and should consider several impact indicators (e.g. global
warming potential, toxicity or abiotic resources depletion). A basis for understanding the
environmental impact hotspots and how to address them is to assess the overall impact of a
product and its distribution. Thus, a first step is to develop a baseline assessment using Life
Cycle Assessment (LCA). LCA is standardised by the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) standards (ISO 14040 [10] and 14044) [11] for any type of goods. For the
ICT domain the ETSI ES 203 199 [13] and the ITU-T L.1410 [14] bring supplementing
requirements specific to ICT equipment, networks and services in order to improve the quality
of the assessment, for example by guiding the practitioner on which parts (e.g. integrated
circuits and their semiconductor chips) and processes (e.g. mining, Integrated Circuits
manufacturing and operation of equipment) have to be considered and how to report the
results consistently and with sufficient transparency. The LCA is designed to show which phase
of the life cycle (manufacturing, transport, use or end-of-life) has the highest contribution to the
different environmental indicators. It will also help identify key contributors such as:
• a certain material or industrial process used in the manufacturing phase,
• a high power consumption in standby mode in the use phase,
• airplanes (if applicable) are used to ship the equipment,
• an improper delay to recycle the equipment.
• Etc.
Typical data sources include representative primary data from suppliers (e.g. manufacturers),
assemblers, transporters, end-users and recyclers, combined with secondary data where
primary data is lacking. With the LCA as a basis, environmental impacts and their distribution
can be estimated and priority action to address hotspots can be identified.
It is observed that all LCA results are indicative as they are based on models and assumptions,
not measurements, and results are only valid under the assumptions of the study and cannot
be used to make generalized conclusions about the carbon footprint and environmental
footprint of equipment. For this reason, results differ with product generation, configuration,
country of operation, production region, etc.
As extensive LCA, eco-design and circular economy scoring effort have been carried out on
base stations and Home Network Equipment. They will serve as a connecting thread between
the different sub-sections of this White Paper. Additionally, other equipment, such as Radio
Frequency (RF) cables & connectors or servers will also be covered.
3.3 Using LCAs to Guide Eco-design Processes

The Home Network Equipment LCA presented in this section was performed by an operator
with the following functional unit “to provide an xDSL access to a household in France for 5
years”. The study was done for one Home Network Equipment with its accessories, packaging
as well as the spare parts required for the refurbishment process.
The main considered hypotheses were:
• Equipment assembled in China with parts purchases globally
• Transported by container ship to France
• Rent to customers for usage in France
• Recovered by the operator for refurbishment at the end of the customer’s subscription
• End-of-life considered with the French WEEE stream
This LCA’s results highlight four key points which have a high contribution to the different
environmental footprint indicators:
• total energy consumption during use phase,
• total area of semiconductor in the integrated circuits (see Figure 2),
• total area and complexity (i.e. number of copper layers) of the printed circuit board (see
Figure 2),
• the weight and type of plastic used for the enclosure parts (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. Relative LCA results for Raw Materials Acquisition and Production of Home Network
Equipment
The relative importance of life cycle stages differ a lot depending on type of equipment. In
particular, total primary energy and electricity consumption may represent a vast majority or a
limited minority (smartphone) of overall greenhouse gas emissions (e.g. electricity mix, battery
powered or powered from the main grid, lifetime, etc.). However, looking specifically beyond
the use stage on other life cycle stages, LCAs of numerous types of ICT infrastructure
equipment - from the smaller desktop corded Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) business office
phone to the larger base band units - indicates the importance of semiconductors and printed
circuit boards as main contributors to the embodied emissions of products.
In order to reduce the environmental footprint, the eco-design process will have to identify the
different aspects to prioritize. Based on typical findings from LCAs several key questions apply:
• Adaptability of energy usage: Is it possible to include advanced sleep modes, so the
equipment can switch off features which are not in use?
• Minimization of circuit area: Are integrated circuits with the same functionalities
available with smaller dimensions (e.g. 7 nm instead of current 16 or 28 nm)? This could
help reducing the total semiconductor area, as well as the power consumption.
• Minimization of total board area: Can the product be designed so that the overall
copper area is minimized?
• Modularization: Can the function be modularized in a way that allows for separate
replacement and activation of different parts?
• Minimization of materials usage: Would it be possible to design a smaller device and
thus reduce the amount of material required for the casing?
For Printed Circuit Board Assemblies (PCBAs), using new design technologies, e.g. embedding
technologies for heterogeneous integration of active and passive components & reversible
interconnection technology, certain parts can be reused as complete modules (e.g. power
modules and embedded component packaging).
Beyond such considerations, designing for circularity adds product value in the design stage,
while use-oriented services help maintain product value in the use stage, and
reuse/refurbishment/recycling retain product value after the first use stage.
To illustrate how design for circularity comes into play, one study on smartphones indicates
that – from the perspective of environmental impacts - design for remanufacturing is often the
best for the PCBA, design for reuse is best for screens and frames, and design for recycling
most benign for the battery and cover [15].
Thus, in addition to the above “one life cycle” focused aspects, additional life cycles and
associated cycles of refurbishment will bring additional design requirements. Indeed, in order
to achieve an efficient refurbishment process the device should be designed according to some
“Design-for-Refurbishment” principles. Concretely, gluing electronics to casting parts should be
avoided. From the Home Network example, the Wi-Fi antennas should never be glued on the
casing parts as it would make the separation of the electronic card for the casing difficult (e.g.
the micro-coaxial cables used with Wi-Fi antennas could be ripped off or the micro-coaxial
connectors on the electronic card damaged). Sometimes some of the Design for Refurbishment
requirements might be conflicting with the one listed in the first instance (i.e. less materials
mass “design for material efficiency”). For instance, in order to maximize the capability to
refurbish, repair and upgrade the equipment, it might be preferable to use screws to fasten the
enclosure parts together instead of snap-fits. The extra grams of steel may have an additional
environmental footprint, but if it ensures that the enclosure can be opened and closed dozens
of times without breaking, it is worth it (if in accordance with the LCA calculation). This shows
the importance of a total environmental optimization of the design rather than looking at
individual design parameters one-by-one.
3.4 LCA and Components Eco-design

