EU countries commit to leading the green digital transformation

24 Member States and Norway and Iceland have signed a declaration to accelerate the use of green digital technologies for the benefit of the environment. They will deploy and invest more green digital technologies to achieve climate neutrality and accelerate the green and digital transitions in priority sectors in Europe, for example by using the NextGenerationEU and InvestEU funds.

The signatories of the Declaration on A Green and Digital Transformation of the EU will take action at national level in the following areas:

• Set up a digital twin of the earth to help monitor climate change;

• Make data available in common European data spaces;

• Support the deployment of green digital solutions that accelerate the decarbonisation of energy networks, enable precision farming, decrease pollution, combat the loss of biodiversity and optimise resource efficiency;

• Lead on energy efficient artificial intelligence solutions;

• Help cities become more green and digital;

• Use technologies to make buildings more energy efficient;

• Support smart and sustainable mobility systems;

• Use digital product passports to track and trace products to improve circularity and sustainability;

• Promote eco-designed products and accessible digital public services;

• Contribute to the use of a climate neutral, sustainable and energy efficient European cloud and blockchain infrastructure;

• Propose permits for deployment of networks and data centres that comply with the highest environmental sustainability standards;

• Making green public procurement the default option overall;

• Develop low power hardware technologies;

• Use of EU funding programmes and private equity to support European green tech start-ups and SMEs

The signatories will regularly assess their progress made and feed it into the Commission’s ongoing monitoring activities. They will also contribute to a shared repository of best practices and experiences to implement the Declaration.

Signatory Countries of the Declaration

The following countries signed the Declaration on Digital Day 2021: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Norway and Iceland.

They also welcomed the Declaration of the newly established European Green Digital Coalition signed by 26 companies today. 

Background

Climate change and environmental degradation present an existential threat to Europe and the world. Smart use of clean digital technologies can serve as a key enabler for climate action and environmental sustainability. The digital transition and a smarter and greener use of technologies will help make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, a key goal of the European Green Deal. Technology can improve energy and resource efficiency, facilitate the circular economy, lead to a better allocation of resources; reduce emissions, pollution, biodiversity loss and environmental degradation. At the same time, the ICT sector must ensure the environmentally sound design and deployment of digital technologies. Today’s Declarations build on the EU Council conclusions of December 2020 on Digitalisation for the benefit of the environment. A European Parliament Pilot project will support the activities of the European Green Digital Coalition later this year and will be financed and managed by the European Commission.

(https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu)