FTTH Council Carbon Footprint Project Whitepaper

This whitepaper, an initiative of the Sustainability Committee of the FTTH Council Europe and officially presented at the FTTH Conference 2024 in Berlin, describes the FTTH Carbon Footprint Platform operational model and how the FTTH sector can jointly use this platform to respond to the ambitions and agreements towards decarbonization and Net-Zero, and the increasing regulations on ESG reporting, such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive ( CSRD).

The FTTH Council Europe's Carbon Footprint Platform aims to ensure companies can use the same standardized methodology and enhance the quality of sustainability information available to investors and partners throughout the chain, as demanded by legislation and guidelines such as the CSRD. This approach also makes it possible to communicate 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 and levers for individual companies and the sector. The focus is on “scope 3” of a company's carbon footprint: this refers to all indirect emissions that occur in a company's value chain, excluding those from scope 1 and scope 2 sources. Given the wide range of activities covered by Scope 3 emissions, accurately measuring them can be challenging. However, addressing Scope 3 emissions provides significant opportunities for reducing the overall carbon footprint and building more sustainable and resilient supply chains.