RF Connectors and cables represent only a minor contribution to the overall LCA score of cell
site equipment. Nevertheless, it is recommended that each supplier of network equipment
seeks to improve the LCA score (Global Warming Potential 100 (GWP100), abiotic depletion
potential and others).
In terms of the RF connectors needed to attach RF signal transmission lines to antennas and to
radio units or amplifiers or passive network devices (filters, combiners, splitters etc.), one key
to LCA score improvement is downsizing. Connector manufacturers have developed and
standardized several series of small size RF connectors (such as for instance 4.3-10, 2.2-5, and
Nex10 (standardization in progress)), each complying with the demanding Passive
Intermodulation (PIM) requirements of mobile networks, whereas the power rating scales with
the size.
Thus, in order to minimize material consumption, resources depletion and climate impact (i.e.,
to optimize LCA scores) it is recommended to make use of the smallest connector type which
meets the power rating requirement in the addressed application scenario.
Figure 3. shows the result of a simplified LCA carried out on the manufacturing footprint of the
4.3-10, 2.2-5 and Nex10 RF connectors using the latest Product Environmental Footprint
method (EF 3.0) [12]. Figure 3 clearly shows that the connectors which use less material (i.e. 2.2-
5 and NEX10) and thus come along with lower mass have a much lower environmental impact.
Note that these calculations were done based on the full bill of materials of each connector
design, but make use of a simplified calculation approach regarding the manufacturing process
and the plating and should be further improved.
Figure 3. Preliminary comparative environmental footprint results for the 4.3-10, 2.2-5, and Nex10 RF
connectors (panel jacks for UT 141)
Jumper cables, which connect the radio unit (or the Tower Mounted Amplifier (TMA)) and the
antenna, bridge a distance of typically 0.5m to 6m. The attenuation along a jumper cable scales
with its length and depends on the diameter of the cable: a bigger diameter comes along with
lower RF losses per unit length. For instance, at 2 GHz the attenuation of a ¼” vs. a ½” jumper
cable is in the range of 28dB vs. 16dB, respectively, per 100m.
Thus, on one hand with a bigger jumper diameter lower RF power levels are sufficient in order
to obtain a predefined radiated power at the antenna and this results in lower power
consumption over the time of operation. On the other hand, a smaller jumper diameter
reduces the material consumption.
The usual criterion for the choice of the jumper cable diameter assumes a maximum of 1dB of
attenuation along the whole jumper length and for cost-saving reasons the smallest available
jumper cable diameter is chosen which ensure that this level of attenuation is not exceeded.
In the light of eco-design aspects we recommend a full LCA as a basis for the choice of the
appropriate jumper cable size, taking into account the material consumption, resources
depletion and climate impact of manufacturing, which increases with size (diameter), and also
taking into account the power loss by attenuation along the length, which decreases with size
(diameter), with the latter depending on the operating time (product life cycle).
3.5 The Life Cycle Impact of a Radio Base Station for Cellular Mobile
Communication
Few published LCA studies of radio base stations exist. However, specifically for the carbon
footprint, results are available for operation of networks and embodied emissions separately,
which gives some indications of the environmental impact of base stations.
Figure 4 gives an overview over the carbon footprint of the ICT sector with red bars depicting
embodied emissions and blue ones representing the use stage [16]. The figure indicates the
balance between embodied and use stage emissions when applying a world average emission
factor for electricity and assuming a lifetime of 10 years for base stations. As depicted, the
majority of network emissions is associated with the operation.
Figure 4. Distribution of the carbon footprint of the ICT sector
Looking at individual products, Figure 5 shows the results presented at an ETSI workshop [17]
representing preliminary results for a Macro indoor base station configured for 40 W RF power
per sector (2 TX, 20 W/antenna), 3 sectors/site and 10 MHz bandwidth, with energy
consumption assumed to be according to [18], RF load 20% with 10% added for site cooling,
and typical site equipment included. Moreover, this estimation was performed assuming world
average electricity mix for the use stage, including also the energy supply chain and distribution
losses, as well as full recycling.
Figure 5. Example of LCA results for a Macro base station and site
The embodied emissions of the same base station (but not the same configuration) has been
covered in [19], which uses a base station from the same product generation and family as a
reference and pilot (the main purpose of the reference is the development of a tool for
simplified estimations of embodied emissions).
The results below represent one indoor base station with 6 radio units, 1 digital unit, 3 power
supply units and 1 power distribution unit. Product characteristics are as shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Hardware characteristics of a typical base station module used by Parameterized Embodied
Emissions Calculator (PEEC) [19]
Indoor Radio Unit Digital Remote Power Power
cabinet Unit Radio supply Distributi
Unit Unit on Unit
Electronics (kg) 1,54 1,41 1,85 Black-box Black-box
PCB area (m ) 2
0,17 0,16 0,20 module module
Average PCB 11 11 11
layers
IC die area (cm2) 25 41 25
Standard 0,6 0,7 0,8
components (kg)
Electromechanic 2,61**
al components
(kg)*
Die-casted 1,72 4,2 1,45 16,0
aluminium
Other 78,48 1,6 0,03 7
mechanics
Cables 5,4
Power supply
components
Battery
Total mass 88,21 7,34 2,89 24,85 2,3 2,4
* In this example this category includes only fans. Connectors are counted as standard electronic components and cable assemblies
as cable sets
** Corresponds to 3 radial fans
*** Power units on the printed board were counted as standard electronic components
Using the tool in [19], the corresponding embodied emissions were found to be 4,4 ton of CO2e,
distributed in accordance with Table 2.
Table 2. Example of embodied emissions of a representative configuration of a macro indoor base

station as calculated by Parameterized Embodied Emissions Calculator (PEEC) with the data described
above.
Greenhouse gas emissions (kg CO2eq)
Modules Qty Mass in Raw Production Transport Ericsson TOTAL
product material support
(kg)
Indoor 1 88,21 389 209 233 245 1175
cabinet
Radio unit 6 44,04 1080 1086 392 123 2681
Digital unit 1 2,89 91 163 37 8 2681
Power 3 6,9 211 12 2 225
supply unit
Power 1 2,4 18 6 1 24
distribution
unit
TOTAL 144,44 1789 1576 664 376 4405
Consequently, as described in [19], among the embodied emissions, the raw material
acquisition stage is the major contributor (41%), closely followed by the production stage (36%)
then transport (15%) and support operations (9%). Putting the embodied emissions into
context, these are generally estimated to represent only 10 to 15% of the use phase emissions
for a radio base station (assuming 10 years of use and a global electricity mix). For markets with
a low carbon electricity mix, the relative importance of the embodied emissions increases while
overall emissions decrease.
For the use stage, more generic indications can be made based on the study of radio networks
[20], building on a large set of primary operator data from the members of ETNO, combined
with secondary data for additional operators in other regions, estimating the global average
impact per operator to be 27 kWh/subscription and 14 kg CO2e/subscriber.
3.6 Application of the Product Circularity Method

When analysing a product circularity there are many parameters to consider and it might be a
bit overwhelming to cope with all of them, or even try to sort them to focus on the most crucial
ones. Here the question of eco-design will overlap with the concept of Circular Economy
[21][20]. On this topic, the members of the ITU-T SG5 Q7 developed a method [8] to assess the
circularity score of an ICT equipment, by combining results carried out at Request For Proposal
(RFP) level on network equipment sourcing and available material in the CEN/CENELEC
documents on material efficiency (EN 4555X series). The ITU method [8] is based on a set of 21
criteria, such as “Use of pre- or post-consumer recycled plastics” or “Fasteners, connectors and
tools used to disassemble parts […]” which are assessed according to two metrics:
• The Margin of Improvement (MI), i.e. a comparison between the studied product design
and an optimal one (in the sense of circular economy) for the given criteria. Each of the
21 criteria includes four levels of performance, according to already existing standards
(e.g. for the criteria on “Fasteners, connectors and tools” the classification from Class A
for reusable fasteners to Class C for neither removable nor reusable described in the
CEN/CENELEC EN 45554 [22]).
• The Relevance (R), i.e. it defines how important a given criteria is regarding the type of
product and its business model (e.g. the product is sold or the product is part of a
product-service-system).
This method can be used by the manufacturers in the design process, as well as by the
operators in equipment acquisition process to obtain information from the manufacturers
regarding the improvements on circular economy they have implemented.
For the assessment of the Relevance (R) values, the type of equipment (i.e. a Home Network
Equipment), its business model (e.g. equipment rented out to customers and recovered to be
refurbished, sometimes several times during its lifespan), the results of LCAs on this type of
equipment and the economic aspects (e.g. total cost of ownership) have been taken into
account. For instance, all Home Network Equipment will be refurbished several times during
its lifecycle, thus it is critical to be able to disassemble them quickly. Thus R equals 4 (most
relevant) for the criterion 3RUe4 regarding disassembly depth, as shown in Table 4.
In contrast, as the customer only rents the equipment and has to return it at the end of its
subscription, the availability of spare parts to customers is not really relevant. All the repair and
refurbishment operations are carried out by the equipment manufacturer or third party
companies. Thus, R equals 1 (least relevant) for the criterion 3RUm2 regarding spare parts
distribution, as shown in Table 4. Regarding the scoring for MI it is done according to the
performance levels defined in the Table 3 of the recommendation [8]. However, for some of
them the performance levels have to be defined at equipment type level, as the levels are very
different from one equipment type to another. For instance, the table below shows the four
levels of MI for the criterion 3RUe4 regarding disassembly depth.
Table 3 Guidance for identification of MI level for the Disassembly depth criterion
MI = 1 – All the priority parts for repair
operations are accessible after one or two
disassembly steps
operations are accessible after three or four
Number of steps disassembly steps
3RUe4: Disassembly
necessary to reach
depth MI = 3 – All the priority parts for repair
priority parts
operations are accessible after five or six
disassembly steps
operations are accessible after more than six
disassembly steps
For the Home Network Equipment studied in this example the priority part for repair
operation are the printed circuit board assembly and the display. In order to be able to reach
it, four operations have to be carried out:
1. remove the screws which fasten the top enclosure to the bottom enclosure,
2. remove the top enclosure,
3. detach the display from the top enclosure,
4. remove the printed circuit board assembly which is fastened with two snap-fits (i.e. clips)
on the bottom enclosure.
According to the table above this performance level is equal to MI equal 2. All the other
criteria are assessed following the same method (the Figure 2 shows this intermediate result).
Table 4 R and MI scores for the studied Home Network Equipment
Circular Design Relevance Margin of

Guidelines Group Criteria (R) improvement (MI)
(CDGG)
PD1: Software and data support 4 1

PD2: Scratch resistance 4 2
Product durability PD3: Maintenance support 2 2
PD4: Robustness 3 2
PD6: Data security 2 2
3RUe1: Fasteners and connectors 3 1
3RUe2: Diagnostic support 4 3
3RUe3: Material recycling compatibility 3 1
Ability to recycle, 3RUe4: Disassembly depth 4 3
repair, reuse,
3RUe5: Recycled/renewable plastics 2 1
upgrade -
equipment level 3RUe6: Material identification 2 3
3RUe7: Hazardous substances 3 2
3RUe8: Critical raw materials 2 4
3RUe9: Packaging recycling 2 2
3RUm1: Service offered by manufacturer 4 1
3RUm2: Spare parts distribution 1 2

