Tecnalia

A pioneering UNE specification will measure the sustainability of Artificial Intelligence

At the initiative of the Ministry for Digital Transformation and Public Administration’s Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence, the Spanish Association for Standardisation (UNE) has published a pioneering new technical specification to implement more responsible and sustainable Artificial Intelligence within the framework of the National Green Algorithms Programme (PNAV).

The purpose of the standard is to establish a common framework to measure the energy consumption, carbon footprint, water consumption and performance of AI systems.

A specialised technical working group, made up of more than 40 members of the green algorithms research community, has participated in its development, along with other organisations.

This specification provides a detailed guide to quantify the environmental impact of AI models and algorithms at all stages of their cycle, especially during training and implementation in local environments or in the cloud.

As a result of this standardisation, a decisive step has been taken towards more transparent, measurable and environmentally efficient AI: it provides a real and unified vision of its impact, enabling the environmental performance of AI models to be rigorously compared, optimised and validated.

Indicator systems

TECNALIA has worked on the implementation of this Standard, adding our knowledge and research into the indicator systems to measure the efficiency and environmental impact of an AI system. These indicators help to monitor the most critical phases of the process, such as direct use of energy and water, as well as assessing the overall efficiency of AI models during training and inference, which are the stages with the greatest environmental impact.

Do you want to know what this Standard consists of?

You can download an extract via this link: UNE 0086:2025 SPECIFICATION