ISO/IEC DTS 20125

ISO/IEC TS DTS 20125-#:202x(X)
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 39/WG 4
Secretariat: ANSI
Date: 2025-07-2110-28
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY – DIGITAL SERVICES ECODESIGN –
ECOPRACTICES FOR LIFE CYCLE STAGES

DTS
Information technology – Digital services ecodesign – Ecopractices
for life cycle stages
FDIS stage
ISO/IEC TS 20125:2025(X)
© ISO/IEC 2025
All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, or required in the context of its implementation, no part of this
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Published in Switzerland
ISO/IEC TS 20125:2025(X)
Contents
Foreword . v
Introduction . viii
1 Scope . 9
2 Normative references . 9
3 Terms, definitions and abbreviations . 9
3.1 Terms . 9
3.2 Abbreviated terms .13
4 Principles, usage guidelines and clarifications for digital services ecodesign .14
4.1 Underlying principles .14
4.2 Intended audience .14
4.3 How to read and use the document and implementation matters .15
4.4 Environmental impacts .16
4.5 Selection process .17
4.6 Development environment .18
4.7 Indicators .18
5 Life cycle stages .19
5.1 General .19
5.2 Stage 1: Requirements gathering, prioritization and contextualization .20
5.3 Stage 2: Design phase .20
5.4 Stage 3: Implementation .21
5.5 Stage 4: Use and run or operations .21
5.6 Stage 5: Maintenance .22
5.7 Stage 6: End of life .22
6 Requirements and recommendations per stage .22
6.1 Stage 1: Requirements gathering, prioritization and contextualization .22
6.2 Stage 2: Design phase .28
6.3 Stage 3: Implementation .35
6.4 Stage 4: Use and run or operations .42
6.5 Stage 5: Maintenance .50
6.6 Stage 6: End of life .53
7 Conformance and communication .56
7.1 Conformance .56
7.2 Communication .57
Annex A (informative) Cross reference table of ecopractices and service types .59
Annex B (normative) Architecture of digital services.64
Annex C (informative) Environmental impacts table .68
Annex D (informative) Impacts assessment methodologies .70
Annex E (informative) Ecodesign and “SQuaRE” Mapping . 2
Bibliography .11

iv © ISO 2025 – All rights reserved

ISO/IEC TS 20125:2025(X)
Foreword
ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical
Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are
members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical
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ISO and IEC technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international
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The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are
described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular, the different approval criteria needed for the
different types of document should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the editorial
rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives or
www.iec.ch/members_experts/refdocs). www.iso.org/directives or
www.iec.ch/members_experts/refdocs).
ISO and IEC draw attention to the possibility that the implementation of this document may involve the
use of (a) patent(s). ISO and IEC take no position concerning the evidence, validity or applicability of any
claimed patent rights in respect thereof. As of the date of publication of this document, ISO and IEC had
not received notice of (a) patent(s) which may be required to implement this document. However,
implementers are cautioned that this may not represent the latest information, which may be obtained
from the patent database available at www.iso.org/patents and
https://patents.iec.ch.www.iso.org/patents and https://patents.iec.ch. ISO and IEC shall not be held
responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
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expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO's adherence to the World
Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) see
www.iso.org/iso/foreword.htmlwww.iso.org/iso/foreword.html. In the IEC, see
www.iec.ch/understanding-standards. www.iec.ch/understanding-standards.
This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology,
Subcommittee SC 39, Sustainability, IT and data centres.
Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A
complete listing of these bodies can be found at www.iso.org/members.html.
ISO/IEC TS 20125:2024(X)
vi © ISO 2025 – All rights reserved

© ISO/IEC 2025 – All rights reserved
vii
Introduction
The main purpose of this document is to set requirements and give recommendations on how an organization
can ecodesign a digital service.
As the evidence of the consequences of human activity on the climate, the earth’s resources and earth sanity
become increasingly visible, it is important to reduce as much as possible the adverse environmental impacts
of various products and services made by mankindpeople.
Many publications demonstrate the consequences of digital services on the environment, such as greenhouse
gas emissions, abiotic resources depletion and acidification. Studies on the impact of emails, video streaming,
network usage, storage explosion, chatbots using large language models (LLM), to name a few, are numerous.
