6G-XR contributes to new Springer book on digital sustainability

Although the 6G-XR project has successfully concluded, its scientific contributions continue to shape discussions on the future of sustainable digital infrastructure. Several 6G-XR partners have contributed to the newly published Springer volume Digital Sustainability: Legislations, Standards, Solutions and Related Case Studies, a comprehensive reference that explores how digital technologies can support environmental, economic and societal sustainability.

Published in Springer’s Advances in Sustainability Science and Technology series, the book brings together leading researchers, industry experts and policymakers to examine one of the defining challenges of the coming decade: how can digital transformation continue to accelerate while reducing its environmental footprint and creating lasting value for society? The volume spans topics ranging from European legislation and standardisation to artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, ethics and next-generation communication networks.

The book reflects one of the lasting scientific outcomes of 6G-XR. It demonstrates how knowledge developed through European research projects continues to inform the wider research community long after project completion, contributing to the broader evolution of sustainable and trustworthy digital technologies. The editors explicitly acknowledge the role of several SNS JU projects, including 6G-XR, in supporting the preparation of the volume.

Intel helps shape the conversation on digital sustainability

A central contribution comes from Markus Mueck (Intel), who co-edited the book together with Christophe Gaie. As Director and Principal Engineer at Intel Labs and Chair of the ETSI Board, Markus Mueck helped assemble a multidisciplinary collection of perspectives spanning technology, regulation and standards. He also co-authored four chapters covering:

• The European Green Deal
• The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and Energy Labelling Regulation
• Standardisation Supporting Sustainability Objectives
• Ethics and Sustainability

Together, these chapters highlight an important message for engineers and policymakers alike: building sustainable digital systems requires more than technological innovation. It also depends on regulatory frameworks, harmonised standards and ethical principles that enable innovation to be deployed responsibly and at scale.

InterDigital explores sustainable 6G network design

The book also includes contributions from InterDigital, through Chathura Sarathchandra, who co-authored two chapters examining sustainability from the perspective of future communication networks and artificial intelligence.

The chapter A Case Study: Sustainability in the Context of 6th Generation Mobile Communication Systems argues that sustainability should become a design objective alongside traditional network performance metrics such as throughput, latency and reliability. Rather than simply building faster networks, future 6G systems should be designed to optimise resource utilisation, minimise energy consumption and maximise long-term societal value.

The companion chapter, Artificial Intelligence: Sustainability Challenges, Opportunities, and the Case of 6G, explores a question that is becoming increasingly important across the ICT sector: how can AI make networks more sustainable without creating unsustainable computational demands of its own? The authors discuss responsible AI, distributed intelligence across cloud-edge infrastructures and strategies for deploying AI efficiently throughout future communication systems.

Why this matters

Sustainability is rapidly becoming a fundamental design principle for future communication systems. While previous generations of mobile networks focused primarily on capacity, speed and coverage, 6G research is increasingly asking a broader question: how can networks themselves become instruments for sustainability?

That challenge extends well beyond reducing the energy consumption of base stations. It includes designing programmable networks that allocate resources more intelligently, AI systems that optimise operations in real time, architectures that minimise unnecessary computation, and standardised interfaces that allow innovations to be deployed consistently across a global communications ecosystem. As highlighted in the book’s forewords, these technological advances must be accompanied by appropriate regulation, international standards and multidisciplinary collaboration if digital transformation is to deliver meaningful societal benefits.

The contributions from Intel and InterDigital illustrate how expertise developed through 6G-XR continues to influence these discussions. By connecting advances in 6G architectures, artificial intelligence, standardisation and sustainability policy, the book provides a valuable resource for researchers, engineers, industry practitioners and policymakers working to build the next generation of resilient and sustainable digital infrastructure.