Energy- and Sustainability-Aware Network Performance Evaluation: A Systematic Review of Metrics, Techniques, and Future Trends

Abstract

As communication networks continue to expand, energy consumption and environmental impact have emerged as critical dimensions of network performance that traditional evaluation approaches often overlook. This paper presents a systematic review of energy- and sustainability-aware network performance evaluation, integrating classical performance indicators such as throughput, latency, jitter, and packet loss with energy and environmental metrics including energy efficiency (bit/Joule), power consumption, carbon footprint, and water footprint. The study reviews how benchmarking, monitoring, simulation, and modeling techniques incorporate energy and sustainability considerations, and provides a comparative analysis of the trade-offs between conventional performance and energy efficiency. A decision-oriented framework is proposed to map network scenarios to the most suitable sustainability-aware evaluation metrics and techniques. The paper further examines emerging enablers Artificial Intelligence, Software-Defined Networking, Network Function Virtualization, Digital Twins, and energy-aware 6G design and their role in sustainable performance evaluation. Finally, the study highlights the relevance of these approaches to the Arab region and Libya in particular, where energy scarcity and reliance on fossil fuels make energy-aware networking especially significant. The findings show that the environmental impact of networks depends not only on the underlying technology, but also on how performance is measured, governed, and optimized.