This EU Code of Conduct (CoC) for the sustainability of telecommunications networks is a deliverable under the European Commission’s 2022 Digitalising the Energy System Action Plan. In line with the Action Plan and other EU policies, environmental sustainability of telecommunications networks should contribute to achieving the EU’s climate targets. Stakeholders can assess environmental sustainability impacts during the design, manufacturing, deployment, operation, maintenance, audit and decommissioning phases. These assessments should follow the best practices based on standards, as set out in this EU CoC, with a particular focus on the operation phase.
After exploring the possibility to develop common indicators for measuring the environmental footprint, as required under the 2022 Action Plan (EC JRC 2023b), eight indicators were selected for this EU CoC to cover energy, climate, and other environmental aspects of sustainability most relevant in the context of telecommunications networks.
A set of expected and optional practices are defined, both at the level of the entire network infrastructure and for specific network segments, to the extent possible.
Each practice is based on a standard or set of complementary standards, which focus notably on the definition of organisational rules and processes as well as technical specifications for the collection, analysis and reporting of environmental sustainability data.
The expected practices laid out in this EU CoC could feed into the development of technical screening criteria to assess a substantial contribution of telecommunications networks to climate change mitigation under the EU Taxonomy Regulation.
The scope of this EU CoC addresses electronic communications networks in the sense of Art. 2(1) Directive (EU) 2018/1972 (the European Electronic Communications Code) for the provision of electronic communications services. Focused on the most relevant aspects for the environmental sustainability of telecommunications networks (based on EC JRC 2023b), this EU CoC does not address aspects of biodiversity, water-use, pollution, land-use, working conditions, communities’ economic, social and cultural rights, social inclusion of consumers and business conduct, as covered by the broader and horizontal European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) (EC 2023a).
Regarding the different phases of the network infrastructure lifecycle, i.e. design, manufacturing, deployment, operation, maintenance, audit and decommissioning (e.g., the process of removing the equipment from service), this EU CoC is especially focused on the operation phase, where standards are most mature, while however also identifying potentially relevant practices for the other phases (e.g., for circular economy aspects like e-waste). As standards for these practices mature, the currently optional practices may become expected under future iterations of this EU CoC.
Acknowledging the difficulties of comparing network infrastructures with each other, which would require accounting for factors such as geographical topology, population density, and network license requirements, this EU CoC is focused on measuring improvements of any network infrastructure over time, providing a common methodology across the EU.
BALDINI Gianmarco;
CERUTTI Isabella;
2026-01-28
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC144975
978-92-68-36288-4 (online),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 40616,
OP KJ-01-26-038-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC144975,
10.2760/5501193 (online),