Ability to recycle,
3RUm3: Spare parts availability 4 1
repair, reuse,
upgrade 3RUm4: Disassembly information 1 3
- manufacturer 3RUm5: Collection and recycling 2 2
level programmes
3RUm6: Environmental footprint 3 3
assessment knowledge publicly available
Note that the criterion PD5: Battery is not mentioned in this table. Indeed, as the equipment
does not feature any battery, this criterion is irrelevant (R equals 0).
The score of each criterion is then calculated according to its R and MI results. This is done
thanks to the recommendation “Score matrix with values for MI and R combinations” [8]. For
instance, for the criterion 3RUe4 regarding disassembly depth according to the assessment
carried out previously the results are R equals 4 (most relevant) and MI equals 3. According to
Figure 1 in [8] this combination of R and MI gives a score of 80.
The same process is applied to identify the scores of the other criteria, according to their R and
MI. The results of these calculations are displayed in the Table 5.
Table 5. Circularity score for the studied Home Network Equipment
Circular Design
Guidelines Group Circularity score Criteria
(CDGG)
Product Durability 100 PD1: Software and data support

80 PD2: Scratch resistance
60 PD3: Maintenance support
70 PD4: Robustness
60 PD6: Data security
Ability to Recycle, 90 3RUe1: Fasteners and connectors
Repair, Reuse, 15 3RUe2: Diagnostic support
Upgrade -
equipment level 90 3RUe3: Material recycling compatibility
80 3RUe4: Disassembly depth
75 3RUe5: Recycled/renewable plastics
60 3RUe6: Material identification
70 3RUe7: Hazardous substances
20 3RUe8: Critical raw materials
60 3RUe9: Packaging recycling
Ability to recycle, 100 3RUm1: Service offered by manufacturer
repair, reuse, 50 3RUm2: Spare parts distribution
upgrade
- manufacturer 100 3RUm3: Spare parts availability
level 40 3RUm4: Disassembly information
3RUm5: Collection and recycling
60
programmes
3RUm6: Environmental footprint
30
assessment knowledge publicly available
The next step is to calculate the score at group level. These scores are obtained by calculating
the average of the score for the criteria contained in the group. For instance, the product
durability group contains six criteria, but only five are relevant for the studied equipment. Thus,
100+80+60+70+60
the score for product durability is equal to: 5
= 74
From these group level scores, the Circularity Score can then be calculated by adding the scores
74+62+63
for the other two groups i.e. 62 and 63, then, the Circularity Score is equal to: = 66
3
3.7 Materials of Interest
3.7.1 Materials Footprint –

Understanding Impact of Materials from 4 Perspectives
The term carbon footprint is commonly understood as the life cycle carbon equivalent
emissions related to for instance a product. In comparison, the concept material footprints is
more multifaceted and a number of different perspectives need to be explored from the
product life cycle – including use of materials, and the GHG emissions, resource depletion and
toxicity aspects associated with the use of materials. The associated materials footprints are
closely related to the concept of circular economy and points to the importance of using, re-
using and recycling all the materials of a value chain in an optimized way.
What does these footprints look like globally from the perspective of ICT? A research report [23]
attempted a top-down approach to derive the materials footprint of the ICT and the closely
related Entertainment & Media (E&M) sector across i) amount of materials used; ii) carbon
footprint of the materials focusing on Raw Materials Acquisition and End of Life Treatment
stages; iii) material resource depletion; and iv) toxicity of materials.
Before looking at these footprints it is important to zoom out and look at the overall use of
materials globally. The world has experienced a fast increase in material demand from around
1995. This is largely related to the accelerated economic development taking place in China in
the 90’s and in other developing countries since 1995. In spite of increasing recycling rates, the
share of recycled metals in production is decreasing. The main reason for this is the fast
increase in material and metal demand. Since the metals recycled today emerge from much
lower production volumes, even a full recycling of these metals would not meet today’s
demands.
It is also important to understand the importance of recycling. Without high recycling rates a
material resource will be consumed relatively fast (i.e. within decades/centuries) and can thus
provide less value to society overall, even if product lifetimes are extended by reuse, and
product use is made more efficient by sharing. So where are we today? The figure below
illustrates, for the period 1985-2015, per material, the estimated global recycling rates, and the
global share of recycled materials as percentage of total annual materials usage.
Figure 6. Global recycling rates and share of recycled materials in total materials production for some
metals and for plastics. The lines are linear interpolations to show the trend and do not represent the
detailed development between the stated years [23].
Material footprint by mass, or shares of mass

The study looked specifically at materials of relevance for the ICT and E&M sectors. For these
selected materials the so-called total mass material footprint – hence the total mass of
materials used for one year – corresponded to 14 million tons annually compared to the total
usages of these materials equaling an overall annual use of 2.6 Gt. This was about 0.5% of the
global use of these materials. Electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) in general used about
4% of the same materials. As data is only available for EEE the study needed to derive ICT and
E&Ms share of EEEs material usage to arrive at this share.
Looking at the overall share of material is however not sufficient - for some rare metals the
share is significantly higher. For instance, ICT and E&M usage represent over 80% of the overall
usage of indium, gallium and germanium looking at mass.
Figure 7. The annual global use of selected materials and the amount used by the EEE sector
and the ICT and E&M sectors [23]
Material carbon footprint

The so-called material carbon footprint refers to the GHG emissions related to raw material
acquisition.
The material carbon footprint of the ICT and E&M sectors was estimated to be about 0.9% of
the carbon footprint for the selected materials using a world average recycling scenario for the
ICT and E&M sector. That corresponds to about 0.1% of the overall global carbon footprint
(including land use).
Material resource depletion footprint

Resource depletion is when resources are being consumed faster than they can recover. Some
raw material resources, especially metals, have become scarcer over the years. Some of these
metals are essential for ICT and E&M products, and more generally for EEE. For this reason, the
material resource depletion or the Abiotic Depletion Potential (ADP) also is of interest.
In contrast to GHG emissions where a wide consent exists on how to translate usage to impact,
there are parallel methods in use to estimate resource depletion which gives great differences
in the results, so the uncertainty is high. Using the three most commonly adopted
methodologies, ICT and E&M’s share of resource depletion was estimated to be 13% (ADP
Ultimate Reserve, the most commonly adapted method in LCA’s), 31% (ADP Reserve) and 48%
(ADP Reserve base) respectively without considering any recycling. Including the current world
average recycling rates further decreased the Ultimate Reserve method, the lowest depletion
estimate, from 13% to 7%.
Recycling is key to minimize resource depletion in general. Resource depletion would approach
0% if all materials could be recycled properly. For material resource depletion related to ICT
and E&M, the key metals are gold and copper and the other metals mentioned in relation to
toxicity, but also antimony, indium and geranium.
Material toxicity footprint

This represents the material footprint with regards to the human and ecosystem toxicity
potential for the raw materials acquisition and end of life treatment for all products of the
studied sectors produced in one year. The material toxicity footprint for the ICT and E&M
sectors was estimated to represent about 3% of the impacts related to the global use of the
selected materials (including also cement).
Copper followed by gold were the key contributors to the human and ecosystem toxicity
potentials. Other materials of special interest were zinc, lead and silver. The uncertainties are
very high for toxicity potentials due to uncertainty of impact assessment methods which could
not sufficiently consider local conditions and distribution effects, but the results indicate that
the ICT and E&M sectors play a much larger role than the total materials usage by mass
indicates.
If full recycling could be obtained the toxicity potentials could become nearly zero, but without
any recycling the potentials could become nearly twice as high as estimated here.
Combining results
Looking jointly at the four footprints, the difference in results shows the importance of
considering all of them, and to look at different materials individually. Looking at just average
share of materials is not sufficient to understand ICT´s impact related to materials. Based on
the toxicity and resource depletion aspects, gold and copper are found to be the two of the key
metals used by the ICT and E&M sectors. Other materials of special interest are zinc, lead and
silver (often mined together) from both a toxicity and resource depletion potential perspective,
and, from a resource depletion potential perspective antimony, indium, and germanium.
Taken together with the life cycle contribution from materials to climate change and to the
exposure of eco-systems and human beings to toxic substances, there are several well-
founded reasons for all sectors including ICT to monitor their materials usage and their
environmental impacts related to materials. To decrease the impact from materials, it is
important to increase reuse and sharing to prolong the lifetime of the products made from the
materials. However, the most important measure is to recycle metals, especially rare ones such
as gold and copper. In a circular economy the recycling rates need to approach 100% to
conserve materials for use by future generations.
3.7.2 Critical Raw Materials as Part of Product’s Eco-design

