Stakeholder roundtable consultation for the CODES report: A Digital Planet for Sustainability

Looking forward David! Would you all be willing to create a CODES Google Calendar (or similar) that we can subscribe to? That way the dates for such events can automatically appear in our calendars.

Hello David, Michael and all. Do you think we can use these:

Hello David. Based on my own perspective and experience in my field, although the virtual roundtable on the draft report "synthesis of the digital transformation and environmental sustainability nexus" need engagement from stakeholders and of course, each mechanism for improvement comes with multiple potential roles for each of us howover, there is need for feasibility study/assessment report at some point. This will iclude but not exclusively, the Introduction, Project Approval Summary,Background, Project Objective, Outline Requirements, Solution Options, option 1 overview (if relevant), option overview, option Benefit, option disbenefit, option conclusion option 2 overview, etc, Project Outline Scope,In scope,out of Scope,Scope Issues, Business Case, Project Benefits, Dependencies Log, Risks, Issues and Assumptions Log.

Link for registration to the event?

There is a red link at the top of this page....ENROLL.

Thank you David et al and our Pacific Disaster Center ohana (an applied research center of the Univ. of Hawaii) looks forward to contributing our digital DRR and response resources to this important effort - e.g. DisasterAWARE https://disasteralert.pdc.org/disasteralert/ and https://www.pdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/NDPBA-Program-Brochure-E…

Hi David Jensen et. al, I am happy to contribute and provide some insights from West Asia region. I think it would be great to have all regions represented.

Hi David will this roundtable be recorded and available to those who miss the meeting, or any notes of the meeting shared after the event?

Seems like some of my comments have disappeared. Here they are again.

Dear colleagues, in the run up to the CODES event, I wanted to provide a paper that was produced for this week's Science, Technology and Innovation Forum. The paper reviews the electricity consumption and environmental impacts of our current digital structure. If taken all together, the current structure consumes about 9 per cent of global electricity demand. This has accompanying environmental impacts, from climate change to air pollution. I hope this paper will help us consider how to mitigate these more challenging environmental impacts as the digital transformation happens.

T05-roehrl-ai energy demand_1.pdf399.59 KB

In reviewing the paper for the upcoming workshop I'm struck by the incorrect use of language. While this group's mission seems to be focused on 'environmental sustainability', the paper only seems to mention 'sustainability'. I would suggest that we stay focused on environmental sustainability in our discussions and mention the other two pillars of sustainability (social, economic) as and when needed. I feel that if we aren't precise in our language we will lose focus and not achieve our environmental sustainability objectives.

Sorry for the multiple messages. I am hoping that the CODES discussions will focus on the 'how' we achieve environmental sustainability through digitalization. What I see in the current paper is very much the 'what' needs to be done. Unfortunately much of the 'what' has been said before and there isn't very much of the 'how' out there. For example, the report says:

"As our global economy undergoes digital transformation, there are opportunities to ‘hard code’ environmental sustainability as a foundational feature"

How can this hard coding be done? There aren't any 'how' statements in the paper on this critical piece of the puzzle. Some very tiny impact examples are given of what some of the bigger high tech companies are doing. I would suggest that the group really explores the above statement and tries to develop the 'how' statements that will further flesh it out and make it more actionable for people.

Hello again colleagues,

Although the paper mentions the fragmentation of the internet in passing, I think the broader question is government control of the internet. With China and now possibly India, blocking open dialogue on various different internet channels and the shutting down of the internet by authoritarian regimes or regimes in crisis, there are sound arguments to be made that the internet is now a tool of oppression and propaganda in most of the world, rather than a tool bringing greater equity and participatory governance. If we are to stretch the discussion beyond environmental sustainability into social issues, this could significantly divert the energy and attention of the group.

I like the aspiration to change world views so that nature and humanity exist on the same plain. I would like to note that changing world views usually required shared learning, which means that broad engagement will be required if we are to succeed.

I'm not sure the values mentioned in the paper are aligned with the discussion in the paper. I would suggest that environmental sustainability needs to be one of the values. humanity and nature need to be on the same plain. This aligns well with the SG's call to make peace with nature.

Also, the 5-6 areas of action in the paper need to focus more on the environment. What about decarbonization, what about transport, what about energy, what about food, what about e-waste? For me these are much more actionable areas that have different digital components to them and where CODES can really make a difference.

I'm happy to enrich the report with major environmental endpoints that we need to reach by 2030 and 2050, so that the scale of the challenge and the role of digitization can be clearly stated. Things like how can we achieve 7.6 Gt of reductions each year throughout the 2020s? How can we reduce the GHG and biodiversity impact of the global food system by 70% by 2050? How can we achieve a near-zero-waste economy (almost fully circular) by 2050?

I think e-waste should be a focus area, because this engages the industry that is profiting from digitalization and asks them to take on extended producer responsibility principles and consider the lifecycle environmental impacts of their products.

The commitments we heard from Microsoft in our breakout group were fantastic. This needs to be propagated throughout the other major technology companies.

The draft report is all inclusive. Building the infrastructure for a global coverage is most important

Aliyu, I would respectfully disagree, we have a very negative paragraph on digital finance. I have specific input that I have been unable to share, and there has been no notification on who is included in the drafting group following the June 30/July 1 meeting, even though I sent numerous requests about the writing process forward. I would not say -- from my point of view -- that the draft report is "all inclusive." Just my opinion.