The Teachers
Paolo GEMMA is a senior Specialist and representative of Huawei on issues related to energy saving and environmental sustainability. Prior to joining Huawei, Dr. Gemma was working with Nokia Siemens Networks, where he was responsible for EMC (electromagnetic compatibility) and electrical safety areas. He also worked in the Siemens Communications Division. Dr. Paolo Gemma also plays an active role in international standardization activities. Since 1993, he has been engaged in ETSI (European Telecommunication Standard Institute) activities and he also participates in the development of EMC standards. In 1997, Dr. Gemma joined ITU-T Study Group 5 on Environment, Climate Change and Circular Economy as a Rapporteur and he is now the Chairman of Working Party 2 “Environment, Energy Efficiency and the Circular Economy". He also acts as Vice-chairmen of the United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) initiative and Co-Chairman of the Focus Group on Environmental Efficiency for AI and other emerging technologies (FG-AI4EE).
Rosie McDONALD is a Climate Change Officer within the ITU's Telecommunication Development Bureau. She supports ITU’s efforts in green digital transformation by providing research, tools and capacity building to address environmental challenges related to climate change and e-waste. Her work focuses on e-waste data and statistics capacity building activities as part of the Global E-waste Statistics Partnership (GESP), as well as monitoring greenhouse gas emissions and climate commitments of the ICT industry. Prior to ITU, her work focused on greenhouse gas modelling for the land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector of the UK national greenhouse gas inventory. Within a higher education setting, she has experience of working in widening participation, STEM enrichment and teaching environmental statistics and GIS. She holds a PhD in Environment Sciences from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and an MSc in Environmental Protection and Management from The University of Edinburgh (UK).
The Class
Data infrastructure, such as data centres and cloud solutions, are critical to digital transformation, but can lead to climate and environmental harms. Greening data centres requires a holistic, life-cycle approach, which spans design, manufacturing, procurement, operations, reuse, recycling, and e-waste disposal. This class will provide an overview of the best practices for greening data centres and will also highlight the main international standards on how to monitor the carbon intensity of a network.
When & Where?
Monday 11th December at 1PM CET (check your time zone).
Online videoconference Zoom.
Learning Resources
- Green Data Centers Guide
- Recommendation ITU-T L.1333 “Carbon data intensity for network energy performance monitoring”
- Recommendation ITU-T L.1300: Best practices for green data centres
- Recommendation ITU-T L.1304: Procurement criteria for sustainable data centres
- Greening Digital Companies
What’s next?
We invite you to check our programme and join another Climate Classroom @ COP28.
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