NVS3 – Sustainability, regulation, and business models
Friday, 6 June 2025, 9:00-10:30, room 1.B
Session Chair: Halina Tarasiuk (Warsaw Univ. of Technology, PL)
Sustainable Business Model Patterns in 6G Visions
Seppo Yrjölä (Nokia, Oulu & University of Oulu, Finland); Marja Matinmikko-Blue (University of Oulu, Centre for Wireless Communications, Finland); Tanmoy Chowdhury (University of Oulu, Finland)
This paper explores the diversity of sustainability-oriented business model innovations in the emerging 6G ecosystem. The envisioned general-purpose 6G technology platform grounded on open architecture and interfaces has the potential to create a rich developer community innovating services, applications, and business models for increasing network value and benefiting from innovations sustainably. We examined mobile communications ecosystem stakeholders’ environmental, social and governance compliance reporting, sustainability and corporate social responsibility reports, white papers, and position papers on the 6G visions and the sustainability of related products, services, and applications. We identified 11 sustainable business model groups and 34 patterns along the environmental, social, and economic sustainability dimensions and characterized them from their value creation perspectives. The results show that stakeholders in mobile communications have mostly adopted the enviro-economic business models grounded on ecodesign and circular economy patters while social patters were in initial stages. The results can be used as a basis for the more unified sustainability business analysis of 6G, in developing new sustainability-oriented business model innovations, and communicating sustainable value proposition to stakeholders.
Shaping 6G’s Role in Achieving Sustainable Development: a Framework & Dutch Case Study
Anup Kiran Bhattacharjee and Aaron van Diepen (Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands)
Recent studies have investigated the role of 6G in advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), primarily from a technological perspective. However, these works often emphasize technological aspects while neglecting broader societal implications and the necessity for cross-sector collaboration. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a framework that positions the UN SDGs at the core of problem definition and impact assessment of 6G. To demonstrate the practical utility of the framework, we conduct a case study focused on the Netherlands, providing actionable insights into how 6G can address SDG-related challenges. In addition, the paper introduces a refined list of Key Value Indicators (KVIs) aligned with sustainability types. By linking telecom and non-telecom stakeholders, this framework fosters a comprehensive understanding of 6G’s potential societal impact, emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinary cooperation.
Drowsiness and Fatigue Recognition Systems for Connected Vehicles, 6G and the EU AI Act
Ana Ferreira (University of Porto & RISE-Health, Portugal); Basak Ozan Ozparlak (Ozyegin University, Turkey); Hartmut Aden (Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin /Berlin School of Economics and Law, Germany); Iraklis Symeonidis (RISE, Research Institutes of Sweden, Sweden & NSS, Sweden); Müge Çetin (Ozyegin University, Turkey); Eirini Kanaki (Z-RED & Tech4Society, Greece); Periklis Chatzimisios (International Hellenic University, Greece & University of New Mexico, USA)
The European Union (EU) has passed binding rules for drowsiness and fatigue recognition in vehicles. This paper explores the impact of future 6G standards in this area. The paper, from an interdisciplinary legal and technical perspective, specifically looks at the requirements for AI-based drowsiness and fatigue recognition that have been established by the EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) passed in 2024, and discusses the secure technical implementation of those requirements for that context with regards to 6G network. Since 6G network will be AI-native, this paper aims to provide recommendations to foster drowsiness and fatigue recognition AI systems that are safe and legal by design, while still taking full advantage of 6G capabilities.
