European Webinars: Monitoring Climate Change and Digital Development with Open Data

The "Stories of Use Cases" series, organized by the European Open Data portal (data.europe.eu), is a collection of online events focused on the use of open data to contribute to common European Union objectives such as consolidating democracy, boosting the economy, combating climate change, and driving digital transformation. The series comprises four events, and all recordings are available on the European Open Data portal's YouTube channel. The presentations used to showcase each case are also published.

In a previous post on datos.gob.es, we explained the applications presented in two of the series' events, specifically those related to the economy and democracy. Now, we focus on use cases related to climate and technology, as well as the open datasets used for their development.

Open data has enabled the development of applications offering diverse information and services. In terms of climate, some examples can trace waste management processes or visualize relevant data about organic agriculture. Meanwhile, the application of open data in the technological sphere facilitates process management. Discover the highlighted examples by the European Open Data portal!

Open Data for Fulfilling the European Green Deal

The European Green Deal is a strategy by the European Commission aiming to achieve climate neutrality in Europe by 2050 and promote sustainable economic growth. To reach this objective, the European Commission is working on various actions, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, transitioning to a circular economy, and improving energy efficiency. Under this common goal and utilizing open datasets, three applications have been developed and presented in one of the webinars of the series on data.europe.eu use cases: Eviron Mate, Geofluxus, and MyBioEuBuddy.

• Eviron Mate: It's an educational project aimed at raising awareness among young people about climate change and related data. To achieve this goal, Eviron Mate utilizes open data from Eurostat, the Copernicus Program and data.europa.eu.
• Geofluxus: This initiative tracks waste from its origin to its final destination to promote material reuse and reduce waste volume. Its main objective is to extend material lifespan and provide businesses with tools for better waste management decisions. Geofluxus uses open data from Eurostat and various national open data portals.
• MyBioEuBuddy is a project offering information and visualizations about sustainable agriculture in Europe, using open data from Eurostat and various regional open data portals.

The Role of Open Data in Digital Transformation

In addition to contributing to the fight against climate change by monitoring environment-related processes, open data can yield interesting outcomes in other digitally-operating domains. The combination of open data with innovative technologies provides valuable results, such as natural language processing, artificial intelligence, or augmented reality.

Another online seminar from the series, presented by the European Data Portal, delved into this theme: driving digital transformation in Europe through open data. During the event, three applications that combine cutting-edge technology and open data were presented: Big Data Test Infrastructure, Lobium, and 100 Europeans.

• "Big Data Test Infrastructure (BDTI)": This is a European Commission tool featuring a cloud platform to facilitate the analysis of open data for public sector administrations, offering a free and ready-to-use solution. BDTI provides open-source tools that promote the reuse of public sector data. Any public administration can request the free advisory service by filling out a form. BDTI has already aided some public sector entities in optimizing procurement processes, obtaining mobility information for service redesign, and assisting doctors in extracting knowledge from articles.
• Lobium: A website assisting public affairs managers in addressing the complexities of their tasks. Its aim is to provide tools for campaign management, internal reporting, KPI measurement, and government affairs dashboards. Ultimately, its solution leverages digital tools' advantages to enhance and optimize public management.
• 100 Europeans: An application that simplifies European statistics, dividing the European population into 100 individuals. Through scrolling navigation, it presents data visualizations with figures related to healthy habits and consumption in Europe.

These six applications are examples of how open data can be used to develop solutions of societal interest. Discover more use cases created with open data in this article we have published on datos.gob.es

Learn more about these applications in their seminars -> Recordings here