scope:

This Recommendation suggests approaches of circular economy (CE) for the information and communication technology (ICT) goods. It focuses particularly on the next steps in improving circularity in the operators′ supply chain.

The Recommendation provides a guide on how operators could work with their supply chain to improve CE aspects for ICT goods and networks through a manifesto intended to improve the circularity of products through supply chain actions. The objective of the guide is to provide options to improve circularity and to enable operators and their suppliers to create business-models for the promotion of circular networks for an optimum solution using all the loops from sharing to recycling. Thus the proposed manifesto can be used by operators and their suppliers to improve the circularity of all ICT goods and networks, both for infrastructure and end-user goods.

This Recommendation does not outline metrics, but is intended to be used as a guide for operators to work jointly with suppliers to improve circularity.

This Recommendation builds upon Supplement 28 to the ITU-T L-series of Recommendations [b-ITU-T L-Sup.28] and the corresponding ETSI report [b-ETSI EE TR 103 476] which cover CE as used in the ICT industry and existing CE metrics, as well as examples of their use