IGF 2021 – Day 3 – Main Session Policy Network on Environment

>> FLURINA WASPI:  Welcome, everyone, to this session!  PNE session, thank you for joining us on site in Katowice and online.  I have the pleasure to be moderating this session today and I will give over to our PNE Co‑Chair, one of our Co‑Chairs here today who will welcome you officially to the session.  Over to you.

>> TYPIAK PRZEMYSLAW:  Distinguished participants, online and on site, dear colleague, we wish to sincerely welcome to you this session on the policy network on environment and digitalization.  I'm from the chancellery of the Prime Minister and as a representative of the Host Country I have the pleasure to welcome you today as one of the three Co‑Chairs to the PNE.  The main goal of our work has been to focus on interconnections between environment and digitization processes which is becoming more and more up to date and important to the IGF function.  We have a joint collaboration during the past few months and we have the honor to present to you the PNE report.

A word on the organization of the session today, we welcome all participants on site but invite our guests in the Zoom to also contribute by posting any questions or comments in the chat during the presentation.

After the presentation of work stream leads, there will be time for you to express yourselves directly via the raised hand option.  From this point, I wish to give our sincere thanks to the Swiss government and the IGF, the UNDESA for providing the valuable contribution to the PNE.

Last but not least, I wanted to give big thanks to the coordination for the work streams and the continuous support in conducting our meeting, she's also the moderator of today's session.  I'm handing over the floor to you, Flurina Waspi.  Thank you.

>> FLORIAN CORTEZ: Thank you very much for your kind words and I have the pleasure to welcome you to an additional guest and speaker, the first, sitting to my right, it is the director of division for Sustainable Development at UNDESA Juwang Zhu and he will give us some words of welcome too.

Thank you so much.  Over to you.

>> JUWANG ZHU: Thank you, co‑moderator.

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this important session.

This session connects two defining challenges and opportunities of our time, the environmental sustainability and digitization.  I want to take this opportunity to thank first of all Switzerland, Poland and the volunteers for the remarkable work you have done in this critical area.  From extreme hate to forest fires, drought, storms, raising sea levels and the loss of biodiversity, we have been experiencing in multiple ways the impact of environmental degradation and climate change.  Quoting the UN Secretary‑General, the report of the IPCC released this past August is a code red for humanity.  In his report on our Common Agenda, the Secretary‑General again calls for strong global commitments and a declaration of climate emergency as well as the right to a healthy environment.

Digitization can be a driver of the positive change, contributing to net zero and to a green, inclusive, decarbonized economy.  In our comments as well as our digital comments which benefit everyone everywhere.

Allow me to offer some very brief perspective on how to help make this happen.  First we need the digital tech sector to lead by example.  To start with tech companies can move towards 100% renewable energy to power the digital infrastructure.  In fact, a number of them are already starting to lead that way.

Second, our investment in digital technology should be friendly, an ITU report indicates that digital technology could help reduce the world's carbon emission by about 17%.

Third, let us do more to promote Smart Cities.  Among the benefits, digital tools employed in Smart City can help reduce emission, pollution.

Fourth, let us not underestimate the role of digital government.  Digital government play as central role in promoting green policies and building green infrastructure.

Last, advance sustainable management protection and the restoration of natural resources through digitization, such as the adapted use of artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, geospatial solutions and other emerging digital applications.  All these and many other issues are being addressed in the policy network of our environment which is just one more initiative launched by the IGF this past year supported by Switzerland.

Like many other IGF participants I'm very much looking forward to hearing more from you at this session and wishing you continuing success in this innovative initiative.

Thank you for giving me the floor.

>> FLURINA WASPI: Thank you very much, Mr. Juwang Zhu, for the kind words and for your perspective that we value a lot.  It is nice obviously to be able to count on the support and the good work that you are doing with your division.  Thanks a lot.  You have already referred to our next speaker, who is Livia Walpen joining us from Switzerland online today.

You have the floor, thank you.

>> LIVIA WALPEN: Yes, thank you very much, Flurina.  Hello from Switzerland.  I'm very glad to welcome you from the Swiss side and to this main session of the IGF policy network on environment.  At the Swiss government we consider the interlinkages between digitization and the government highly important.  Of course, as we also just heard from Mr. Zhu, the Internet and the digital technologies, such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, it can pose considerable challenges to the environment.  For example, in terms of energy consumption and eWaste and also just as you heard in the last days, you have learned of that at the IGF. 

On the other hand, there is hope that the digital technology also help us to protect the environment.  For example, through innovation, tools that lead to a more efficient use of energy and resources.

I'm really glad that the IGF as the leading platform for multistakeholder discussions on all aspects of digitization is putting this topic on its agenda and actually already for the second time this year after the first time in 2020.

