ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY: CURRENT STATUS
As ICANN's mission concerns the global Internet and the public interest, a commitment to environmental, social, and governance sustainability is in the public's interest. In June 2024, ICANN delivered a comprehensive approach for implementing an environmental sustainability strategy for ICANN. (See below for deliverables.)
BACKGROUND
Global environmental concerns have prompted discussions among ICANN's Board, community and org about ICANN's role and responsibility in understanding and addressing its own ecological footprint. In 2023, the ICANN Board began developing a plan to delve deeper into this issue as part of its role in overseeing ICANN's Strategic Planning efforts. Additionally, the Board asked ICANN's CEO to explore the issue, leading to CEO goal 8.
PRINCIPLES
Innovation in Sustainable Operations | Pursue innovative solutions to reduce environmental impact across ICANN's business operations |
Collaborative Engagement | Establish and foster partnerships and collaborations for environmental sustainability efforts across the ICANN ecosystem |
Empower employees, partners, and vendors through policies and practices to prioritize sustainable sourcing | |
Transparency and Accountability | Maintain transparency in reporting environmental impacts and ensure accountability for contributions to sustainability |
DELIVERABLES
- Best practices research in environmental sustainability practices - Best Practices - PDF (May 2024)
- Proposed scope for the environmental audit to understand baseline - Scope - PDF (May 2024)
- Overall strategy, vision, principles, and proposed activities - Strategy - PDF (May 2024)
SCOPE
Best practices research on environmental sustainability practices focuses on four categories, with further sub-categories:
- Offices, : office building systems (heating, cooling, automations), lighting, energy providers/sources, waster and water, sustainable commuting and telecommuting, data center management
- Travel: low-carbon travel, flights
- Events: event materials, catering, low-carbon accommodation, community engagement
- Org-wide products/purchases: plastic and single-use items, IT equipment and services, supply chain
Preliminary research suggests that the proposed environmental audit may explore some of the following lines of inquiry:
- Offices: What lighting products are currently being used? Are LED light bulbs an option? What would need to be retrofitted to make it possible, if not?
- Travel: Are staff encouraged to use trains for long-distance trips and public transportation for short trips, where feasible?
- Events: Do we encourage vendors to use sustainable practices? (For example, could we ask them to avoid single-use beverage packaging and single-use plastics for beverages?)
- Org-wide products/purchases: Do we regularly seek out eco-friendly materials? Are our signage, badges, and banners made of eco-friendly materials?
RESOURCES
- 21 February 2024: ICANN79 Prep Week session: ICANN Board Engagement with Community Work Session (Topic 3: Environmental Sustainability at ICANN)
- 6 March 2024: ICANN79 session: At-Large Plenary Session 1: Internet Governance for the Sustainable Development Goals
ADDITIONAL COMMUNITY RESOURCES
- 7 May 2024: Contracted Parties Summit session: Becoming a Sustainable DNS Industry
- 20 May 2024: RIPE88 session: Exploring the Benefits of Carbon-Aware Routing
- 22 May 2024: RIPE88 session: Studying DNS Energy Consumption
CONTACT
- For questions/comments contact sustainability@icann.org