Digital transformation within Scotland’s environment sector
We believe that digital transformation can accelerate the speed at which Scottish environment organisations can address the shared challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss.
By collaborating openly on the digital transformation agenda, organisations can become more resilient, efficient and effective at tackling the threats facing our natural world.
Key features
- An interactive resource explorer to support digital transformation within the environment sector with links to initiatives, blogs and developing plans. Visit the DigitalExplorer.info
- A series of events with CEOs and senior leaders from environment agencies and NGOs. Find out more, including the full agenda and recording, at the dedicated online page
- A statement of ambition co-produced across public and third sector environment organisations. See below.
Our Statement of ambition
Following discussions with senior leaders within the environment sector, we have been openly developing the following Shared Statement of Ambition:
The scale of the environmental challenge that humanity is facing should not be underestimated. As one of the first countries in the world to declare a climate emergency, Scotland has set a world-leading target of being net zero by 2045. At the same time, the Scottish Government has recognised biodiversity loss as an equally pressing issue. In order to progress towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, there is a real urgency to act.
As senior leaders from some of Scotland’s leading environment organisations, including charities and government agencies, we want to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable way of living. Our collective ambition is to explore how we can use innovative digital technology to address the twin challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change, whilst at the same time helping us to secure a green recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Through improved scientific understanding, streamlined internal operations and more targeted public engagement, we can all be better informed, more effective and better focused on tackling these pressing issues, while empowering the public to help us on this journey to a nature-rich, net zero future.
Aims
We want to:
- Inspire the environment sector to have a shared interest in advancing digital transformation, while learning from others.
- Use digital approaches to mobilise greater action in order to tackle the biodiversity and climate crises.
- Encourage shared learning and collective innovation in order to scale up efforts to reverse the loss of Scotland’s biodiversity and to reach net zero.
- Identify the greatest environmental imperatives for digital transformation and how these can be best resourced.
- Engage in digital technology which is consistent with environmental sustainability for people and the planet.
Commitments
We are exploring the following potential commitments:
- Contributing towards a shared digital resource knowledge bank.
- Pooling resources and attracting additional financial investment to support joint digital transformation initiatives.
- Utilising the existing experience and expertise in digital transformation across the environment sector and beyond.
- Making our collective digital assets more open, and using these to foster shared analysis and greater insight.
- Harnessing the full potential of digital engagement with people and their communities (for example through citizen science), with a focus on greater inclusion and participation.
- Becoming actively involved in a dedicated forum for sharing knowledge on digital transformation in order to achieve our shared environmental goals.