Examples of use cases of digital services include: searching for a trip on a train transportation system, booking
a hotel ticket, paying an invoice online, booking an appointment, watching an online video, performing an
administrative task. Those are mainly digital services with user interface, but digital services can also be
backend or API (Application Programming Interfaceapplication programming interface (API) type services,
invoked by others, like authorising a card payment or querying a reference database.
As far as digital services are concerned, based on today's knowledge on their adverse environmental impacts,
it is possible to include, at the design, implementation, operation, maintenance and end-of-life stages,
methodological, technical and measurement tools to limit those adverse impacts.
An increasing number of small and large organisations announce stances in favour of the UN Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) and the will to reduce the adverse environmental impacts of their activities,
including those induced by the digital services they provide to their users. Such companies are in need of
requirements and recommendations identifying ways to reduce these digital services’ adverse environmental
impact.
The ecodesign approach (requirements, recommendations and indicators) ensures efficiency in the usage and
consumption ratio. This can have a direct impact on the sobriety of consumption of resources (devices,
networks, data centres).
By following ecodesign requirements and recommendations, lighter digital services tend to offer a better and
faster user response. They also tend to allow broader access to users with old devices or operating systems or
low bandwidth, or both. Lighter digital services will not compel users to prematurely change their devices for
more powerful ones, therefore extending the lifespan of the devices they already possess.
This document is intended for people and entities involved in digital services and aims to be understood and
used by the project teams of private and public organisations.
This document primarily targets digital service providers. However, organisations producing tools,
methodologies, training and consulting can use this document to explain, help, train and advise their
customers. Even though digital service end users (e.g. client, consumers) will not implement this document,
they may, if interested, request information from digital service providers about a digital service, provided
these are transparently disclosed.
© ISO/IEC 2025 – All rights reserved
viii
1 Information technology – Digital Services Ecodesignservices
ecodesign – Ecopractices for life cycle stages
21 Scope
This document is applicable to environmental matters for a digital service. It establishes requirements and
recommendations applicable for requirements gathering, design, implementation, operations, maintenance
and the end of life of digital services in order to minimise adverse environmental impacts during all stages of
its life cycle. It also establishes a common language and understanding on this subject.
This document focuses on reducing the environmental impacts of a digital service. It therefore does not address
all aspects of digital service design. For instanceexample, it does not address other aspects such as performance,
resilience, reliability, availability or development language choice (see other standards covering these topics,
e.g. ISO/IEC 25010 and ISO/IEC 27001).
This document does not include matters linked to other corporate social responsibility (CSR) topics, e.g. social,
cultural, diversity, inclusion or exclusion.
This document is applicable to all development methodologies (waterfall, agile, …).etc.).
32 Normative references
There are no normative references in this document.
43 Terms, definitions and abbreviations
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminology databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
— ISO Online browsing platform: available at https://www.iso.org/obp
— IEC Electropedia: available at https://www.electropedia.org/
4.13.1 Terms
3.1.1 3.1.1
architecture
specific configuration of hardware and software elements in a system
Note 1 to entry: In this context, “system” refers to a digital service.
Note 2 to entry: Hardware and software elements are referred to as “tiers”.
[SOURCE: IEC 61508-4:2010, 3.3.5]
3.1.2 3.1.2
architecture tier
element of the architecture
Note 1 to entry: A particular tier fulfils the property of being definable by various ecodesign criteria.
Note 2 to entry: A tier can include hardware and/or software.
© ISO/IEC 2025 – All rights reserved
Note 3 to entry: The totality of all tiers describes the architecture.
3.1.3 3.1.3
data
representation of information in a formalised manner suitable for human or automatic processing
[SOURCE: IEC 60050-171:2019, 171-01-02]
3.1.4 3.1.4
design
set of actions needed to build a product
3.1.5 3.1.5
design phase
very first stage directly following the requirements gathering stage, during which the various software,
hardware and network components are selected among other activities
3.1.6 3.1.6
development environment
set of electronic devices, software and telecommunications networks, used to implement the software
components of the digital service
3.1.7 3.1.7
DevOps
combined development and operations to increase the efficiency, speed, and security of software development
and delivery compared to traditional processes
[SOURCENote 1 to entry: Adapted from ISO/IEC/IEEE 32675]
:2022, 3.1.8
3.1.8
digital service
service that provides one or several functions to users through a combination of
electronic devices, software and telecommunication networks, with clearly defined functional boundaries,
interacting with each other
Note 1 to entry: A digital service may use other digital services. In this case, requirements and recommendations apply
to all services under control of the organisation performing ecodesign.
