CODES endorses the Global Digital Compact

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“Digital technologies unlock new capabilities and opportunities for advancing environmental sustainability. Our cooperation will leverage digital technologies for sustainability while minimizing their negative environmental impacts"

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Principle 8(e), The Global Digital Compact

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On September 22, 2024  world leaders convened in New York at the Summit of the Future to agree on and adopt the Global Digital Compact: the first international agreement on the safe, sustainable, and inclusive use of AI and digital technologies.

The global consultation process for the development of the Global Digital Compact, as mandated by the UN General Assembly, began in 2022. To advocate for the principles of digital environmental sustainability in the global agreement, the Coalition for Digital Environmental Sustainability (CODES) actively participated in consultation sessions, submitted written and oral feedback on multiple occasions, and mobilized our global community to contribute to the GDC through multiple awareness campaigns. 

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In our 2022 Action Plan for a Sustainable Planet in the Digital Age, CODES identifies nine priority actions (Impact Initiatives) to catalyze three systematic shifts (Align, Mitigate, Accelerate) towards digital sustainability, understood as “ the design, development, deployment and regulation of digital technologies to accelerate environmentally and socially sustainable development while mitigating risks and unintended consequences”.

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We are happy to see many of CODES messaging on digital sustainability, which were co-developed in consultation with over 1,000 stakeholders around the world, reflected within the agreed upon Global Digital Compact. Since the launch of our Action Plan, CODES and its partners have made progress in advancing and implementing work around digital sustainability. Our work supports and contributes directly to the Global Digital Compact.

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Alignment of the CODES Action Plan and the Global Digital Compact

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Global Digital Compact Objective 1: Close all digital divides and accelerate progress across the Sustainable Development Goals 

• Connectivity, 11(e) on ensuring sustainability across the life cycle of digital technologies.

- ‍Ensuring sustainable by design digital infrastructure and products is at the heart of CODES Shift 2 and many of the CODES Impact Initiatives. In particular, CODES co-champion German Environment Agency, together with a growing set of partners, is advancing Impact Initiative 5 on Sustainable Digital Infrastructure where they are defining the parameters for sustainable data centers, networks, hardware, software, and data. We aim to support a global dialogue towards a clearer understanding with authoritative reference and safeguards for a sustainable digital infrastructure build-up that is just for the Planet and its People.

• Building digital literacy, skills and capacities to fully enhance digital opportunities across all society (12 & 13), including digital literacy for safeguarding information integrity and the fight against mis- and disinformation (34).

- ‍In operationalizing Impact Initiative 3 on Education for Digital Sustainability, together with our global partners, we recently launched the Global Alliance for Digital Education and Sustainability (GADES) to co-define and build collaborations to advance a new AI and digital literacy that includes education around the ethical, safe, and sustainable design, development, and use of digital technologies.

• Developing and disseminating digital public goods (data, software, standards) & safeguards for digital public infrastructure to support sustainable development (17f)

- CODES Impact Initiative 2, a Clearing House for Digital Sustainability Standards, advanced by CODES co-champion International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and partners including the Green Digital Action partners and World Standards Cooperation, aims to co-define key standards for digital sustainability and economic circularity (taking into account the recommendations put forward by the World Commission). The clearing house will create an up-to-date, authoritative overview on global digital standards, to address key gaps, and conduct outreach to enable effective implementation across all concerned parties.

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- Our co-champion the International Science Council (ISC) through CODATA (Committee on Data of the International Science Council), is working to deliver the WorldFAIR+ project which will produce recommendations, interoperability frameworks and guidelines for FAIR data assessment. The WorldFAIR approach, outputs and modes of dissemination will significantly strengthen international cooperation in order to increase and mainstream FAIRness of data and digital objects. The project aims to join up disconnected initiatives on data management, data stewardship, and FAIR data practices, within and across disciplines and internationally through case studies.

