Survey on Reducing the Environmental Impact of Information and Communication Technology by Green Networking

Abstract

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has experienced an explosive development that has presented new ways of connectivity, computation, and communication in the world. But this advancement is at a high cost to the environment as energy consumption, e-waste, and carbon emissions are rising. With sustainability emerging as a worldwide agenda, it is high time to seek ways of reducing the ecological impact of ICT systems. Green networking has come up as the critical strategy of dealing with these issues by facilitating energy-efficient network designs, protocols, and technologies. The survey gives an in-depth analysis of the current developments in green networking that are geared towards mitigating the environmental effects of ICT infrastructure. It addresses the main approaches that include dynamic power management, energy-aware routing, virtualization, edge computing, and the integration of renewable energy sources in the network. The paper also discusses energy-efficient data centres, smart grids, and how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) can be used to regulate real-time energy consumption.