Environmental sustainability regulatory and policy practices and actions of telecoms regulatory authorities

Abstract

Creating climate-neutral electronic communications is a shared
responsibility for the industry and urgent action is needed in the face of
warming trends due to global climate change. Despite this, environmental
sustainability has just started to receive attention in the regulation of the
electronic communications sector. The national telecoms regulatory authorities
overseeing the sector in the different countries are key in driving related policy
and regulation. However, as to date, hardly any paper has dealt with their
respective practices in a comparative manner. Therefore, the aim of this paper
is to fill this gap, to review the relevant environmental sustainability regulatory
and policy practices and actions of telecoms regulatory authorities, in order to
provide a comprehensive and high-level comparison of sustainability initiatives
in the electronic communications sector. It is hoped that this will serve as a
starting point for launching a discourse in the industry and for properly
positioning the green transition in electronic communications regulation.