The design of products is influenced by raw materials used for the manufacturing. Some of
those raw materials are considered to be critical. According to the definition of the European
Union, so-called Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) are of high economic importance to the
European economy, however, are also associated with supply risks. Supply risks do have
various reasons [24] [25].
• Scarcity Risk: Constraint physical availability
• Geopolitical Risk: Quantity risk due to political and governance activities
• Demand Risk: Volatility of demand
• Environmental Risk: Environmental damage from extraction and processing, human
health implications
• Supply Chain Risk: Factors influencing material procurement
• Market Risk: Market viability of products relying on CRMs
• Social Risk: Social implications on local communities, society and workers
Among those factors influencing the risk, scarcity risk and environmental risk need to be
especially considered for the eco-design. Scarcity risks can be identified by looking at the
depletion time of reserves as well as fractions of companion metals and environmental
implications derive from impact of metals due to their toxicity, energy and water, as well as
emissions from the processing [26]. For the eco-design of products it is thus crucial to identify
on whether materials used will also be available in the future, as well as which negative
implications on the environment might appear by using a specific metal.
CRMs are not globally defined, but rather depend on the perspective. Therefore, its definition
might differ per organization and the region it belongs to. The European Union however
defined the following raw materials as CRMs.
Table 6 CRMs defined by the European Union (2020)
Antimony Hafnium Phosphorous
Baryte Heavy Rare Earth Element Scandium
(HREE)*
Beryllium Light Rare Earth Element (LREE) Silicon metal
**
Bismuth Indium Tantalum
Borate Magnesium Tungsten
Cobalt Natural Graphite Vanadium
Coking Coal Natural Rubber Bauxite
Fluorspar Niobium Lithium
Gallium Platinum Group Metals Titanium
Germanium Phosphate Rock Strontium
* HREEs: Dysprosium, erbium, europium, gadolinium, holmium, lutetium, terbium, thulium, ytterbium, yttrium
** LREEs: Cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, praseodymium and samarium
To identify risks associated with the business of telecom service providers, a company-level or
product-level criticality assessment can be conducted to find out which CRMs bring a higher
risk of supply disruptions. For such an assessment firsthand the core equipment for the service
and raw materials contained in each equipment need to be identified. A way to collect the data
is through a bill of material transparency. Often, a lack of transparencies on the contained raw
materials hinders the process. Therefore, awareness should be raised on the topic and
collaborations among supply chain partners should be encouraged for the CRMs identification.
Once the criticality of each CRM is assessed, various strategies can be implemented to mitigate
associated risks.
Improving the ‘circular use’ of CRMs is gaining attention as one of the major mitigation
strategies, which is also stated as part of the EU Action Plan for CRMs [27]. The concept
‘circularity’ is built upon Circular Economy (CE) principles which in brief can be described in the
3R framework of ‘reduce, reuse, and recycle.’ The framework can be further expanded in detail
to the 9R framework of ‘refuse, rethink, reduce, reuse, repair, refurbish, remanufacture,
repurpose, recycle, and recover’ [28]. The principles come with a hierarchy where reduction is
prioritized over reuse, and reuse preferred to recycle.
While various circular strategies can be considered to mitigate the risks associated with CRMs,
each strategy comes with its own challenges. Substitution and improving material efficiency
can be ways of reducing CRMs contained in the equipment from the designing process.
However, firms might face difficulty substituting certain materials as it might not bring the same
performance or require high cost in transforming existing production facilities. Furthermore,
in the case of upcoming technologies, the substitution comes with constraints as specific
physical properties for the functioning of devices need to be met.
The reuse of equipment helps to extend the materials’ value in the chain for a maximum
possible period. However, design and circular business strategies should be accompanied to
achieve this aim. The equipment and its components need to be designed suited for repair,
refurbishment and remanufacturing. At the same time, the downstream of equipment need to
be set up by relevant stakeholders to encourage reuse and recycling. Extended Producer
Responsibility (EPR) can be an example of this, where the ownership of equipment stays with
the producer; thus, equipment is collected and properly reused or recycled at the end of its
lifetime. Efforts to adjust regulations on cross-border movements of WEEE to support the reuse
of equipment and component need to follow.
When equipment runs out of its market value, CRMs can be recovered via recycling. However,
the recycling of CRMs comes with strong limitations, as many CRMs get lost in the recycling
process [29] and often their recycling rate remains below 1% [30]. Advanced technologies for
CRMs recycling have been in development, even though their commercialization faces
challenges due to low CRMs concentrations and lack of economic [32]. The recycled CRMs work
as a gateway to the use of secondary materials. Notwithstanding, this needs to be implemented
with a comprehensive analysis, as for example the environmental impact of shipping the
secondary materials to another continent for component manufacturing can offset the
advantages of using recycled materials.
The designing process is crucial for CRMs circularity, as it enables a better adoption of all three
CE principles and relevant strategies and determines to which extent the circularity can be
achieved in each stage of the product lifetime. For this reason, it is significant that
manufacturers design equipment with conditions for CRMs circularity in mind. Not only the
information on contained CRMs should be able to be identified and shared transparently
across the value chain, but also efforts need to be made among product architects and contract
manufacturers to design equipment for the ‘reduce, reuse, and recycle’ of CRMs. Considering
that a significant volume of CRMs is often situated on the printed circuit board, which is highly
challenging to disassemble for CRMs reuse or recycle, a further effort to develop circular circuits
remain significant.
In a telco environment, the circularity of CRMs cannot be achieved by the effort of one player
alone. Active communication and actions by every player in both upstream and downstream
of the product value chain is required. A service provider will need a strategic choice of
downstream processors and can encourage communication along the value chain.
Communication between downstream processors and suppliers will bring insight into what
needs to be considered specifically for circular strategies at each stage of the product lifetime.
CRMs are also directly linked to the question of method used in LCA to evaluate impacts such
as abiotic resources depletion or raw material depletion. When the LCA analyst selects a
method he must be aware of which materials are covered by the method, how the reserves
are calculated (e.g. reserve base or reserves available in the entire earth crust up to 10-15
kilometres depth), etc. The number of different parameters makes this choice complex, as it is
underlined in [31].
3.7.3 Polymers Circularity in Eco-design

Plastic is typically not used as a pure polymer but as a formulation of polymer plus additives
which tailor the plastic to its specific application. In the present processes the additives remain
in the post-consumer plastic and are in most cases not a perfect fit anymore for the new
application. Therefore, designers need to make certain compromises in the appearance and
mechanical properties of the parts.
In order to overcome this restriction, circularity needs to be thought on a molecular level. This
leads to the following strategies:
1. Chemcycling, where waste plastic is chemically taken apart into monomers which are
then used for the synthesis of new polymers. This allows the same freedom in
formulation as with plastic from fossil sources but is yet 100% post-consumer.
2. Use of CO2 either as a starting material for polymer synthesis or indirect use to create
monomers or their precursors.
3. Use of biopolymers: Plant material, created by photosynthesis from CO2 and H2O, is
used to derive monomers. The polymers are biodegradable and decompose to CO2 and
H2O again when not needed anymore. This loop somehow follows the example of
nature with its yearly cycle of leafage.
More details can be found in [34]. The circularity of structural parts made from plastic needs to
be thought in the future on a wider scale to give hardware designers more options and to
improve the presently low quota of material reuse of waste plastic.
3.7.4 Regulated Substances in Electronics

