In June 2026, the Fifth Study Group of the International Telecommunication Union Standardization Department (ITU-T SG5) will hold its plenary session. The ITU-T SG5 research group mainly focuses on topics such as electromagnetic fields, environment, climate action, sustainable digitalization, and the circular economy. At this plenary session, three ITU international product carbon footprint standards—L.1413 "Smartphone Carbon Footprint Assessment Guide", L.1414 "Server Carbon Footprint Assessment Guide", and L.1415 "Carbon Footprint Assessment Guidelines for ICT Lithium-ion Battery Products"—were officially submitted for approval. The approval of these three ITU international standards marks an important breakthrough in China's international standardization of ICT product carbon footprints.

Currently, global climate change issues are receiving increasing attention, and the carbon emission problem of the ICT industry has received widespread international attention. ICT products are diverse and supply chain structures complex, so carbon emissions from production and usage cannot be ignored. Moreover, carbon footprint accounting methods have long lacked unified standards, creating many obstacles for enterprises to reduce carbon emissions and for consumers to select low-carbon products. L.1413 "Smartphone Carbon Footprint Assessment Guide" sets standards for smartphones, the world's largest ICT terminal consumer electronics; L.1414 focuses on core energy-consuming data center equipment under explosive computing power demand; L.1415 targets core energy storage components of ICT devices such as smartphones, laptops, and communication base stations. Together, these three standards build a carbon footprint accounting standard system covering ICT terminal products, network infrastructure, and key components. At the same time, this series of standards introduced the concept of product carbon footprint intensity for the first time in an international standard, elevating China's domestic product carbon footprint intensity research to the international level. These three standards are among the first carbon footprint standards formulated by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) specifically for specific products. They provide global ICT manufacturing enterprises with unified and standardized accounting methods, improving the accuracy, consistency, and transparency of carbon footprint assessments for such products, helping enterprises fully understand their own carbon emission status and identify key emission reduction links.

This plenary session also approved a supplement to the proposal led by the CTTL Terminal Labs (CTTL-T) of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), L.Suppl.63 "Special Principles for Green Supply Chain Management in ICT Manufacturing," which is an important supplement to ITU-T L.1060 "General Principles for Green Supply Chain Management in ICT Manufacturing," improving the method for digitally empowering green supply chain management. The approval of this supplement will provide more refined technical guidance for global ICT manufacturing enterprises in building green supply chains.