As a network promoting local community sustainable development, promoting the development and use of ICTs has been always closely linked with issues related to environmental sustainability. APC members have been implementing projects ranging from monitoring environmental degradation, to natural disaster and accident reporting, to the use of ICTs in managing energy resources more efficiently to research on low-power computing, alternative energy sources and e-waste management in developing countries.

In 2008 these efforts led to a new APC-wide GreeningIT initiative that aims to address two critical challenges:

• How do national ICT policy environments address ICTs, environmental sustainability and climate change?

• How can ICTs be used more sustainably by ICTD practitioners, civil society organisations and service providers?

APC is undertaking action research, at national level, to address both of these questions, which aims to generate better understanding of the challenges facing us, especially in developing countries, in using ICTs sustainably (particularly in the context of climate change) and to identify gaps in the linkages between policies, standards and implementation.

The action research should allow us to suggest steps that policy-makers, civil society actors, and ICT practitioners, can take to enhance the environmentally-sustainable production, use and disposal of ICTs, and raise awareness more generally of the transformative potential of ICTS in reducing the effects of climate change.

We will do this by developing practical guidelines and information resources, from the research into sustainable ICT tools and practices, which can be used for campaigning and policy advocacy purposes, by the APC network and all advocates committed to environmental sustainability.

Through these activities, APC will build a research network that would play an ongoing role in conducting policy and action research in the field of ICTs and environmental sustainability.