Circulation of materials is not sufficient to reduce environmental impact of materials but need
to be combined with restricting materials usage to those that are non-hazardous and
sustainable [35]. Again, also in this topic the whole supply chain needs to be considered as far
upstream as the extraction or production of materials. Mining operations, especially
excavation, ore and waste rock transportation, blasting, ore processing, and tailing treatments,
are the main impacts produced during the exploitation phase and are involved in climate
change, particulate matter formation, and land destruction [36]. Analogous considerations can
be made for the process chain of crude oil. On the other end of the lifecycle, harmful
substances hamper recycling. Looking downstream, components with hazardous substances
need to be handled with care during disassembly, separated and treated in special processes
to avoid release into the environment. Electronic waste management remains an important
issue, especially in specific regions, that needs to be solved.
In order to control all of these risks, the use of hazardous substances should be avoided. The
legislator is partially addressing this. Namely, for such equipment the Reduction of Hazardous
Substances (RoHS) directive [37] and its amendment [37][38] is of main relevance. RoHS limits
Pb, Hg, Cr(VI), Polybrominated Biphenyls (PBB) and Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDE) to
1000ppm each while Cd is limited to 100ppm. [37] limits four of the Phthalates. Further on,
parts of the EU Regulation covering Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals
(REACH) is applicable with substance restrictions and as well as information requirements [38].
211 Substance of Very High Concerns (SVHCs) [39] are subject for information requirements in
the value chain if they exceed 0.1% in any component, as well as submitting an entry into the
Substances of Concern In articles as such or in complex objects (Products) (SCIP) database [40]
at the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) [41].
These legal regulations do not cover all hazardous substances that may be contained in
equipment. Therefore, it should be the ambition of hardware designers to go beyond and to
limit voluntarily more harmful substances. Halogenated hydrocarbons beside PBB and PBDE
are still used as flame retardants. Nevertheless, the concerns around bio-persistence apply also
to these substances. It is recommendable to make the equipment halogen-free according to
[42]. Likewise, it seems arbitrary that RoHS amendment [38] just limits Butyl Benzyl Phthalate
(BBP), Di(2-ethylhexyl) Phthalate (DEHP), Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP) and Diisobutyl Phthalate
(DIBP) out of a much larger substance class whose members are all likely to have the same
effect on the endocrine system as those four Phthalates regulated by 2015/863. For instance, in
the 2005/84/EC [43] six phthalates were prohibited in the type of toy defined by this directive (art. 1): Di-
Iso Nonyl Phthalate (DINP), Di(2-Ethylhexyl) Phthalate (DEHP), Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP or DNBP), Di-Iso-
Decyl Phthalate (DIDP), Di-N-Octyl Phthalate (DNOP) and Butyl Benzyl Phthalate (BBP). There are
several studies [44] dealing with endocrine disruptive chemicals where Phthalates are
considered as a whole substance class to have endocrine disruptive properties. Even one of
the studies blames exposure to that substance class to be responsible for an increase of
diabetes and obesity. Hence, it is also recommendable to extend the limitation voluntarily to
the whole substance class. Arsenic, Antimony and Beryllium are harmful in all of its compounds
and are used in network and server equipment and these substances should be limited.
Gallium Arsenide may need to be exempted as an indispensable semiconductor material, at
least where not replaceable by Gallium Nitride. Limits may be 1000ppm (=0.1%) which is
typically the borderline between contamination and intentional addition.
Even these additional voluntary limitations do not cover all harmful substances that may be
present in ICT equipment. Components today are mainly selected by their technical
specification and price. In order to avoid hazardous substances or at least minimize their
amounts and hazards, a new process needs to be installed supplementing conventional
component selection. The chemical composition of candidate components needs to be
reviewed, whether any constituent has health (chapter 3) or environmental (chapter 4) hazard
statements, according to the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) for the Classification and
Labelling of Chemicals [47]. As GHS applies to chemicals, this consideration needs to be applied
to the chemicals that go into the components. The component’s chemical composition is
typically available in the Full Material Declaration Sheets which can thus be used to make a
corresponding assessment. Again, here a meaningful threshold to not chase minor
contamination is to have a maximum concentration of 1000ppm (0.1%) per component. There
are different routes to proceed following the outcome of such assessment:
1. No constituent with a chapter 3 or 4 hazard statement: the component is compliant and
can be taken over into the bill of material.
2. At least one constituent with chapter 3 or 4 hazard statement: the market needs to be
checked for alternative components with different chemical compositions, resulting in
the following:
a. No alternative component available: Harmful substance needs to be temporarily
accepted as currently irreplaceable. The raw material industry needs to be
requested to develop an alternative substance fulfilling the same physical
function but being less harmful.
b. Alternative component without a constituent with a chapter 3 or 4 hazard
statement: the component is okay and can be taken over into the bill of material.
c. Alternative component with a constituent with a chapter 3 or 4 hazard
statement: a least risk approach is required where the constituents are
evaluated by the amounts of harmful substances contained and the severity of
their hazard statements. The component with the least risk needs to be taken
over into the bill of material.
The open access Hazard Statements Indicator (HSI) method is also relevant for evaluating which
material combination is the least toxic and hazardous [48].
3.8 Methods Used to Determine Re-manufacturing and Refurbish

Benefits
ITU-T has published a Recommendation L.1024 which explores how much carbon emissions
could be avoided if certain ICT goods are reused a second time [49]. L.1024 also contains an
analytical method which is useful for determining the environmental benefit of
remanufacturing.
3.8.1 Base station Remanufacturing Trade-offs

Here the analytical approach is applied to a wireless base station. Table 7 shows an LCA result
for the base station [50].
Table 7 Summary of approximate life cycle environmental impacts of larger base station without
refurbishment
Environmental impact Manufacturing Use End-of-life
category
GWP100, kg CO2 2887 ≈60000 . 135
equivalent (CO2e) NOTE: All base
stations have
different use stage
impacts.
ADP, g antimony 14000 ≈4. Not available.
equivalents (Sb-e) NOTE: All base
stations have
different use stage
impacts.
For base stations it is not evident to which degree different sub-parts are re-used, so for the sensitivity
calculation it is assumed that all sub-parts are re-used, as presented in Table 8.
Table 8 Hypotheses for Reused parts of base station and reuse rates
Sub-part kg CO2e, g Sb-e, ADP/piece Re-use rate (%)
GWP100/piece
Pre-equipped Cabinet 247 Not available 100
including shelves
Filter Unit 525 100
Amplifier Unit 649 100
Digital Shelf Unit 1438 100
containing different
Circuit Packs --
standard Surface
Mount (SM) and
Through-Hole (TH)
components
Cabling 33 100
The following equations (1) and (2) show the environmental benefits of remanufacturing base
stations for GWP100 and ADP, respectively.
(∆𝑷𝑮𝑾𝑷−𝑷𝑹𝑬𝑮𝑾𝑷 ) ((𝟐𝟖𝟖𝟕)−𝟎.𝟓%×(𝟐𝟖𝟖𝟕))
𝝏𝑮𝑾𝑷,𝒃𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 = 𝟏 + = 𝟏+ = 𝟏. 𝟎𝟓 (1)
𝑼𝑨,𝑮𝑾𝑷 𝟔𝟎𝟎𝟎𝟎
(∆𝑷𝑨𝑫𝑷−𝑷𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑫𝑷 ) ((𝟏𝟒𝟎𝟎𝟎)−𝟎.𝟓%×(𝟏𝟒𝟎𝟎𝟎))
𝝏𝑨𝑫𝑷,𝒃𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 = 𝟏 + = 𝟏+ = 𝟒. 𝟒𝟖 (2)
𝑼𝑨,𝑮𝑾𝑷 𝟒
The higher the value of 𝜕, the higher the environmental benefit of refurbish/remanufacturing.
As shown by equation (1), refurbishment is not CO2 beneficial when the energy consumption
of the refurbished base station is more than 5% higher than the energy consumption of a new
base station. It would be even lower if not all sub-parts are reused, and for those base stations
which have high relative remanufacturing eco-costs (here assumed 0.5% of the embodied
footprint). Base stations which have higher relative use stage impacts would also cause lower
environmental benefit of remanufacturing.
For the equation 2 the calculation follows the same logic. The 4.48 means that refurbishment
is not beneficial when the energy consumption of the refurbished base station is more than
348% higher than the energy consumption of a new base station.
3.8.2 Enterprise Server Remanufacturing Trade-offs

Here the analytical approach is applied to a server. Table 9 shows an LCA result for the server
[51].
Table 9. Summary of approximate environmental impacts of the life cycle of an enterprise server without
remanufacturing
Environmental impact Manufacturing Use (4 years) End-of-life
category
GWP100, kg CO2e 858.3 3077.2 -58.9
ADP, kg Sb-e 0.11 0.001 -0.07
Cumulative Energy 12724 71500 -696
Demand (CED)
(MJoules)
Scores like those in Table 9 can also be obtained by using the LCA standard L.1410 [14]. The re-
use rates in Table 10 are used to identify which sub-parts to include in the calculation.
Table 10. Hypotheses for Reused parts of server and reuse rates.
Sub-part Mass (g) kg CO2e, kg Sb-e, Re-use rate (%)
GWP100/piece ADP/piece
Hard Disc Drive 1750 83 0.01 47.7
Memory cards 135 140 0.013 40.1
CPUs 54 200 0.028 5.2
Power supply 3426 340 0.0043 5.0
Mainboard 1662 210 0.029 2.7
Raid card 5.2 0.37 0.000023 2.1
Chassis 13454 99 0.0047 1.4
Expansion card 349 50 0.0078 0.7
The following equations (3) and (4) show the environmental benefits of remanufacturing
servers.
(∆𝑷𝑮𝑾𝑷−𝑷𝑹𝑬𝑮𝑾𝑷 ) ((𝟖𝟑+𝟏𝟒𝟎)−𝟎.𝟓%×(𝟖𝟑+𝟏𝟒𝟎))
𝝏𝑮𝑾𝑷,𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒗𝒆𝒓 = 𝟏 + = 𝟏+ = 𝟏. 𝟎𝟕 (3)
𝑼𝑨,𝑮𝑾𝑷 𝟑𝟎𝟕𝟕.𝟐
(∆𝑷𝑨𝑫𝑷 −𝑷𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑫𝑷 ) ((𝟎.𝟎𝟏+𝟎.𝟎𝟏𝟑)−𝟎.𝟓%×(𝟎.𝟎𝟏+𝟎.𝟎𝟏𝟑))