Towards Energy Aware Operations of ICT Systems
Ljupco Jorguseski (TNO, The Netherlands); Rudolf Susnik (INTERNET INSTITUTE Ltd, Slovenia); Luka Korsic (INTERNET INSTITUTE, Ltd, Slovenia); Janez Sterle (INTERNET INSTITUTE Ltd, Slovenia); Sripriya Srikant Adhatarao (Huawei Technologies, Germany); Artur Hecker (Huawei, Germany); Zoran Despotovic (Huawei Technologies, Germany); Adamantia Stamou, Vasilios A. Siris and George Stamoulis (Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece); Panagiotis Kontopoulos and Theodora Panagea (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece)
Beyond energy efficiency, the debate on sustainability of ICT needs to consider ecologically-aware usage of ICT systems. This implies user awareness of energy consumption and CO2e emissions caused by the service execution, including non-local service parts and transport. Unfortunately, most of the current methods in the area of sustainability of ICT target domain-specific optimizations, only considering the service provider and letting the user out of the picture. In this paper, we tackle this problem by proposing an architecture for service ecodata reporting along a service chain. Usable by both service providers and service users, it implements the first out of three pillars, on which our more general approach to energy-aware ICT services resides: measure, optimize and incentivize. Concretely, we briefly present a gap analysis for the state-of-the art regarding energy consumption and CO2e impact from ICT systems, and based on these gaps propose a functional architecture for the measurement and inter-domain exchange of ecodata. We then briefly evaluate suitability of building blocks for this functional architecture, via tests in a lab environment.
UNITY-6G: UNified archITecture for Open RAN-Enabled Distributed, Scalable and SustainabilitY-Enhanced 6G Networks
Luis Blanco (Centre Tecnològic de les Telecommunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC), Spain); Selva Via, Cristian Jesús Vaca Rubio and Engin Zeydan (CTTC, Spain); Luis Contreras (Telefonica, Spain); Gil Kedar (Ceragon, Israel); Gianluca Rizzo (HES SO Valais, Switzerland & Universita’ di Torino, Italy); Angelos Antonopoulos (Nearby Computing, Spain); Jetmir Haxhibeqiri, Vasilis Maglogiannis and Dries Naudts (IMEC, IDLab, Ghent University, Belgium); Jeroen Hoebeke (Ghent University – imec, Belgium); Tomaso De Cola (German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany); Lorenzo Galati Giordano (Nokia Bell Labs, Germany); Gianluca Fontanesi (Nokia, Germany); Sotirios Spantideas (Four Dot Infinity, Athens, Greece); Harilaos Koumaras (NCSR Demokritos, Greece); Massimo Neri (Martel Innovate GmbH, Switzerland); Andrea Vesco (LINKS Foundation, Italy); Carla Amatetti (University of Bologna, Italy); Nuria Trujillo Quijada (Hispasat Madrid & HISPASAT CANARIAS SL, Spain); Marcin Dryjanski (RIMEDO Labs, Poland); Nikolaos Kanakaris (IPTO, Greece); Carina Pamminger (Holo-Industrie 4.0 Software GmbH, Germany); Matteo Pagin and Filip Ivanovic (Keysight Technologies, Denmark)
This paper proposes a highly sustainable and scalable integrated AI-native architecture defining UNified archITecture for Open RAN-enabled Distributed, Scalable and SustainabilitY-enhanced 6G Networks (UNITY-6G) project that can support the diverse requirements of 6G networks by relying on advanced technologies, such as distributed ledger technology, semantic communications, digital network twinning to enhance the performance, cost-efficiency and trustworthiness of integrated 6G network services and applications. The focus is on scalability and sustainability for integrated networks (Non-Terrestrial and Terrestrial Networks, xHaul, Open RAN, Non-Public Networks, Edge, Core and Cloud). Furthermore, we aim to evolve to real-time distributed and network state-aware Open RAN that can leverage the integration of distributed applications in the integrated architecture. This will enable fine-grained data-driven management and control via incorporating dApps, distributed applications that complement existing xApps/rApps and use cases with stricter timing requirements in an integrated network. Common interfaces and protocols will be defined so that different heterogenous domains can communicate seamlessly. To better guide the design, This paper also use the principles of service based architecture for integrated networks and leverage digital twins for network evaluation and considers four use cases targeting: i) Sustainable networks for disaster handling, (ii) Immersive Experience with Real-time XR/holographic communications, (iii) Digital Twin for Integrated 6G Network Evaluation, (iv) Multi-RAT O-RAN enabled NPN for supporting time sensitive applications for Industry 4.0.
