A reference guide for eco-designing digital services

Reserving a seat on a train, making a doctor's appointment, sending an email to friends, watching a video online, chatting on social media, making a bank transfer, requesting time off work, participating in a videoconference, submitting an expense report, modeling a mechanical part... Despite the impression of immateriality we get when using a digital service, the environmental impacts associated with this use are very real: the operation of our data centers and communication networks and the use of devices (smartphones, tablets, computers) require energy, which is a source of greenhouse gases when the electricity is not generated from carbon-free sources. They consume natural resources, which are often scarce, rarely recycled, and unevenly distributed across the planet.

It is often said that if digital technology were a country, it would be responsible for 2 to 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is higher than civil aviation. And everything suggests that this trend will continue to grow. In response to this global challenge, digital technology must become greener, and digital players are mobilizing to change their practices. It is in this spirit that The guide to eco-design for digital services published in April 2022 in the AFNOR Spec collection.

From front-end to back-end

The result of a sharing of ideas from around 40 stakeholders, the guide provides guidelines and concrete recommendations for all organizations, both public and private, focusing on the environmental dimension of digital impacts. "It focuses on the service, whereas other initiatives focus on the hardware and equipment themselves," adds Audrey Himmer, AFNOR project manager, who supervised the work. Built chronologically, it provides best practices for eco-design throughout the service life cycle: expression, definition, and prioritization of needs; design; implementation; use and operation; maintenance; and decommissioning. It covers the scope of strategy, content, front-end (client side), architecture, specifications, user space and interface, back-end (server side), and hosting. The guide also proposes qualitative and quantitative indicators and control elements for effectively applying these best practices, such as the percentage of reusable features and the volume of redundant data loaded/reloaded (in MB).

Want to know more? A web presentation will be held on May 10, 2022, with the main contributors in attendance.

Updated April 2026 : In 2026, the French AFNOR Spec became an international standard, designated ISO/IEC TS 20125-1. Download this specification here!