Side Event: Measuring and Reducing Carbon Emissions in End-to-End Networked Systems

Friday, July 3, 2026 — Delft University of Technology (TU Delft)

The carbon footprint of digital infrastructure is increasingly shaped not only by hardware efficiency, but also by how networked systems are provisioned, configured, and operated under dynamic conditions. Overprovisioned capacity, traffic variability, congestion control mechanisms, and wireless inefficiencies all contribute to energy consumption and emissions in ways that are often not captured by existing metrics.

This workshop brings together researchers and industries to explore carbon-aware networking and the measurement of emissions in end-to-end networked systems, and to build a strong community around this topic. The goal is to connect perspectives across several layers and to develop a shared understanding of how carbon emissions arise and can be quantified in networked systems.

It is part of a broader 4TU.NIRICT initiative to strengthen Dutch and international collaboration in sustainable ICT and to support the development of future carbon-aware networked systems.

Topics of Interest

We welcome contributions related to (but not limited to):

  • Carbon-aware and energy-efficient networking protocols and architectures (e.g., transport, routing, congestion control)
  • Energy and carbon efficiency in wireless and mobile networks, including 5G/6G systems
  • Carbon-aware operation of cloud, edge, and data center networking infrastructures
  • Energy-aware traffic dynamics, workload behavior, and resource provisioning in large-scale networks
  • Measurement and modeling of carbon emissions and energy consumption in networked systems

Program

4TU.NIRICT Side Event Day

09:30 – 10:00Arrival and Coffee (Venue: Echo Hall A)
10:00 – 10:15Welcome by Antonia Affinito (UT) + Nitinder Mohan (TU Delft)
10:15 – 11:00Talk 1 – Chris Adams (Green Web Foundation)

Chris Adams, Green Web Foundation

Carbon.txt, carbon aware routing, and lessons learned working on a fossil free internet

Green Web Foundation Director of Technology and Policy Chris Adams will provide an overview of the changes in economics and legislation that affect how organisations report end to end carbon emissions, and why they do so. We’ll also cover some of the false starts and lessons learned developing carbon.txt a convention to use DNS for environmental disclosure, and how recent academic work has been affecting the design of SCI-Web a new standard for estimating the carbon footprint of network transfer inside industry bodies like the Green Software Foundation.

 

11:00 – 11:20Coffee Break
11:20 – 12:00Panel / Lightning Talks (TBA)
12:00 – 13:00Lunch Break
13:00 – 13:40Talk 2 – Ljupco Jorguseski (TNO)

Ljupco Jorguseski, TNO

Project EXIGENCE – Quantification and exposure of energy consumption and carbon emissions information of ICT systems

This talk presents the results and insights from the European SNS JU project EXIGENCE (Exigence) regarding quantifying the energy consumption (including carbon emissions) of ICT systems and exposure of this information. A brief project introduction will be given followed by the energy consumption quantification results of TNO’s work, focused on 5G wireless cellular communication systems. The results of 5G laboratory tests will be given as well as overview of 3GPP standardization status on this topic.

 

13:40 – 14:00Panel Discussion (4TU.NIRICT Carbon-Aware WG)
Interactive group discussion to identify:
– Missing datasets, metrics and tools
– Key gaps in measurement methodologies
14:00Closing

How to Attend

To attend this workshop, simply register at: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/y67zUSsFSW

The workshop is free to attend.

Main Contact

If you have any questions about this event, please contact Antonia Affinito (a.affinito@utwente.nl).

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