𝝏𝑨𝑫𝑷,𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒗𝒆𝒓 = 𝟏 + = 𝟏+ = 𝟐𝟑. 𝟗 (4)
𝑼𝑨,𝑮𝑾𝑷 𝟎.𝟎𝟎𝟏
One interpretation of Equation (3) (environmental benefit score 1.07) is that remanufacturing
is not CO2e beneficial when the energy consumption of the remanufactured server is more
than 7% higher than the energy consumption of a new server.
In the Equation (4) the 23.9 means that refurbishment is not beneficial when the energy
consumption of the refurbished server is more than 2290% higher than the energy
consumption of a new server.
3.8.3 Home Network Equipment Refurbishment Trade-offs

The recent ITU-T recommendation L.1024 [49] also features a methodology which enables
consideration of benefits from remanufacturing, as well as the potential effects of energy
efficiency improvement between different generations of equipment.
Figure 8 shows the comparison between two different business models for the Home Network
Equipment studied in the Section 3. The first business model, highlighted in blue, involves the
refurbishment of an older generation of equipment (noted model A). This model is not very
energy efficient and as such the slope of the line is pretty steep. However, as this equipment is
refurbished, there is no need to manufacture several devices during the 90 months lifespan. A
small increase of the environmental footprint can be noticed during the refurbishment steps
(noted with 2 and 4). This is related to the transport of the equipment to the refurbishment
centre, the spare parts required to achieve an “as-good-as-new” quality level functionally and
aesthetically wise, as well as the energy and ancillary materials required to operate the
refurbishment centre.
The second business model, highlighted in orange, starts with the same old model A of
equipment. But after 30 months of operation this device is replaced by a more energy efficient
equipment, noted model B (step 3). After an additional 30 months this equipment is also sent
to the end-of-life stream and replaced by a new one (step 5). As model B’s energy efficiency is
better the slope of the orange line is less steep. However, each time a new equipment is
manufactured the carbon footprint increases drastically.
After 90 months of lifespan for these equipment (and according to the hypothesis which were
set up) the carbon footprint of the business model featuring refurbishment is very close to the
one based on selling equipment (respectively steps 6 and 7 in Figure 8), with a marginally lower
impact for the first model.
Figure 8. Carbon footprint comparison of two different business models for Home Network Equipment
This method allows to obtain very precise results regarding different business models and for
different environmental indicators (the results showed in Figure 8 can also be calculated for an
indicator as Abiotic Resources Depletion). However, it requires to have in hand all the data on
the life cycles (e.g. environmental footprint of the manufacturing, how many spare parts are
required, what is the energy consumption of the different models, etc.).
The results in Figure 8 show that refurbishment is not a silver bullet that will always allow to
reduce the environmental impacts. For a given type of equipment the energy efficiency
improvement between two generations of products, as well as the potential new features, have
to be assessed, especially for equipment powered 24/7. The mechanical design of the
equipment (e.g. can it be disassembled quickly and without breaking any part) and the
durability of the different sub-assemblies (e.g. resistance to wear for the casing parts) will also
have a significant influence on the final result. Thus, for an equipment that was not designed
according to “Design-for-refurbishment” requirements it will be more challenging to achieve
benefits by applying this business model as it might lead to quasi systematic swaps for different
parts.
3.9 Procedures for Integrating Eco-design into the Product

Development Process
Manufacturers have developed frameworks in which LCA, circularity and eco-design with eco-
metrics (such as recycled content and packaging materials mass and volume) can be integrated
[52]] in the design process, as presented in Figure 9.
Figure 9. Steps of typical product development and the actions and targets for eco-design.
In the Collection Stage (0) the inputs are e.g. roadmaps for energy efficiency and LCA scores of
similar products as the Current Generation Product (CGP). Based on the features obtained from
customer surveys and analyses of voluntary trends, several technical/functional/performance
requirement targets, and some environmental requirement targets are set. e.g.:
• Reduce the overall power usage compared to CGP
• Introduce recycled content materials
The output from the Collection Stage (0) is the initial specification.
In the Concept Stage (1) the most promising concepts and optional solutions are listed and
drafted based on technical/functional/performance requirements and green requirements.
The green requirement targets can be set based on findings in the customer surveys
documented in the initial specification. Moreover, for the CGP, in use by the customer, the
seven or more eco-metrics i.e. 1. energy efficiency, 2. packaging materials mass and volume, 3.
hazardous substances, 4. precious metals, 5. total mass, 6. recyclability/recoverability/reuse-
ability/disassemble-ability, 7. lifetime reliability and final LCA score (GWP100, ADP, single scores
etc.) are obtained. For Next Generation Product (NGP) concepts the same eco-metrics are
defined and preliminary LCA scores are obtained for each concept proposed by designers.
For CGP the final LCA score and measured Field Failure Rate (FFR) value are possible to obtain
as CGP is a final product used in the market. All eco-metrics are estimated and the preliminary
LCA scores are calculated for the different NGP concepts. The output from Concept Stage (1) is
the revised specification.
In the Plan Stage (2) the design is planned. Moreover, the green requirement targets in design
are documented in the report from Plan Stage. For example, for the Base Station example given
in Section 3.5.1 the targets of the Plan Stage could be:
• fine-tune and improve three of seven or more eco-metrics
• uses recycled metals for the Pre-equipped Cabinet including shelves
• has >10% lower packaging material mass than CGP
• has at least 3% better power efficiency than CGP
• has better absolute LCA score than CGP
The output from Plan Stage (2) is the specification baseline for NGP. Revised specifications are
developed into a specification baseline to be fine-tuned during the subsequent Development
Stage (3). In the Development Stage (3) the system architecture and the detailed design for NGP
are formed. The detailed NGP design is based on the specification baseline for a NGP concept.
Prototypes are created and then fine-tuned repeatedly to meet the
technical/functional/performance and green requirements. The designers find ways of fine-
tuning the applicable eco-metrics further for the NGP Prototypes resulting in Final NGP. The
new fine-tuned values of the eco-metrics and the LCA score for the Final NGP design are
quantified and calculated, respectively, and put into the report from Development Stage (3).
The Final NGP is manufactured and sold.
The requirements from Plan Stage (2) are checked to validate how the eco-metrics and the LCA
score were investigated for NGP. It is also checked if the requirements from Plan Stage (2) are
fulfilled. The Development Stage (3) is followed by the Customer Validation (4) process.
The Customer Validation Stage (4) validates data from the use phase of NGP. Here the final
values of the eco-metrics and the LCA score for the final NGP design are quantified and
calculated, respectively, and put into the report from Customer Validation (4). Here the FFR
values are based on actual failure samples of NGP returned by customers. The eco-metrics
values from Customer Validation Stage (4) will be used as benchmark for the next NGP.
In the Closing Stage (5) another LCA score is calculated based on additional data from the life
cycle of NGP and the design project for NGP is closed. The LCA score from this the Closing Stage
(5) is usually very close to the previous from Customer Validation (4). Design stages 0 to 5 (Figure
9) are then repeated for next NGP e.g. starting with collecting new customer requirements
(from e.g. roadmaps and LCAs).
3.10 Packaging Innovation by Eco-design

