Editorial Launching IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking

Abstract

The development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) within the last few decades has improved our lives tremendously, made information highly accessible, and increased productivity to unprecedented levels. However, this extraordinary improvement in our lives has a hidden cost. ICT employs computers, their peripherals, and communications equipment, all of which use energy, in many cases even when they are idle. As a result, energy consumption, and therefore the generation of greenhouse gases by this technology are already at very high levels. It is currently estimated that the ICT industry is responsible for approximately 2–4% of all of the carbon footprint generated by human activity. This corresponds to about 25% of all car emissions and is approximately equal to all airplane emissions in the world. This trend will only increase. It is estimated that there will be an annual growth rate of nearly 50% in global mobile data traffic in 2016–2021. With the proliferation of smart phones, video, and social networking, this rate of increase can be expected to be at least sustained for many years to come. As a result, serious concerns about the carbon footprint impact of this development have been raised, and the topic of “green communications and networking” has been attracting attention in ICT circles. Increasingly, more workshops, conferences, special issues of magazines and journals, and industry initiatives focus on the need to develop new approaches to communications and networking that result in drastically lower energy consumption. As the current communications and networking systems and protocols were not designed with this consideration, and since in many cases a greenfield approach needs to be taken, this effort will likely take a long time.