3.1.9 3.1.9
digital sufficiency
approach which aims to use as little resources as possible to achieve the desired outcome
3.1.10 3.1.10
ecodesign
systematic approach that considers environmental aspects in design and development with the aim to reduce
adverse environmental impacts throughout the life cycle of a product
Note 1 to entry: Other terminology used worldwide includes “environmentally conscious design (ECD)”, “design for
environment (DfE)”, “green design” and “environmentally sustainable design”.
[SOURCE: ISO 14006:2020, 3.2.2]
3.1.11 3.1.11
ecoefficiency assessment
evaluation of the quantity of resources used to reach the desired result
© ISO/IEC 2025 – All rights reserved
3.1.12 3.1.12
ecopractice
set of requirements and recommendations referring to a specific topic within a life cycle stage to achieve the
ecodesign of a digital service
3.1.13 3.1.13
environmental budget
pPredefinedpredefined level of beneficial or adverse environmental impacts
3.1.14 3.1.14
environmental impact
any change to the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, wholly or partially resulting from an
organization's environmental aspects
[SOURCE: ISO 14001:2015, 3.2.24]
3.1.15 3.1.15
indicator
quantitative, qualitative or descriptive measure
EXAMPLES: EXAMPLE Energy consumption in kWh, weight in kg, distance in m.
[SOURCE: ISO 6707-3:2022, 3.10.8], modified — The EXAMPLE has been added.]
3.1.16
3.1.16 3.1.17
life cycle
consecutive and interlinked stages of a product system, from raw material acquisition or generation from
natural resources to final disposal
[SOURCE: ISO 14044:2006, 3.1]
3.1.17 3.1.18
life cycle stage
element of a life cycle
[SOURCE: IEC 62430:2019]
, 3.1.192.2]
3.1.18
metric
verifiable measure that captures performance in terms of how something is being done relative to a standard
[.]
[SOURCE: ISO/TS 18864]
:2017, 3.1.20, modified — The phrase "allows and encourages comparison, supports business strategy" has
been removed.]
3.1.19
procurement
process of asking a quote to suppliers, studying their propositions, choosing and raising the procurement order
© ISO/IEC 2025 – All rights reserved
3.1.20 3.1.21
product
any goods or service
[SOURCE: ISO 14006:202032020, 3.2.3]
3.1.21 3.1.22
recommendation
expression that conveys a suggested possible choice or course of action deemed to be particularly suitable
without necessarily mentioning or excluding others
3.1.22 3.1.23
redesign
eesigndesign of a product based on an existing product design to improve targeted characteristics of the
product
Note 1 to entry: Examples of targeted characteristics include reducing the use of raw materials, enhancing the recycled
content, reducing the use of hazardous substances, energy saving, improving material recyclability.
[SOURCE: ISO 14009:2020, 3.2.2]
3.1.23 3.1.24
relevance score
indicator assessing the level of relevance of the service with regards to requirements
3.1.24 3.1.25
requirement (
> expression that conveys objectively verifiable criteria to be fulfilled and from which no deviation is permitted
if conformance with the document is to be claimed
3.1.25 3.1.26
requirement (
> need or expectation that is stated, generally implied or obligatory
3.1.26 3.1.27
service
means of delivering value for the customer by facilitating outcomes the customer wants to achieve
Note 1 to entry: Service is generally intangible.
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 20000-1:2018, 3.2.15], modified — Note 2 to entry has been removed.]
3.1.27 3.1.28
service type
characteristic of digital service (i.e. with or without user interface, see Annex A))
3.1.29Note 1 to entry: See 0.
3.1.28
stakeholder
person or organization that can affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision or activity
[SOURCE:ISO 14006:2020]
© ISO/IEC 2025 – All rights reserved
3.1.30
[SOURCE: ISO 14006:2020, 3.1.7, modified — The EXAMPLE and Notes 1 and 2 to entry have been removed.]
3.1.29
technical architecture
information technology activity that aims to design computer solutions. It
Note 1 to entry: Technical architecture involves the structured arrangement, interaction, and interdependence
of all elements so that system-relevant requirements are met.
3.1.30 3.1.31
technical debt
implied cost of future reworking required when choosing an easy but limited solution instead of a better
approach that can take more time.
Note 1 to entry: In software development, or any other IT field (e.g. Infrastructure, Networkinginfrastructure,
networking.), technical debt – the chosen term for this document – is also known as design debt or code debt.