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- CODES co-champion UNDP and partners including The Rockefeller Foundation, World Bank, USAID, GIZ, DIAL and Co-Develop are exploring and developing the ways in which Digital Public Infrastructure can accelerate the Green Transition and scale action to address planetary challenges stemming from climate change, biodiversity loss and nature degradation. Through knowledge sharing, thought leadership reports and a series of multi-stakeholder convenings and consultations co-organized by CODES, this work (CODES Impact Initiative 9) aims to catalyze the collective action needed to make Digital Public Infrastructure a key pillar of the strategy for strengthening climate transparency systems, mainstreaming nature-positive incentives and building climate resilience with multi-hazard early warning systems, among other things.

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- Under our Impact Initiative 6 on Digitalization for Circular Economy, our partners OPN, Lifecycle Initiative, UNEP, ITU, UNIDO, WBCSD, and the Wuppertal Institute have partnered to co-develop a Global Framework for Digital Product Information Systems, such as digital product passports. The framework will serve as an overarching system or structure intended for worldwide application, encompassing a set of benchmarks, guidelines, and recommendations designed to advance sustainability at a global scale through the use of Digital Product Information Systems.

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Global Digital Compact Objective 4: Advance responsible, equitable and interoperable data governance approaches

• Data standards and interoperable data exchanges to reduce data gaps and divides and support the SDGs (42 & 45)

- Under CODES Impact Initiative 4, “Harmonization of digital companies’ GHG inventories” our co-champion, ITU, together with the Green Digital Action partners are working to facilitate harmonization, interoperability and adoption of GHG inventories and reporting standards for digital companies, products and services. There is a need to enhance capacity in countries and across the ICT sector to gather and openly share data on GHG emissions and energy use through a global database.

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- As mandated by the United Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA) resolution 4/23 and the UNEA 4 Ministerial Declaration, CODES co-champion UNEP is developing a Global Environmental Data Strategy (GEDS) by 2025. The strategy focuses on five pillars: data quality, interoperability, access, governance, and capacity building. The overarching goal of GEDS is to ensure that timely and trustworthy environmental data, information, and knowledge are available for use at national, regional and global levels to achieve a more sustainable world. Currently, UNEP is organizing consultations to ensure diverse and detailed inputs with the engagement of Member States and other stakeholders, including relevant UN agencies and other international bodies, the academic community, private sector entities, and non-governmental organizations. GEDS aligns well with CODES Impact Initiative 8 on Data and Assessments as Digital Public Goods for Sustainability.

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Global Digital Compact Objective 5: Enhance international governance of artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity, specifically need for sustainable AI that supports the SDGs and does no harm to the environment (51, 53, 55) and promotion of science-based independent processes (56)

- CODES has always promoted an inclusive, transparent and science-based process to build common knowledge and mechanisms for capacity-sharing on AI and digital change more generally. We welcome the establishment of an Independent International Scientific Panel on AI and stand ready to provide support and knowledge processes for providing sustainable AI technologies with a clear purpose for planet and people. As part of our Impact Initiative 1, a World Commission on Sustainability in the Digital Age, we have held a series of global dialogues around international AI governance, a recent one being held at the Hamburg Sustainability Conference, exploring the potential of a scientific panel on AI. All co-champions and many close CODES partners are already working on meaningful AI use cases, safeguards for sustainable AI, guidance on AI research and/or contributions to communicate opportunities and risks of AI broadly. 

Operationalizing the Global Digital Compact

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CODES is home to a rich ecosystem of knowledge and networks that is advancing digital sustainability globally. As digital sustainability becomes a priority for Member States who have now signed on to the Global Digital Compact, CODES is happy to leverage the resources and expertise at hand to inform and support new partnerships and collaborations to steer digital technologies towards sustainability. 

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We are immensely thankful for the efforts made by our global community and others for finally aligning the digital and the sustainability transformation more closely and advancing the agenda for digital environmental sustainability – a crucial element to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. 

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Read the finalized Global Digital Compact here.