IETF | The new GREEN working group gets ready for an energy efficient Internet

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In October 2026, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) held a two-day workshop in Prague with people who are deploying post-quantum authentication. These are the first impressions from the co-chairs, ahead of the full workshop report.
Email is the oldest widely used application on the Internet, but it continues to evolve. At IETF 127 four working groups will meet to improve the security and usability of mail, and two Birds-of-a-Feather sessions propose improvements in mail operations and the way users sign up for mail subscriptions.
The IETF Administration LLC has prepared its draft budget for 2027 and now seeks community feedback.
These IETF 127 meeting sessions are likely to include discussions and proposals that are accessible to a broad range of Internet technologists whether they are new to the IETF or long-time participants.
Several new features implemented on RFC-Editor.org aim to make the site more useful and engaging for RFC consumers.
Building on a successful Birds of a Feather (BOF) session held during IETF 120, the Getting Ready for Energy-Efficient Networking (GREEN) working group will meet for the first time during IETF 121 Dublin to explore use cases, derive requirements, and provide solutions for identifying and characterizing energy efficiency metrics, defining methods related to monitoring and controlling energy consumption of network devices, and optimizing energy efficiency across the Internet.
Improving the energy efficiency of communication systems is highly sought after for environmental, business, and technical reasons yet no standards exist to accomplish this in heterogeneous networks. Network operators would like to have better tools for understanding and managing the energy consumption of components, devices, and services across their networks along with the evolution of usage patterns.. Operating an energy-efficient network over the long haul means deploying and managing updates to network infrastructures and functions to optimize energy use while achieving the network’s functional and performance requirements.
For example, one desired outcome of the GREEN working group is to allow operators to combine knowledge of device and component power consumption with network wide traffic flow and behavioral knowledge to tune components of network devices to reduce power usage of individual devices, hence reducing overall power usage of the entire network.
The GREEN working group will initially focus on the following deliverables:
The GREEN working group will seek guidance covering the incremental deployment of energy-efficient features in both network devices and the management of energy-efficient networks. The working group will collaborate with other working groups that address topics related to power consumption observability and energy efficiency management, such as IVY, OPSAWG, and NETMOD. It will also work and liaise with other stakeholders such as industry associations and other standards development organizations (SDOs).
For full details and background, see the GREEN working group page on the IETF Datatracker. To join the discussion, sign up for the working group mailing list. And, if you’d like to join the first working meeting, register for the upcoming IETF 121 Dublin meeting, 2-8 November, and participate in-person or remotely. The GREEN session will be held at 9:30 UTC on 4 November, with a view-only livestream available from the IETF Live webpage.
In October 2026, the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) held a two-day workshop in Prague with people who are deploying post-quantum authentication. These are the first impressions from the co-chairs, ahead of the full workshop report.
Email is the oldest widely used application on the Internet, but it continues to evolve. At IETF 127 four working groups will meet to improve the security and usability of mail, and two Birds-of-a-Feather sessions propose improvements in mail operations and the way users sign up for mail subscriptions.
The IETF Administration LLC has prepared its draft budget for 2027 and now seeks community feedback.
These IETF 127 meeting sessions are likely to include discussions and proposals that are accessible to a broad range of Internet technologists whether they are new to the IETF or long-time participants.
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