3.1.31 3.1.32
telecommunications
branch of technology concerned with the transmission, emission, and reception of signs, signals, writing,
images, and sounds, that is, information of any nature by cable, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 22237-1:2021, 3.1.31]
Note 1 to entry: The term “telecommunication networks” can be used synonymously.
3.1.33
[SOURCE: ISO/IEC 22237-1:2021, 3.1.31, modified — Note 1 to entry has been added.]
3.1.32
user
any person or thing that communicates or interacts with the digital service at any time
Note 1 to entry: The term “thing” covers digital services.
3.1.33 3.1.34
virtual architecture
in information technology, architecture that defines servers without stating which ones are virtual or physical
(real)
4.23.2 Abbreviated terms
For the purpose of this document, the following abbreviated terms apply:
LCA life cycle assessment
LLM large language models
PUE pPower usage effectiveness
SDGs sustainable development goals
LCA life cycle assessment
© ISO/IEC 2025 – All rights reserved
LLM large language models
PUE power usage effectiveness
SDGs sustainable development goals
54 Principles, usage guidelines and clarifications for digital services ecodesign
5.14.1 Underlying principles
The following principles forform the basis of all the ecopractices, requirements and recommendations:
— The digital service should only deliver functions essential to the business case.
— Only those devices, both physical and virtual, required to perform the necessary functions should be active
at any point in time. A reasonable balance is necessary between the digital service performance, active
devices and resource utilization.
— Digital service software and other used software components should not induce unjustified hardware
obsolescence.
— When an additional hardware device is needed, a digital service provider should select a device with the
lower environmental impact over the whole life cycle and should consider reusing hardware devices.
— When decommissioning hardware devices, a digital service provider should ensure it is reused if feasible:
— first internally in the organisation;
— second, if previous scenario is not possible, in other organisations.
If disposal is the only choice, a digital service provider should ensure the hardware device goes
through proper recycling channels, so that it can be disassembled and that parts or raw material can be
reused to build new products.
— The digital service should be designed with a modular approach that allows for the easy integration and
reuse of service elements.
— The digital service should maintain transparency regarding its environmental impact. Regular reporting on
progress towards sustainability goals and seeking feedback can drive continuous improvements in eco-
friendly practices.
5.24.2 Intended audience
This document is intended to be used by people and organisations involved in any stage of the life cycle of digital
services such as, e.g. requirements gathering, design, implementation, operations, maintenance and end of life.
It aims to be understood and used by the project teams of private and public organisations.
This document primarily targets digital service providers. However, organisations that produce tools,
methodologies, training materials and consultation can use this document to explain, help, train and advise
their customers. Even though digital service end users (e.g. clients, consumers) will not implement this
document, they may, if interested, request information from digital service providers about a digital service,
provided these are transparently disclosed.
© ISO/IEC 2025 – All rights reserved
5.34.3 How to read and use the document and implementation matters
5.3.14.3.1 How to read and use the document
Clause 55 of this document describes six life cycle stages of a digital service:
— Stage 1: Requirements gathering, prioritization and contextualization
— Stage 2: Design phase
— Stage 3: Implementation
— Stage 4: Use and run or operations
— Stage 5: Maintenance
— Stage 6: End of life
Clause 66 introduces several ecopractices that should be addressed at each of the six life cycle stages. Each
ecopractice is introduced from various perspectives (e.g. various stakeholders, environmental aspects,
environmental impacts, technologies). These ecopractices are composed of a brief description
(subclause 6.X.Y.1), requirements and recommendations (subclause 6.X.Y.2) followed by quantitative
indicators (subclause 6.X.Y.3). They help measure to what extent the requirements and recommendations of
the ecopractice as a whole have been considered during the service ecodesign (e.g. whether an environmental
budget has been set and checked). As the name indicates, only measurable or countable indicators will be given.
Indicators are not requirements or recommendations.
This document does not cover tools or methodologies to produce a global ecoscore of the digital service or an
evaluation of its ecodesign maturity. Third parties can use this document as a basis to audit or assess the
ecodesign of a digital service.
Some of the recommendations for the various stages of the digital service life do not apply to all the digital
services. Typically, a backend or an application programming interfaceAPI type service will not consider the
requirements and recommendations of the user interface because it does not have this interface. However, this
exclusion shall be explicitly stated when communicating about the digital service ecodesign externally. Annex
A0 should be used for a reference of ecopractices per service types. Service types refer to some characteristics
of a digital service (i.e. with or without user interface, new or existing service).
