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FTTH Council Carbon footprint project

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FTTH Council Carbon footprint project

A new model developed by the FTTH Council sustainability committee will help ensure companies in the FTTH sector can meet the CSRD directive requirements

FTTH Council Carbon footprint project: a reporting model for the entire sector

A new model developed by the FTTH Council sustainability committee will help ensure companies in the FTTH sector can meet the CSRD directive requirements

From 2025, the CSRD will require large companies to report in detail on their impact on people and the environment. From 2027, this EU directive will also apply to smaller companies, often suppliers to large parties. FTTH providers need to disclose information related to environmental impact, such as carbon footprint, raw material sourcing, waste management, and energy consumption.

Accurate, timely, fact-based approximation will be an important accelerator for CSDR. In most cases, organisations are buying and selling to other organisations in the same value chain. Each organisation needs to obtain data from and provide data to other organisations within that value chain instantly and accurately. Only a sector-wide approach can enable this.

Companies need to provide measurement and reporting, and an independent auditor is to validate the figures. Supply chain reporting must be detailed and consumption across the supply chain must be examined. Calculating scope 1,2, and 3 is becoming mandatory. (See separate box). Scope 3 often represents the largest portion of a company's total carbon footprint. Addressing scope 3 emissions can often lead to significant opportunities for reducing a company’s overall carbon footprint, promoting sustainable practices across its supply chain, and may also lead to innovation and improved collaboration with suppliers and customers.

However, measuring scope 3 emissions can be quite challenging due to the lack of direct control over relevant activities and the need to gather data from multiple sources, often outside a company’s direct influence. Companies need to provide environmental data to their customers, who can integrate this into emissions reporting for scope 3. Addressing scope 3 emissions provides significant opportunities for reducing overall carbon footprint and building more sustainable and resilient supply chains.

The FTTH Council Carbon Footprint (FCCF) Project aims to define scope 1, 2, and 3 for the entire sector using one common, standardized GHG Protocol methodology. Companies can use this methodology and enhance the quality of sustainability information available to investors and partners throughout the chain. This approach also makes it possible to communicate on the decarbonization of the entire FTTH sector and create synergies around greenhouse gas (GHG )emission mitigation. The more companies take part, the greater the accuracy of reporting and the easier it becomes to identify improvement opportunities for companies and the sector.

The project focuses on ‘scope 3’ emissions. Given the range of activities, accurately measuring these can be challenging. All project members calculated their entire GHG evaluation (scope 1, 2, 3). A methodology was developed to avoid double-counting emissions shared throughout the value chain, to assess carbon footprint as accurately as possible. Members can obtain an initial estimate of the main emission categories prior to their first formal carbon assessment and access complementary data that helps achieve a fast, realistic carbon assessment or helps complete an existing assessment. The collective approach with peers means all members can develop and optimize methodologies and learn faster. Of course, for an initial estimate, transparency and honesty are key and all assumptions for data collection and choice of emission factor should be recorded.

Find out more!

Scope 1,2,3

Scope 1 covers direct emissions from owned or controlled sources.

Scope 2 covers indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity, steam, heating, and cooling

Scope 3 refers to all indirect emissions that occur in a company's value chain, excluding those from scope 1 and scope 2 sources.

The conversion methodology

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Depending on a company’s activity, a list of relevant data covering all its GHG emissions is defined. The company is asked to collect related data in physical units (such as tons or km). Each activity data is then converted to kgCO2e using emission factors from public databases. The result is eventually presented in CO2e (CO2 equivalent), categorized per scope, emission categories and different types of greenhouse gases.

Goals of the FTTH Council Carbon footprint project reporting model

The FTTH Council Carbon Footprint (FCCF) Project is a pilot initiative launched in in February 2023, together with 11 representative members representing the Fibre value chain. The participants consist of mature members as well as members at various stages of carbon assessment expertise. The group is supported by external experts and specialized tools.

  • Communicate on the decarbonization of the fibre sector
  • Onboard more companies to make their carbon assessment and identify their main levers
  • Create synergies and dynamics around GHG emission mitigation in the FTTH sector
  • Estimate our own carbon footprint of the organisation itself
  • Emulate and follow the sector progress
  • Offer the biggest European group of sustainability experts dedicated to the fibre sector
  • Allow peers to share practices, ideas and create sustainability synergies
  • Support and accelerate the European green deal through a sector initiative

About the FTTH Council Europe sustainability committee

The European Commission’s European Green Deal has the ambition of making Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, boosting the economy, improving people's health and quality of life, caring for nature, and leaving no one behind. Digitalisation will be at the core of this ambitious program and fibre is key to align the digital and sustainability agendas. As the most sustainable telecommunication infrastructure technology, full-fibre is a prerequisite to achieving the European Green Deal and making the European Union’s economy more sustainable.

The need to work collectively towards a more sustainable society has become a strategic objective of policy makers and most private organisations alike. With this context in mind, the sustainability committee of the FTTH Council Europe has been created with two key objectives:

  1.  Promote full fibre as the most sustainable access network technology and enabler of multiple applications which can contribute to reducing the carbon footprint of our activities. Remote working and learning being the most obvious examples.
  2. Support all stakeholders of the Fibre to the Home value chain in their efforts to make their respective activities more carbon neutral.