The twin transition – the combined green and digital transitions – provides an opportunity for Europe to reshape how its economies operate within ecological limits, with the potential to align competitiveness, resilience and strategic autonomy with environmental sustainability. Navigating this twin transition is however not only an environmental challenge, but also a strategic one, requiring deliberate choices about how innovation is steered and regulated.
This briefing from EEA (European Environment Agency) examines how digitalization can support environmental protection, enable more sustainable patterns of production and consumption, and strengthen evidence-informed decision-making. However, digitalization also brings environmental risks: rising resource and energy use, e-waste, and rebound effects that may offset efficiency gains. These emerging environmental risks and trade-offs that must be anticipated and governed are also highlighted in the briefing.
The briefing highlights that strategic alignment alone is insufficient; proactive governance, clear sustainability objectives, policy coherence, and social safeguards are essential to steer digitalization toward genuine ecological benefits. It also emphasizes the need to address rebound effects, embed circularity, ensure a just transition, and navigate geopolitical dependencies. It situates Europe’s twin transition within a global digital transformation unfolding at unprecedented speed and scale – a wave that Europe must navigate even if it cannot fully steer.