A digital service can be new, when no such service is already in operation, or existing otherwise. This document
addresses both scenarios. However, some requirements or recommendations willdo not apply when the service
is new (Annex A(0 includes a reference table per service type).
5.3.24.3.2 Implementation matters
The goal of ecodesign is to reduce the environmental impact of a digital service. So, once the business, technical
and user needs are collected and prioritised (see 5.2 and 6.1),5.2 and 6.1), the project team shall carefully select
the relevant stages and ecopractices it intends to implement (see 7.1).7.1). Similarly, environmental impacts
that the digital service provider can act upon will beare considered.
Using Annex A,Using 0, the project team can see which ecopractices are relevant, depending on the digital
service category.
Using Annex B,Annex B, a digital service provider shall consider the relationship between the architecture tiers
and ecopractices and, by extension, the environmental impacts.
© ISO/IEC 2025 – All rights reserved
Whether the digital service is being planned or is already in use, an estimate of the chosen environmental
impacts should be performed [e.g. using the life cycle assessment (LCA)]. See Annex DAnnex D for a list of
impact assessment methodologies.
The project team then shall use 5.35.3 to 5.75.7 and 6.26.2 to 6.6,6.6, according to the selection using 5.25.2 and
6.1,6.1, to fulfil the requirements and optional recommendations of the chosen stages and ecopractices.
Finally, the user of this document shall disclose the results by following 7.2.7.2.
5.3.34.3.3 Trade-offs
Ecodesign opportunities to reduce environmental impacts throughout the life cycle stages of a digital service
can be interlinked and are not mutually exclusive. As a consequence, the improvement of particular impacts
can lead to the deterioration of one or more other impacts associated with the digital service. For example,
targeting aspects of resilience (e.g. availability, reliability, fault tolerance according to ISO/IEC TS 22237-31,
IEC 60300), cybersecurity, software quality (e.g. SQuaRE, see ANNEX E and table E.1)SQuaRE, see Annex E and
0) or performance considerations to the digital service, can potentially lead to conflicts with ecodesign
opportunities on environmental impacts level (see 4.4). 4.4).
Such interlinked effects result in a trade-off in the design and environmental improvement opportunities. These
trade-offs should be assessed and evaluated before committing to specific ecodesign and implementation
options. Balancing targets to improve different impact categories can be appropriate.
Organizations can find it helpful to maintain a trade-off log or decision matrix that records:
— conflicting objectives (e.g. energy efficiency vs. latency requirements);
— rationale for chosen solutions;
— stakeholder input;
— expected vs. actual outcomes;
— legal or regulatory requirements.
This ensures transparency and supports continuous improvement.
5.44.4 Environmental impacts
Environmental impacts are changes to the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, that wholly or partially
result from a digital service over its life cycle.
An example of a positive environmental impact of a digital service is the reduction of CO e emissions, e.g. by
implementing a carpooling service that allows travellers to group in a single means of transportation, instead
of each traveller using their own.
An example of a negative environmental impact of a digital service is the increase of CO e emissions involved
by the energy consumption of intensive computing required for a cryptographic operation.
This document aims at minimising the adverse environmental impacts of the digital services. Increasing
positive impacts is important and should be considered. However, this document focuses on limiting negative
impacts and does not provide a methodology to balance both types of impacts.
When estimating the impacts of a digital service, care should be taken to avoid unexpected consequences of the
digital service that produce adverse impacts. Such unexpected consequences can be categorised as induced or
opportunity effects or rebound effects (which are indirect impacts):
© ISO/IEC 2025 – All rights reserved
— Induced or opportunity effects: A digital service provides a train ticket purchasing service. The user can
directly purchase tickets from home or elsewhere, rather than at the train station desks. However, users
often have to print the tickets themselves. This therefore leads to the purchase of a printer. The printer
purchase is an induced or opportunity effect. Another example is home working: employees have to equip
their home office with associated devices to work from home. All this generates additional greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions and exhaustexhausts earth resources.
