SUSTAIN-6G contributes to SNS Ju Sustainability Working Group technical report on AI-Native, System-Level Sustainability for 6G
The SNS JU Sustainability Working Group has published the technical note “Sustainable 6G by Design: An SNS-Driven Vision for AI-Native, System-Level Sustainability”.
The report was developed following the EuCNC 2025 Sustainability Workshop and brings together contributions from across the Smart Networks and Services (SNS) community to explore how sustainability can be embedded into the design and operation of future 6G systems.
The SUSTAIN-6G project contributed to this collaborative effort in the work of the SNS JU Sustainability Working Group, alongside other SNS JU European research and innovation projects: BeGREEN, 6Green, EXIGENCE, CENTRIC, SUSTAIN-6G, 6G-SANDBOX, 6G-TWIN, 6G-GOALS, DESIRE6G, NATWORK, SUPERIOT, 6G-NTN, ORIGAMI, 5G-STARDUST, Hexa-X II, 6G-Versus, TrialsNet, HORSE, 6G-EWOC and FIDAL, sharing perspectives on how sustainability can become an integral part of future network architectures.
Moving towards system-level sustainability
As 6G networks evolve towards highly distributed, AI-native, and adaptive infrastructures, sustainability needs to be considered a fundamental design principle rather than merely an optimisation objective.
The technical note highlights that current sustainability approaches in ICT are still largely focused on operational energy efficiency. While important progress has been achieved in this area, the report underlines the need for a broader perspective addressing environmental, economic and social dimensions, as well as their interdependencies.
The report examines how sustainability considerations can be integrated across the entire system, including network architecture, resource management, deployment contexts, business models and policy frameworks.
Supporting sustainable decision-making
The report also explores technologies and approaches that can support sustainability decisions in future networks.
Network Digital Twins can enable predictive analysis of sustainability outcomes before deployment, while Knowledge Graph-based approaches can improve traceability between requirements, sustainability enablers, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Key Value Indicators (KVIs).
Combined with intent-based control and closed-loop feedback mechanisms, these approaches can help make sustainability an active and measurable property of network operation.
Through its contribution, SUSTAIN-6G continues to support the development of holistic sustainability approaches for future networks, working together with the wider research community to advance sustainable, AI-native and system-level solutions for 6G.
Read the technical report: https://zenodo.org/records/20796173
Reference: Ghoraishi, M., Lombardo, C., Hecker, A., Aguiar, R. L., Aseeva, A., Zaki-Hindi, A., Jain, A., Gavras, A., Petersen, K., AL-Naday, M., Neri, M., Hajdok, E., BERNARDOS, C. J., Schmelz, L. C., Wendt, S.& Faye, S. (2026). Sustainable 6G by Design An SNS-Driven Vision for AI-Native, System-Level Sustainability. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20796173
