Research Issues for Sustainable Wireless Networks: A Stakeholder Approach

Sustainability and sustainable development are topics that are increasingly addressed in the ICT sector including wireless networks. Yet, their interpretations vary a great deal depending on the person without a commonly agreed approach. This paper presents an overview of sustainability and sustainable development in the context of ICTs and wireless networks highlighting the urgency of introducing sustainability principles at all levels and stages of ICT technology development. The paper presents a way forward to adopt sustainability principles into future technology design considering the triple bottom line of economic, social and environmental sustainability perspectives. A change in mindset is urgently needed and all stakeholders need to act in their own capacity as well as collaboratively to make the wireless networks and their use truly sustainable without green-washing. New metrics need to be defined and measured to respond to growing concerns as today’s metrics, such as total consumed mobile data are far from sustainable. Time to act is now as the design criteria for the future sustainable 6G are defined in the next years.