— Rebound effects: These are indirect effects. The digital service provides an efficiency gain on a process, a
component or a good. They, most of the time, come from innovation and can lead to energy, time, physical
space or financial gains. The result is to achieve the same result with less resources. The rebound effect
occurs when the saved resources are used to do more of the same thing. In other words, the efficiency
savings are partially or totally nullified, if not exceeded. For example, a digital service provides carpooling
to travellers to avoid taking one fossil-fuel consuming vehicle per traveller (gains). However, given its ease
of use, many users use it, or the same users begin to travel more, thus making the environmental impacts
worse than before.
There are various types of adverse environmental impacts that can be categorized. This document does not
offer a judgement of the importance of a specific impact category.
However, when developing a digital service, it is important that an organization uses a multi-impacts approach
as opposed to a single-impact approach. The approach taken to ecodesign a digital service in a way that
minimises one environmental impact should not increase others. Annex C0 shows a non-exhaustive list of
environmental impacts.
This document does not provide a methodology of environmental impact assessment for digital services. The
LCA methodology can be found in ISO 14040. Additional guidance can be found in Reference [3].[Error!
Reference source not found.]. See Annex DAnnex D for methodologies. There is no widespread methodology
to assess the environmental impact of digital services at the time of publication. For this reason, it is difficult in
some cases to calculate environmental impacts until efforts to evaluate LCA and other similar methodologies of
digital services become widespread.
However, this document can complement the LCA approach:
— LCA can be used when impact evaluation is needed in the ecodesign approach.
— Ecodesign can be used when trying to reduce the impact of the service assessed through the LCA.
This document is not intended to be used to compare the environmental impact performance of digital services
and digital service providers.
5.54.5 Selection process
While the procurement process (e.g. supplier selection, purchasing) is beyond the scope of this document, this
document provides criteria for selecting hardware/software types and specifications to minimise the
environmental impact (see ISO 20400). 0 shows procurement activities included and excluded in the scope of
this document.
© ISO/IEC 2025 – All rights reserved
Figure 1 — Procurement process activities in scope and out of scope
5.64.6 Development environment
This document covers the selection, choice and usage of the most appropriate eco-friendly development
environments (see 6.2.3.2).6.2.3.2). Whatever the tool chosen, care should be taken to ensure it is used properly
to limit the adverse environmental impacts. Requirements and recommendations on the usage of the
development tools are covered by this document.
This document is applicable to all development methodologies (waterfall, agile, etc.).
5.74.7 Indicators
For each ecopractice, indicators are suggested in this document. These are non-exhaustive and for
informational purposes only at this stage.
These indicators should be used as tools to help digital service providers in their decision-making process by
supplying quantitative information that can be considered before (only for existing digital service), during and
after ecodesign.
Some indicators use measured means, some use measured results.
EXAMPLE The Power Usage Effectivenesspower usage effectiveness (PUE) indicator is defined in ISO/IEC 30134-2.
It can be used in ecodesign. However, it does not provide a full view on ecodesign efficiency alone. An organisation can
host a digital service infrastructure in an efficient datacentre, but that does not mean the digital service is efficient. Also,
while a datacentre can have a low PUE, the CO2e intensity is not necessarily optimal.
© ISO/IEC 2025 – All rights reserved
65 Life cycle stages
6.15.1 General
This clause outlines each stage of a digital service life cycle. Clause 66 describes ecopractices for each stage.
Reduction of adverse environmental impacts is handled in each stage.
The life cycle of digital services differs based on the nature, purpose, usage and prevailing circumstances of the
digital service (e.g. regulatory context, user needs and tech limitations). Each stage serves a specific purpose
and contributes to the overall life cycle. Thus, a life cycle model consists of one or more stages and can be
tailored to the digital service’s scope, scale, complexity, evolving needs and opportunities. These stages can be
iterative, concurrent or overlapping, as deemed suitable.
For the purpose of this document, the life cycle stages of a digital service are as follows:
— Stage 1: Requirements gathering, prioritization and contextualization
— Stage 2: Design phase
— Stage 3: Implementation
— Stage 4: Use and run or operations
— Stage 5: Maintenance
— Stage 6: End of life
This document does not cover the starting point, the end point, who is involved and the activities for each stage.
Refer to existing software design standards (e.g. ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207). 0 shows a time wise sequence of digital
service ecodesign stages.
© ISO/IEC 2025 – All rights reserved
Figure 2: — Time wise sequence of digital service ecodesign stages
6.25.2 Stage 1: Requirements gathering, prioritization and contextualization
At the beginning of any project concerning the design or redesign of a digital service, or during a functional
maintenance iteration of an existing digital service, the needs expressed by the stakeholders shall be aligned
with their expectations. In the case of an ecodesigned service, this stage includes considerations on the
environmental stakes. Its final aim is to formalise the needs.
