For life on Earth to remain possible, humankind must limit the average global temperature to a 1.5 C° increase. At the moment we have reached a rise of 1 C° above pre-industrial times. For this reason, the emissions of long-lived greenhouse gases must reach a ‘net zero’ level by 2050. In fact, the earlier the better. By 2025 digital technologies might emit more carbon than any country, except China, India, and the United States.

We are passionate about finding ways to help limit global warming and the erosion of biodiversity. So passionate that we are looking at real, practical actions and projects. 

Methods & Status

We are very happy to contribute to protecting the climate by bringing in not only legal, but also technical knowledge and our expertise in technical projects design or assessment. With regards to the status of work on this programme, we have started this programme, thanks to our nascent partnership with Climate Whistleblowers. 

It is a priority for us to look soon into growing this programme.

Projects

We have a focus on environmental activists in the Defend the Defenders programme. 

Support of climate whistleblowers

Environmental NGO Climate Whislteblowers sometimes comes to the rescue of whistleblowers experiencing private surveillance where they work, or whose personal information is being used against them as a means to punish or silence them. With our thorough experience with supporting big companies' day-to-day compliance as well as their whistleblowing and investigation programmes, we know the rules and what is often not yet managed well in practice. This, plus our intuition that such cases may be more and more frequent, makes us very proud to hit the ground running by their side when a whistleblower or CW need us.

Some future projects

Freedom of Information & environmental data

The UN Aarhus Convention is the international tool built to empower societies to obtain precious environmental data. It even supersedes data protection! In general, we have learnt that Freedom of Information rights are fundamental to a healthy and facts driven democracy.

Some environmental organisations tell us they don't have enough data to push for certain changes. We want to work with them to obtain the publication of information necessary to inform actions. Such actions could be research reports or litigation against lack of satisfactory results indicating ‘net zero’ will be met in due time.

Technical and organisational transition accelerators

We see some initiatives to foster the green transition are hampered due to poor technical and organisational measures assessment. For instance, the UK's roll out of smart meters. On paper, as long as they are built on robust data protection and cybersecurity principles (green transition should not mean surveillance!), smart meters are a good idea to understand and optimize energy distribution. Yet in the UK, once smart meters were installed it turned out that when household changed energy provider, meters would dysfunction. Why? Because the smart meters were built with non-interoperable software. As soon as a household would change energy provider, for instance for a fully decarbonised provider, the meter would dysfunction. This illustrates how poor data governance can thwart efforts to ensure the ‘net zero’ transition.

Green transition data needs to flow seamlessly, while individuals keep the agency to choose products accelerating the shift. Besides, these meters were probably subsidised with public money. There should be technical requirements ensuring tax payers enjoy standards benefiting the common good, like open standards. 

More generally, the Royal Society think tank recommends that, to achieve net zero:

• Data-driven systems must be open to allow their inspection and challenging of outputs, to foster their explainability, transparency and audibility;
• Digital systems must be secure, interoperable, safe and flexible:
• Digital systems must be developed through participatory designs including affected communities.

Inform users' choices with environmental best practices

Some companies inject unnecessary obsolescence in their products and prevent them from being repaired, thereby participating to resources inefficiency. For instance, Apple and Samsung have been fined by the Italian competition authority for deliberately making updates slow down old phones.

Hardware and software energy efficiency must become a focus of our advocacy work in order to influence industry and individuals’ choices. For instance, connected devices created to help the transition to net zero, like the first generation of smart meters, must be interoperable. In fact, they must be built with data protection, cybersecurity, accountability, interoperability and cheap repairability as core design principles.

Indeed, open hardware and free and open source software participate to tackling unnecessary obsolescence, user lock-in, and foster affordability. By making designs and code openly available, people can continue to use, audit and modify older hardware and software, extending their lifespan and reducing waste. Additionally, free and open source alternatives to proprietary software can often be freely downloaded and used, making technology more accessible to people who might not otherwise afford it. Indeed, alas our focus is the EU, we are acutely conscious that such resilience, empowerment and affordability would benefit other nations.

Biggest technology companies must be compared and pressured via campaigns, in order for their practices to become more sustainable. By holding these companies accountable for their environmental impact and social responsibility, we can create a culture of sustainability in the tech industry and promote a sustainable future for all.

Inform environmental NGOs on information security best practices

Our research shows that the level of disproportionate surveillance on the environment protection ecosystem is high. Data protection and cybersecurity best practices are ever-evolving. Sometimes solutions are not resources intensive to set up. We are eager to share our expertise with environmental protection communities.