[arch-d] Reminder: Call for Papers: IAB workshop on Environmental Impact of Internet Applications and Systems

[IAB Executive Administrative Manager <[e-mail]>]

IAB workshop on Environmental Impact of Internet Applications and 
Systems

Web page: https://www.iab.org/activities/workshops/e-impact/

Background

Internet communications and applications have both environmental costs 
and benefits. In the positive direction, they can reduce the 
environmental impact of our society, for instance, by allowing virtual 
interaction to replace physical travel. Of course, the Internet can 
equally well act as an enabler for increasing physical goods 
consumption, for instance, through easing commerce.

Beyond the effects associated with its use, Internet applications do not 
come for free either. The Internet runs on systems that require energy 
and raw materials to manufacture and operate. While the environmental 
benefits of the Internet may certainly outweigh this use of resources in 
many cases, it is incumbent on the Internet industry to ensure that this 
use of resources is minimized and optimized. In many cases, this is 
already an economic necessity due to operational costs. And because many 
consumers, businesses, and civil societies care deeply about the 
environmental impact of the services and technologies they use, there is 
also a clear demand for providing Internet services with minimal 
environmental impact.

This is a broad topic, ranging from technical questions to economics, 
business decisions, and policies. Technical, standards, and research 
communities can help ensure that we have a sufficient understanding of 
the environmental impact of the Internet and its applications. They can 
also help to design the right tools to continue to build and improve all 
aspects of the Internet, such as addressing new functional needs, easing 
of operations, improving performance and/or efficiency, or reducing 
environmental impacts in other ways.

Workshop

The IAB is organizing a workshop to discuss the Internet's environmental 
impact, discuss the evolving needs from industry, and to identify areas 
for improvements and future work. While the focus is on technical 
aspects, the scope is broadly on the entire Internet ecosystem, from the 
communications to the devices, applications, data centers, etc.

The main goal of the workshop is to call further attention to the topic 
and to bring together a diverse stakeholder community to discuss these 
issues. The workshop shall also:

  • Discuss the direct environmental impacts of the Internet, including 
    but not limited to energy usage by Internet systems themselves, 
    energy usage of the relevant end-user devices, resources needed for 
    manufacturing the associated devices, or the environmental impacts 
    throughout the lifecycle of Internet systems. Discuss the breakdown 
    of those impacts across different system components and operations. 
    Predict potential future trends for these impacts based on changed 
    usage patterns and emerging technologies.
  • Discuss the indirect environmental impacts of the Internet, i.e., 
    its effects on society overall, through enabling communications, 
    virtual services, or global commerce.
  • Share information about relevant measurement metrics and data, and 
    identify the need for additional metric or measurements.
  • Discuss the need for improvements or associated new functionality.
  • Share information about the societal, business, and regulatory 
    situation, to help identify areas of opportunity.
  • Identify areas where further technical work would be most impactful.
  • Discuss specific improvement proposals.

We expect that the workshop discussions connect analysis of the issues 
(e.g., scale of energy consumption or carbon footprint) to industry 
needs (e.g., deployment opportunities) and solutions.

Business and societal policy questions are in scope only insofar as they 
inform the workshop participants about the context we are in, but what 
those policies should be is not for the workshop to decide or even 
extensively discuss. The scope excludes also how the technical community 
works and meets, such as the question of in-person or hybrid meetings 
(but note that this workshop is virtual).

Practical details

The workshop is organized as three half-day virtual meetings starting 
with a kick-off on Monday, December 5, 2022. The remaining sessions will 
be scheduled according to participant availability, likely also in the 
same week. A workshop report will be prepared after the meeting, to be 
discussed among the participants and then published as an RFC.

Note: While the workshop results are open, the participants may decide 
at the beginning of the meeting that specific contributions and 
discussions can only be shared anonymously, i.e., without attribution or 
inclusion of other identifying information.

Workshop participation is by invitation. Invitations are extended based 
on program committee reviews of position paper submissions. Position 
papers are typically short (2-4 pages) summaries of the participants' 
thinking of a specific topic, but can also be more detailed articles. 
Not all position papers will be presented in the workshop, but they will 
be distributed before the workshop, form the background for discussions, 
and are expected reading for the participants.

Please send your position paper submissions to [e-mail] 
latest by October 31, 2022 but submissions are welcome also earlier. The 
program committee will confirm participation by November 7, 2022.

Program committee

The program committee members are:

  • Jari Arkko, Ericsson (program committee co-chair)
  • Lars Eggert, Netapp (program committee co-chair)
  • Toerless Eckert, Futurewei
  • Martin Flack, Akamai
  • Mike Mattera, Akamai
  • Colin Perkins, University of Glasgow
  • Eve M. Schooler, Intel
  • Rick Taylor, Ori Industries
  • Jiankang Yao, CNNIC