Ecopractices in this stage are:
— Collect and challenge functional requirements and usages.
— Analyse and size requirements and usages to the minimum.
— Challenge the added value of the service for all or part of service.
— Assess the impact of digital service.
— Set an environmental budget.
— Take a systemic view on service.
6.35.3 Stage 2: Design phase
The design phase is used to identify appropriate solutions for the formalised needs and to mock up the service
based on them. The aim of this stage is to design the digital service within the framework of a user-centred
approach and a strong logic of sustainability. This stage prepares the production of the digital service, which is
why the mock up will be used to test the suitability of the service for users' needs, and to carry out an initial
assessment of the environmental impact of the digital service concerned.
Ecopractices in this stage are:
© ISO/IEC 2025 – All rights reserved
— Design user path using a frugal approach.
— Identify minimal technical solutions to meet the requirements.
— Document the ecodesign methodology.
— Setup a data retention and purge policy.
— Assess design consistency with regards to initial requirements and environmental challenges.
— Prepare and plan total or partial service end of life.
6.45.4 Stage 3: Implementation
This is the stage during which the project team develops the executable prototype (minimal viable product)
and tests the digital service, then deploys it as optimally as possible. This DevOps-oriented stage aims to achieve
the objectives defined in the previous stages. This means working in a way that decompartmentalizes the
various professions, and with each of them taking into account a quality repository for the ecodesign of digital
services, in order to have a solid, common operational base.
In this stage, the production team proceeds with development, integration, testing, deployment, qualification
and acceptance testing of the solution, all aimed at achieving the objectives outlined in preceding stages. The
design and production stages exhibit a close interconnection, often leading to iterative trial-and-error
processes. Development, in the broader context, encompasses the integration of target hardware, coding, data
and, if applicable, graphical elements.
Ecopractices in this stage are:
— Collect strictly needed items.
— Limit and optimise processing.
— Select scalable and appropriate technologies and infrastructures.
— Integrate a service usage and efficiency monitoring.
— Favour consolidation, sharing and capitalisation of service elements.
6.55.5 Stage 4: Use and run or operations
Operations of the digital service starts when it is opened to the users. It may be composed of the following
activities: digital service usage and operability,; usage monitoring,; and resources adaptation corresponding to
the use of the service.
Ecopractices in this stage are:
— Manage service frontend to maintain its efficiency.
— Manage service backend to maintain its efficiency.
— Monitor service ecosystem to maintain its efficiency.
— Raise users’ awareness of service usage environmental impacts.
— Ensure usefulness of each service function.
© ISO/IEC 2025 – All rights reserved
— Check usability of each service function.
— Check usage of every function of the service.
6.65.6 Stage 5: Maintenance
Maintenance covers all the tasks involved in ensuring that the digital service continues to align users’
requirements and usages. Maintenance can restart a full ecodesign cycle. There are usually three types:
— preventive maintenance, which aims at avoiding failures;
— corrective maintenance, which is carried out when a problem has been identified;
— evolutionary maintenance, which aims to develop or adapt the digital service in order to integrate new
functions, improve operations or take account of new requirements. In this case, a new cycle (iteration)
begins with the requirements gathering phase.
Ecopractices in this stage are:
— Ensure continuous training of teams and monitor ecodesign practices.
— Fix service frontend to maintain and enhance its efficiency.
— Fix service backend to maintain and enhance its efficiency.
— Assess emerging technologies opportunities to enhance service efficiency and fight its obsolescence.
6.75.7 Stage 6: End of life
End of life is the end of the digital service or the reuse of some of its components. Remaining data, software and
hardware are processed during this stage in accordance with the end-of-life plan written in advance, often
during stage 2, when requirements are collected, scheduled and characterised. The aim is to avoid enlarging
the digital graveyard and to stop using computational resources that are no longer necessary, stop using the
underlying hardware (when appropriate) and properly reuse or dispose of the freed hardware.
Ecopractices in this stage are:
— Question appropriateness of stopping the service totally or partially.
— Decide the future of service specific data.
— Decide the future of service specific software.
— Decide the future of freed up hardware and resources.
76 Requirements and recommendations per stage
7.16.1 Stage 1: Requirements gathering, prioritiza
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