ENFORCE: where are we now and what is the way forward?
With active and objective citizen participation currently underrepresented in the EU environmental law- and policy-making, leading today’s research and conversations about environmental governance, Digital for Planet is pleased to play a continued role in this field.
Aligned with this mission, Digital for Planet (our President Dr. Monique Calisti, Dissemination expert Sophie Staheyeff, and Sustainability expert Dr. Anna Aseeva) has recently participated in the kick-off meeting of an ambitious 4-year project ENFORCE that Digital for Planet is a partner of.
Where are we now?
The ENFORCE Project aims to revolutionise environmental compliance through active citizen involvement and technology.
The ENFORCE project, a groundbreaking Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Action, was officially launched in Nice, France, on September 10-11, 2024. ENFORCE aims to transform environmental compliance and governance by harnessing the power of citizens, citizen science, data quality standards, and advanced technology such as AI and geo-spatial intelligence. The project will run until 2028 and it aligns with the European Green Deal ambition, focusing on monitoring environmental violations and enhancing the enforcement of environmental law and regulation.
Key objectives:
- Citizen empowerment
ENFORCE prioritises empowering citizens to monitor and report environmental wrongdoings, enhancing public participation in environmental compliance. The project aims to establish channels for collaboration between citizens and local authorities, ensuring that citizens’ contributions shape the evidence informing environmental law and policies. - Data quality & AI utilisation
ENFORCE emphasises the importance of verified, reliable, and high-quality data. Advanced technologies, including AI, will be elaborated and/or used to validate and standardise citizen-collected data, which will be applicable in legal frameworks – both litigation and lawmaking – and compliance efforts. This will support real-time monitoring of environmental conditions. - Collaboration & co-creation
ENFORCE aims at fostering partnerships through Living Labs, bringing together policymakers, researchers, and the public to co-create innovative solutions. The goal is to ensure that citizen contributions are integrated into environmental governance, making them key players in compliance and policy enforcement. Active support to major sustainability initiatives
ENFORCE aligns with major environmental frameworks, such as the European Green Deal, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, working to enhance environmental compliance across Europe and beyond.
The way forward
ENFORCE, being an extremely aspiring Research and Innovation Action under the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme and the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), has several ambitious outcomes planned to be achieved before or by the project’s end in September 2028 and beyond.
- Legal and policy transformation
The project aims to influence environmental law by generating new evidence, the way to use it in courts and lawmaking, and improving law enforcement mechanisms. It will address challenges posed by the diverse legal systems of EU member states and provide legal and policy guidelines to help countries meet environmental targets. - Citizen empowerment and participation
A major transformative potential is increasing citizen involvement in environmental protection. ENFORCE seeks to create actionable recommendations, guidelines, and mechanisms for active and engaged citizen participation in co-creating environmental information, evidence, and, eventually, law and policy. It also aims at developing scalable data systems, enabling citizens to contribute data that supports legal actions and policy changes, enhancing current and transforming future environmental laws across Europe. Data collection and usage
By 2028, ENFORCE aims to ensure citizen-collected data is reliable enough to be used in court cases and environmental management and policymaking. The project will develop AI-driven tools and a robust data infrastructure to support this goal, empowering citizens to gather evidence for environmental protection.Environmental impact
The goal is to achieve measurable environmental improvements, including cleaner water bodies and better waste management practices. ENFORCE aspires to drive systemic change in environmental compliance and contribute to a cleaner planet.Knowledge sharing and legacy
The project envisions that its outcomes will be widely adopted by the scientific community and policymakers, ensuring lasting impact beyond its conclusion in 2028.
As developed above, ENFORCE will leave behind a portfolio of tools, publications, and policy recommendations, but also, and especially, a vision. By connecting citizens, scientists, litigators, policymakers, and technology, ENFORCE aims to create an inclusive, collaborative, citizen- and data-driven approach to environmental compliance that can be used and sustained long after the project’s end.
Digital for Planet is in charge of the dissemination of project results with relevant stakeholders to maximise impact and ensure widespread use, and will actively contribute to the work on policy recommendations. We are excited to be a part of such an important initiative alongside a diverse consortium from all around Europe!