A wide variety of products which need packaging exist in large ICT companies. At present,
Traditional Packaging (TP) technologies consume pointlessly high amounts of resources that
generate excessive pollution and waste. So called Lean/Smart Packaging (LSP) concepts could
help reduce such emission, resource, and waste footprints. Regarding circular eco-design of
packaging, LSP has been proposed [53]. LSP concepts are compared to TP concepts by a
simplified LCA. Regarding assessment of total environmental burden, the recent trend is to use
numerous weighting indicators instead of one or two mid-point indicators. Hence, one primary
energy indicator Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) and three “eco-cost” weighting methods -
Environmental Priority Strategies (EPS), Life cycle Impact Assessment Method based on
Endpoint modelling (LIME) and International Life Cycle Data network (ILCD) - are included.
The LSP is made possible from six design strategies: reduce, return, reuse, material recycle,
recover (energy) and degrade. This is coherent with packaging eco-metric improvement within
eco-design processes (See Section 3.6).
The scope is as shown in Figure 10 and the studied product system is Raw Material Acquisition
and Distribution. The cut-off are the assembly and end-of-life of the packaging materials. The
assembly of the ICT infrastructure good (Electric and Electronic Equipment, EEE) is out of scope.
Figure 10. The scope and studied product system for packaging concepts comparative LCA study by ICT
manufacturer (Anders Andrae, Huawei).
As shown in Figure 11 to Figure 14; lower masses, smaller volumes and green packaging
concepts (LSP) can at first sight clearly reduce the environmental footprint compared to TP. The
first example shown in Figure 11 refers to the development and application of plastic-steel light
pallets, instead of plywood pallets. Plastic pallets are known replacements to wood ones but
plastic-steel pallets have not yet been evaluated. The functional unit (f.u.) is “one pallet
transported 10000 km by ship.”
Figure 11. Relative environmental footprint score of pallet concepts used by ICT manufacturer
The second example in Figure 12 refers to development and application of cover boards as a
way to reduce weight and wood consumption. Thinner paper boards can here replace wood
ones. The f.u. is “one cover board transported 10000 km by ship.”
Figure 12. Relative environmental footprint score of cover board concepts used by ICT manufacturer
The third example in Figure 13 refers to the development of new gap filling methods done to
reduce the packaging volume and reduce waste. The f.u. is “packaging material for one EEE
module transported 10000 km by ship.” EEE module production - and EEE mass effect on ship
transport - are excluded.
Figure 13. Relative environmental footprint score of gap filling concepts used by ICT manufacturer
The last example in Figure 14 refers to the development of a complete packaging solution
which is done to reduce the overall weight and volume. Predominantly, as a result of this
innovation more EEE goods can be stacked per pallet. However, this packing rate effect is not
yet included as far its effect on the overall environmental footprint. The f.u. is “one complete
package for one EEE good transported 10000 km by ship.”
Figure 14. Relative environmental footprint score of complete packaging concepts used by ICT
manufacturer
The next step is to increase the circularity further of the packaging and switch from end-of-life
treatment to end-of first use.
3.11 Eco-rating, Eco-labels, Eco-information

Telecommunication companies use ecolabels to communicate the environmental
performance of ICT network infrastructure products. So far, servers are the most commonly
addressed product group and in fact no eco-label criteria have yet been developed for radio
equipment. LCA and other tools are used to better inform customers of the environmental
impacts of the products they purchase and the LCAs are used to guide the eco-labels and
Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) such as the PEP ecopassport [54].
EPD for telecom include: power, signalling and telecom systems [55], PV inverters [56], and
Zigbee Routers [57]. However, these EPDs are not common and recent. The energy label
created under the EU’s Energy Labelling Directive [58] is also used to inform customers about
the energy performance of e.g. enterprise servers and data storage products. Please notice
that the currently existing ecolabels for telecommunication equipment concern mainly servers.
Some of the most electricity using equipment in the ICT networks, i.e. radio equipment, have
yet to determine an energy efficiency label or certificates.
Existing ecolabels created in different parts of the world specifically for servers are:
• TCO Certified is a globally recognised sustainability certification for IT products in offices

and data centres. TCO Certified is developing new criteria for servers [59].
• Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) is a global ecolabel for the
IT Sector developed by the Green Electronics Council. EPEAT has published criteria for
servers [[60].
• China Environmental Products Labelling program. Some manufacturers have
embedded eco-design for e.g. rack servers, blade servers, multi-node servers,
integrated storage servers, and distributed storage servers to minimize negative
impacts and conserve energy resources. They thereby received the China
Environmental Product Label.
• Thayer Certification Centre (TLC) [61] has a certification scheme for green products. The
certification focuses on energy conservation and also measures indicators spanning
environmental protection, EMC, safety specifications, production processes, packaging,
and recycling. Some manufacturers’ Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) products have
received this certification for Green Product Certification.
3.11.1 European Green Deal and Circular Economic Action Plan

2.0 - Digital Product Passports with Sustainability Information
for all Products?
It is important to highlight that the Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content
and Technology (DG Connect) is in the process of creating a digital EU product passport system
and a common European “Dataspace for Smart Circular Applications” (EDSCA). Both are part of
the Circular Economy Action Plan. EU Product passports are expected to include information
about recycled content, critical materials, hazardous materials and carbon footprint [62], [63].
Open Architecture Framework Electronic exchange systems will be the enabler for digital EU
product passports of each individual product placed on the market.
4 END TO END SERVICES FOOTPRINT
There is an increasing demand, both internally in companies and externally from regulation
bodies or B2B customers, for a thorough measurement of the environmental impact of
services, taking into account the services’ full life cycle, including the devices. This section will
show the latest methodological advances in this field, including the links to eco-design.
What is an end-to-end services footprint?

The main objective of end-to-end services footprint may be to answer how much energy is used
to provide a certain access service.
Several challenges exist that render this kind of assessment complicated for the operators:
• Eco-design of the ICT infrastructure equipment and network will lead to a reduced
environmental footprint of the services delivered. But how can individual service
footprints be estimated?
• Over The Top (OTT) services content pass through the networks without any restriction,
operators have no control of the quality of the content (for instance resolution and HDR
support for a video) and therefore on the impact it will have on the network’s
performance and their energy consumption.
• The share of the costs of non-requested content (e.g. advertisements) is not clear.
• How to quantify and control the content quality, as a function of the environmental
impact, is not evident.
In order to answer such questions, knowledge about the network constituents and their actual
energy consumption in the use stage are necessary. Network operators have that knowledge
and the ICT good manufacturers have the best knowledge of the upstream manufacturing
footprint, mainly via LCAs performed of network elements.
End-to-end services typically span across the end-to-end network, from end user application,
to device, access, transport, edge/core and back end service platform & application. Different
services have different profiles. In 5G, three categories of services have been defined: eMBB,
uRRLC and mMTC [64]. Each of this service has different KPIs in terms of latency, density,
throughput/bandwidth, etc. One of the key measurable impact of an end-to-end service is
energy consumption and the associated KPI energy efficiency.
To measure end-to-end service energy consumption different approaches can be adopted.
Either a top-down approach, which considers the overall operator energy consumption and
then estimates for each end-to-end service in the portfolio, what is the ratio of each service,
either based on data volume or number of subscribers. Or a bottom-up approach, trying to
measure and consolidate the underlying physical infrastructure consumption, the ratio used
by the virtual infrastructure for a given service and the consumption of this virtual network and
then decompose per end-to-end service flowing through this virtual infrastructure. But then
this end-to-end service energy consumption can be calculated for all the subscribers of that
service, or per subscriber, or even more granular per application of given subscriber using that
service. The driver to choose one option or the other can typically be to meet regulation, i.e.
French regulation (see below for more details), or to meet customer engagements, i.e. a
network slice with a given energy efficiency, or more generally speaking to measure the energy
consumption and efficiency for given volumes or applications in order to improve and best
adapt underlying resources. However today no standard is available to measure end-to-end
service, or network service, or network slice energy consumption.
3GPP has introduced a number of energy management metrics and KPIs. Typically the 5G RAN
produces power metrics defined in [65]. Similarly 3GPP SA5 Rel 17 has started to define KPIs
such as network slice energy efficiency in [66], for the three different types of services, eMBB,
mMTC and uRRLC. These calculations are either based on data volumes or end-to-end latency
for instance. The energy consumption was out of the scope of this work.
A number of research papers have been published on topics related to calculation, or

