ICT for Sustainable Growth Unit
Information Society and Media DG
European Commission
B-1049 Brussels
http://ec.europa.eu/ictforsg

ICT for Sustainable Growth

Improving our quality of life should not damage the environment for future generations. Achieving sustainable growth requires better management of all natural resources, from minerals and plant-life to air and water. Using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) – which are key to economic growth in today’s society – can also help us manage finite natural resources much more efficiently, so improving environmental protection without holding back economic development.

The environment is an increasing priority for policy-makers and citizens across Europe. People and governments worry about the impact of climate change and the inefficient use (or over-use) of natural resources, such as drinking water and energy supplies. On the other hand, we rely on economic growth to improve our standards of living, to ensure decent healthcare, education, food and shelter are available to all.

Sustainable growth means finding the right balance, ensuring we can continue to improve the quality of life of all citizens without harming our environment. EU leaders put sustainable development at the heart of the Union’s goals in the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty. In 2001, they agreed on a sustainable development strategy, which was updated in 2006. At the heart of the strategy is the requirement for all policy proposals to be assessed for their environmental impact before they are implemented. The EU’s Lisbon Strategy, agreed in 2000, and renewed in 2005, aims to foster economic growth and create new, high quality jobs. The two strategies have been designed to complement each other. For the Union, sustainable growth is now an overarching policy, and the Commission is coordinating initiatives in many fields to contribute to realising it.

New prospects for ICT

The use of ICT is widely recognised as a crucial factor in driving economic growth, and particularly in increasing labour productivity. The value of using ICTs to manage natural resources and reduce environmental damage is much less known. If widely taken up, ICT could make a major contribution to achieving sustainable growth. The challenge the European Union faces is to raise awareness of the environmental benefits ICTs can bring, and to demonstrate to citizens, businesses and policy-makers that investing in ICTs is worthwhile.

The Commission is focusing its efforts on three areas:

• Environment – using ICTs to make us better informed about the environment and environmental changes, thereby improving environmental protection and management whilst facilitating sustainable development;
• Risk and disaster – The monitoring capabilities offered by ICTs enable us to understand environmental risks better, and to predict and respond more effectively to natural and man-made environmental disasters; and
• Energy efficiency – Harnessing the power of ICTs to ensure we waste less energy, from all sources, and make better use of energy sources which cause least damage to the environment.

Proving it works

As with other uses of ICT, successful implementation to foster sustainable growth is more about designing appropriate applications and changing their users’ behaviour than about simply developing new technology. The EU has two major funding programmes supporting ICT projects in the environmental field: the Seventh Research Framework Programme (FP7) developing ICTs, and the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) which brings together ICT businesses and policy-makers to encourage faster uptake of new ICT applications.