5G, Energy Efficiency and Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

The fifth-generation (5G) mobile network has been commercially deployed in the last 3–5 years in selected regions in the world. Converting to next-generation broadband infrastructure enables various technological and social advancements in urbanization, mobility, safety and health, as well as sustainability. One way to think about the impacts of 5G technology on society and the natural environment is through the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs), and how 5G can contribute to areas such as health and well-being, clean energy, climate action, and responsible consumption and production. Interdisciplinary research between 5G and sustainability is the focus of this Special Issue.

By employing advanced wireless communication technologies such as multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) and small-cell network level configurations, 5G technologies can dramatically improve energy saving in consumer communications, industrial operations, metropolitan networks, and residential or commercial buildings, and even achieve city-level energy optimization. Advanced research on the Internet-of-Things (IoT), smart buildings, smart cities, and smart grids mostly relies on 5G networks to realize such energy or power saving. In addition, the recently proposed circular economy encompasses end-to-end material design-to-consumption and new business models that could leverage 5G and IoT technologies in tracing and converting materials at the ends of their lifecycles for further input into the global economy, saving billions of tons of carbon emissions. Similarly, the advancements in electric vehicles (EVs) and autonomous vehicles (AVs) are essentially built upon the desire for saving energy and reducing carbon emissions to help achieve the global carbon-neutral goal (net zero emissions) by 2050 while achieving economic benefits. 5G can give rise to innovative business models that would be hard to commercialize in its absence.

5G can also contribute to human health and wellbeing. With a global population that will be aging in the next few decades, healthcare systems will face challenges in both capacity and capability. Advanced 5G technologies provide unprecedented solutions for improving the quality of telemedicine or making remote ultra-high-resolution image transmission possible with the close-to-no latency required for real-time diagnosis and information processing. In a healthcare crisis such as the pandemic we are experiencing, the 5G network enables quick responses in crisis management and agile emergency communications under extreme circumstances. Cybersecurity, as a part of social safety, can also be significantly better guarded with 5G technologies in combination with block chains. 

After all, none of the above can be successfully scaled up without government’s regulatory support. For example, sustainability indicator initiatives have been proposed through 5G technologies by Canadian local authorities. Similarly, in Spain, efforts have been made with a 5G standardization body to ensure better environmental sustainability in information technology governance. In China, companies such as Huawei work closely with customers and partners to focus on 5G innovative applications, help the 5G ecosystem to prosper, and accelerate 5G’s commercial success. More and more such initiatives are forming to bridge 5G infrastructures and the sustainable future of our planet, as this Special Issue invites you to join our discussions.

The topics of interest for this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Energy efficiency and power saving:
• Smart networks;
• Smart grid/infrastructure;
• Smart cities;
• Smart residential or commercial buildings;
• Electric vehicles;
• Renewable energies.
• Healthcare and wellbeing:
• Remote healthcare or education;
• Crisis management;
• Safety and cybersecurity;
• Privacy and data security.
• IoT/5G-enabled circular economy:
• Net-zero carbon emissions;
• Supply-chain management;
• Distributed manufacturing;
• Industry 4.0;
• Lifecycle assessment.
• New business models:
• 5G-enabled e-commerce;
• Cloud computing;
• Artificial intelligence;
• Beyond 5G and 6G;
• 5G and online education.
• Regulatory research and exploration:
• Remote consultation and regulatory inspections;
• Network and data governance;
• National or regional regulatory frameworks.

Dr. William X. Wei
Dr. Mike Henry
Dr. Lianyong Feng
Dr. Eric Wang
Dr. Haibo Hu
Dr. Hadi Chapardar
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• 5G
• IoT
• Sustainability
• Healthcare
• Mobility
• Business models
• Energy efficient
• Circular economy.