estimation of energy consumption for different aspects of the network, but none have really
tackled the complexity of energy consumption of dynamic 5G services, on dynamic virtualized
network topologies, multi-tenant, multi-party services, with potentially handover across
heterogeneous access. This area still requires some research and innovation.
Other aspects could be considered as well, like the impact of a service on human behaviour
and the associated impact on the environment. One example would be a navigation service
that is proposing a path through highways because of better mobile coverage instead of the
shortest path and induce a higher energy consumption of the end user’s car but these are more
indirect footprint and out of the scope of this White Paper.
Existent works
ETSI EE ES 203 199 [13]]/ITU L.1410 55 standards address services as well as products and
networks and propose a starting point for such assessments. The development of this standard
involved a wide range of participants including companies and authorities, and delegates from
different regions. The joint ITU/ETSI standard considers the full life cycle. This standard should
be the basis for any further standardization effort, e.g. detailed standardization of assessment
of specific services.
Recently the ITU has also been developing a simplified method to assess the environmental
footprint of networks. This work item, called L.Methodology_Arch was consented as L.1050 [67]
during May 2021 ITU-T study group 5 workshop. This method does not target to assess the
environmental footprint of the network with level of detail as high as a full LCA could provide,
but rather to ideally capture at least 80% of the environmental footprint of the studied network.
As such the recommendation features 3 lists of network equipment (one for FTTH network,
another for mobile network and a third one for satellite networks) which should be considered
in the assessment.
Researchers have also studied the environmental footprint of individual services thorough
various methods [68][69][70][71]. Lately, the carbon footprint of services has created interest,
in particular in France, where the new French law [[72] will oblige operators to “inform their
subscribers of the quantity of data consumed in the context of providing access to the network
and indicate the equivalent of the corresponding greenhouse gas emissions”. The first version
of the law will enter into application the 1st of January 2022 with a simplified calculation. This
means that the different fixed networks (FTTx, xDSL, cable) will not be differentiated and the
mobile networks will be all merged without considering the different radio technologies (2G,
3G, etc.). In 2023 and 2024 further development will take place including establishing
inventories of network equipment (and their configurations) used by the different operators.
This will help to fine-tune the environmental footprint at network level for the French operators
and also to distinguish the environmental footprint of the different technologies.
Also, at French regulatory level the ARCEP (telecommunications regulation authority) and the
ADEME (French environment agency) have launch a project to measure the environmental
impact of digital technologies within their technical expert committee. Within this working party
the consultants from NégaOctet project proposed a life cycle approach, including several
environmental indicators (global warming, abiotic resources depletion, etc., to avoid pollution
transfers to other impacts) and with a functional approach to allow comparison (environmental
impacts assessed according to the performance of the product or the service). To be able to
deal with services the perimeter will include end user devices, Internet of Things (IoT), network
equipment as well as data centre and cloud.
As this task can be quite daunting, a first proposal was sent by NégaOctet to the members of
the technical expert committee to identify for different categories of equipment what is their
global environmental footprint (noted “global impact” in Figure 15), if methodologies and
databases are available to assess this impact as well as the question of data availability
regarding equipment inventories.
Figure 15: Levels for global impact, availability of methodology, availability of impact database
and availability of inventory data as defined in NégaOctet proposal (Source NégaOctet
presentation).
For the different categories of equipment a proposal was also made by NégaOctet in order to
identify which are the critical factors for each category. For instance, as shown in Figure 16 the
environmental footprint is assessed according to three indicators: “AE:GES” for Global Warming
Potential; “AE:RN” for abiotic resources depletion and “AE: Electricité (final)” for the electricity
consumption.
This matrix, with the inputs of the different members of the technical expert committee, will be
further refined to identify if the next steps should be focused on carrying out life cycle
assessment for equipment with high impact and for which no data is currently available. Or if
the overall issue is first to set up common methodologies to assess this environmental
footprint.
Figure 16: Matrix of equipment involved in digital sector environmental assessment, their
global impact, the availability of methodology and databases to assess this impact and
inventories (Source NégaOctet presentation).
5 CONCLUSION
In view of the achievements attained during last years, specially at ETSI and ITU-T organizations,
and to continue advancing, vendors and operators are encouraged to participate in
standardization efforts on the equipment environmental footprint reduction in order to share
knowledge, develop and adopt common approaches.
Moreover, considering the presented LCA methodology used to assess the environmental
footprint of network equipment and to guide the eco-design process in order to reduce the
environmental footprint of network equipment, network providers and operators should
integrate in the system definition, specification and purchase process requirements related to
circular economy (for instance, according ITU-T L.1023) and environmental footprint
assessment (using the LCA method, for instance with ITU-T L.1410).
Based on the view on the materials footprint and the role of critical raw materials as part of
product’s eco-design given, considering the associated supply risks, vendors should develop
and increase awareness of the challenges related to GHG emissions or resources depletion
(scare or critical materials) of network equipment. To this end, the technical skills on eco-design
and life cycle assessment are to be expanded.
Also, methods used to determine re-manufacturing and refurbish benefits have been
presented. Investigating new business models related to the circular economy paradigm
appears as an interesting path, too. For instance, switching to Product-Service-System (PSS)
could reduce the environmental footprint, or to include in hardware design strategies
considerations about longevity, modularity and upgradability.
Finally, and in order to continue advancing in the network’s environmental footprint reduction,
NGMN suggests increasing the efforts to develop common methodologies to bring solutions
to the complex question of assessing services environmental footprint, for example through
collaborative partnerships between actors with different expertise.
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List of Acronyms
ADP Abiotic Depletion Potential

BBP Butyl Benzyl Phthalate
CDGG Circular Design Guidelines Group
CE Circular Economy
CED Cumulative Energy Demand
CED Cumulative Energy Demand
CGP Current Generation Product
CO2e CO2 equivalent
CRM Critical Raw Materials
DBP Dibutyl Phthalate
DEHP Di(2-ethylhexyl) Phthalate
DIBP Diisobutyl Phthalate
DIDP Di-Iso-Decyl Phthalate
DINP Di-Iso Nonyl Phthalate
DNOP Di-N-Octyl Phthalate
ECHA European Chemical Agency
EDSCA European Dataspace for Smart Circular Applications
EEE Electric and Electronic Equipment
E&M Entertainment & Media
EPD Environmental Product Declaration
EPEAT Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool
EPR Extended Producer Responsibility
EPS Environmental Priority Strategies
FFR Field Failure Rate
GHG Greenhouse Gas
GHS Globally Harmonized System
GWP Global Warming Potential
HIS Hazard Statements Indicator
HREE Heavy Rare Earth Element
ICT Information & Communication Technologies
ILCD International Life Cycle Data network
ISO International Organization for Standardization
IoT Internet of Things
LCA Life Cycle Assessment
LCD Liquid Crystal Display
LIME Life cycle Impact Assessment Method based on Endpoint modelling
LREE Light Rare Earth Element
LSP Lean/Smart Packaging
MTBF Mean Time between Failures
NGP Next Generation Product
OTT Over The Top
PBB Polybrominated Biphenyls
PBDE Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers
PCB Printed Circuit Boards
PCBA Printed Circuit Board Assemblies
PEEC Parameterized Embodied Emissions Calculator
PIM Passive Intermodulation
PSS Product-Service-System
REACH Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals
RF Radio Frequency
RFP Request For Proposal
RoHS Reduction of Hazardous Substances
SB-e g antimony equivalents
SCIP Substances of Concern In Products
SM Surface Mount
SVHC Substance of Very High Concern
TH Through-Hole
TMA Tower Mounted Amplifier
TP Traditional Packaging
UPS Uninterruptible Power Supply
WEEE Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment

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Green Future Networks

Network Equipment Eco-Design and End to End

Document Type: Final Deliverable (approved)

Confidentiality Class: P - Public

Project: Green Future Networks

Editor / Submitter: Ana Maria Galindo Serrano (Orange)

Contributors: Steffen Wasmus (Deutsche Telekom), Gloria Flik (KPN),

Approved by / Date: NGMN Board / 9th July 2021

To finalize, Section 4 presents the status of works on the development of a methodology to

2.2 Environmental Footprint Reduction Strategy

3 ASSESSING AND REDUCING THE ENVIRONMENTAL

3.1 The Business Model Effect on Environmental Impacts

3.2 Life Cycle Assessment, Standardized Way to Estimate

3.3 Using LCAs to Guide Eco-design Processes

3.4 LCA and Components Eco-design

Figure 4. Distribution of the carbon footprint of the ICT sector

Table 2. Example of embodied emissions of a representative configuration of a macro indoor base

3.6 Application of the Product Circularity Method

Table 4 R and MI scores for the studied Home Network Equipment

Circular Design Relevance Margin of

PD1: Software and data support 4 1

3RUm1: Service offered by manufacturer 4 1

3RUm2: Spare parts distribution 1 2

Table 5. Circularity score for the studied Home Network Equipment

Product Durability 100 PD1: Software and data support

3.7 Materials of Interest

3.7.1 Materials Footprint –

Material footprint by mass, or shares of mass

Material carbon footprint

Material resource depletion footprint

Material toxicity footprint

3.7.2 Critical Raw Materials as Part of Product’s Eco-design

3.7.3 Polymers Circularity in Eco-design

3.7.4 Regulated Substances in Electronics

3.8 Methods Used to Determine Re-manufacturing and Refurbish

3.8.1 Base station Remanufacturing Trade-offs

3.8.2 Enterprise Server Remanufacturing Trade-offs

(∆𝑷𝑨𝑫𝑷 −𝑷𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑫𝑷 ) ((𝟎.𝟎𝟏+𝟎.𝟎𝟏𝟑)−𝟎.𝟓%×(𝟎.𝟎𝟏+𝟎.𝟎𝟏𝟑))

3.8.3 Home Network Equipment Refurbishment Trade-offs

3.9 Procedures for Integrating Eco-design into the Product

3.10 Packaging Innovation by Eco-design

3.11 Eco-rating, Eco-labels, Eco-information

• TCO Certified is a globally recognised sustainability certification for IT products in offices

3.11.1 European Green Deal and Circular Economic Action Plan

What is an end-to-end services footprint?

A number of research papers have been published on topics related to calculation, or

ADP Abiotic Depletion Potential

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