To mark the launch of the Think2030 paper ‘How digitalisation can help or hamper in the climate crisis’, this webinar will provide a space to hear about the next steps needed to synergise two global megatrends in Europe – digitalisation and the low carbon transition – from the European Commission and stakeholders.

The Von der Leyen Commission has promised that Europe will lead the transition to a healthy planet and a new digital world. To this end the Commission has recently released its consultation and discussion on EU digital principles. The years 2020 and 2021 have seen policy shifts in the EU in these areas with changes explicitly joining the digital and sustainability agendas. The synthesis of these policy areas has also been accelerated by the EU recovery package, which requires EU Member States receiving coronavirus-recovery funds to make significant economic investments in both areas.

As outlined in the Think2030 paper, there are significant possibilities to synergise sustainability policy and digitalisation. At the same time, there are also possible challenges where the two agendas could conflict or cause unintended consequences in other areas such as privacy, corporatisation, or democratic integrity. It is important at this stage when the EU’s principles of digitalisation are being laid out to carefully consider all these trade-offs, synergies, and complications.

Digitalisation is of course already a reality, and many practitioners are already implementing projects and policies to synergise digitalisation and sustainability. We will be joined by Suzanne Hoadley, Senior Manager & Traffic Efficiency Coordinator at Polis, and Ferdinando Villa, Ikerbasque Research Professor at the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) to discuss some the realities of these policies in practice today, and their views on the state of play and path forward for integrating digital and sustainability agendas in the EU.

Agenda

10:00 – Welcome and introduction – moderator Thorfinn Stainforth (IEEP)

10:05 –  Presentation of the paper’s analysis – Aaron Best (Ecologic Institute)

10:15 – Reactions from key invitees

Ilias Iakovidis, Adviser for Digital Aspects of Green Transformation, European Commission, DG CNECT

Suzanne Hoadley, Senior Manager & Traffic Efficiency Coordinator, Polis with responsibility for activities related to ITS and network management

Ferdinando Villa, Ikerbasque Research Professor, Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) and lead of the ARIES project (Artificial Intelligence for Environment & Sustainability)

10:45 – Questions from participants

11:00 – Ends