It has announced plans to sign the Green Digital Charter for European cities when a delegation visits the Eurocities 2009 event in Stockholm on 27 November.
Among the requirements of cities that sign up will be to establish five large scale pilots before 2015, as well as decreasing ICT's direct carbon footprint per city by 30% by 2020.
Other elements of the charter include:
- an effort to make ICT more energy efficient by encouraging the wider use of low emission computer equipment;
- using renewable energy sources to power ICT and to make use of energy emissions from equipment to, for example, heat buildings;
- ensuring cities share expertise and, where possible, technology to minimise the use of energy;
- using new low carbon digital infrastructure to transform services and information provision to improve service delivery and citizen engagement;
- a pledge to use new services such as teleworking and virtual meetings wherever possible to replace the need for travel.
Councillor Paul Tilsley, deputy leader of the council, said: "It is imperative that we find new and innovative solutions to tackle the problem of climate change.
"The city recognises that use of ICT adds to its carbon footprint and therefore the need to control their energy usage, but more importantly is aware of the potential benefits of digital technologies in delivering more efficient use of energy and resources.
"The charter sets us some challenging goals that we will relish, but through Birmingham's own commitment to reduce CO2 by 60% by 2026, we have already shown that we are more than willing to be at the forefront of the challenge."