I'm really convinced that the IGF is ideally placed to discuss environment and digitization and to shed more light on the interplay between the two trends.  And the IGF can really act as main place for building alliances, networks to address these important challenges.  It was in this context and as a concrete contribution that we from the Swiss government decided back in 2019 to provide some seed funding to this active policy network on the environment within this, we do hope to strengthen the intersessional work between the annual IGF meetings while at the same time really also contributing to the overall objective of the environmental protection.  Of course, both goals are also in line with the UN Secretary‑General's roadmap on digital cooperation.  I'm really glad to be here with you today in this main session of the Policy Network on Environment and to be learning more about the work of almost a year and its actions and recommendations.  I would also take the opportunity to really thank Flurina as the coordinator and the active secretariate, the Polish government and of course all members of the network and the whole community for their invaluable work.

I also sincerely hope that the work and the activities of the Policy Network will continue and that it is ‑‑ and that its recommendation also reach the eyes and ears of the decision makers in this area.  I'm really looking forward to hearing more about the final report, the recommendations and, yeah, to the discussion with you all in this session.

Thank you very much.

>> FLURINA WASPI: Thank you for joining us from Switzerland and for your kind words.  You have said it, let's get into what we have actually been working on.

There is an introduction planned by me for those who may be have never really encountered the work of the PNE.  First of all, what is the PNE?  Shortly, we launched in 2020 as has been said, we have several goals that we want to pursue with this network.  One of the main goals or the main goal for this year is the creation of a report with concrete policy recommendations.  This is what we have been working on for the last couple of months, and maybe just to show you, to give you statistics.

Since obviously I'm a researcher, it is always nice to have some numbers and I think one of the most impressive numbers is that we have met over 65 times in 2021 over all of the work streams.  That's quite a number I think.  It shows the enthusiasm and dedication of the members who dedicated time for free.

We have over 87 individual participants in overall sessions.  There is many more if you count several attendants of people, these are individual people that contributed to ‑‑ who attended and contributed to the PNE sessions or meetings.  So far, we have over 27,600 words written, it is obviously quantity and we're also aiming quality and we're hoping you will convince yourself of the quality of this work as well.  Finally, we have had three guest speakers that we had the pleasure to welcome and a generous contribution that was more or less equal, maybe a little bit less equal, but at least there is a number of female participants as well which is always nice I think in these types of meetings.

Here is just to show you that we have a really nice website of the PNE that you're welcome to consult if you want to know more, if you want to read more, we have an FAQ page.  We may not be able to answer all of the questions you may have, and on that page, you can also find further reading that's been compiled also by external sources for which we're really grateful and all of the PNE meeting documentation.

About the report, how is the report structured that we have been working on.  So the chapters contain introduction and scope of work, what is within the scope, what's not within our scope.  We have also decided to create a chapter that really is an overview of the challenges and risks associated with digitization for the environment so, to really give a chapter for people who are new to this topic and who just want to get into the different challenges and risks associated and at the heart of the report, obviously, the thematic chapters where we have the policy recommendations that we have chosen to formulate or to propose on four different thematic areas.  Obviously, there are many more areas that we could have explored, we could have structured them differently, and we had to make a decision at some point and that's what we decided for, to start off.

We have a section, a chapter on environmental data.  We have a chapter on food and water systems.  We have a chapter on supply chain transparency and circulatory.  We have a chapter on overarching issues that gave us an opportunity to address issues that may not be as directly linked to environment utilization but are still in our view important to consider when formulating policies.

So before getting into the first chapter on environmental data, before I give the floor over to our work stream moderators, I just want to show you this as an illustration to maybe also make it more clear what the focus of our recommendations is.  Obviously sustainability has many different facets to it and different dimensions that we could address and that are equally important but in this report we have decided to focus on the environmental dimension of sustainability.

If you will look at this diagram that's where the arrow points.  This is where ‑‑ we have decided to focus and we have two different angles that we have been discussing.  One, the use of Internet Protocol for sustainability, how can we use digital tools and digital technologies to achieve environmental sustainability and to the sustainability of this our self, what we're facing with the development of tools and utilization processes themselves.

Furthermore, to maybe manage your expectation as little bit, also with regard to the recommendations, to maybe give you hopefully some context on what we were thinking when formulating these recommendations, is, also to say that obviously when you have a given policy recommendation, there are many ‑‑ there are many different aspects to a policy and starting at the environmental policy objective dimension, which would be at the top, so really like a high‑level objective of a policy, then there are other elements such as what is action that's been taken, what is the specific instrument that we want to use for a policy, who is the target of a policy and who is finally responsible or who is the policy owner so to say.

All of these elements are really important when developing a policy that obviously given the scope of our work and our resources at hand we could address all of them.

In a way, when you look at the recommendations that we're presenting to you, maybe try to think of them as really being associated with that environmental policy objective, so really it is high‑level idea of where do we want to go, where do we think we should go within the policy recommendation development and then obviously all of the above or below policy elements are equally important and need to be addressed and could be one of the things we could address within the PNE network together with other actors as next steps.  To really continue and to think about and we can discuss with you as well and we look forward to hearing your ideas, which instruments could be useful to the policies that we recommend.

Now there is the first chapter that we want to present to you.

The first set of recommendations with regard to environmental data and we have Jessie Oliver with us today who has gracefully agreed to join us even in the middle of the night in Australia.  Thank you for being here, Jessie, over to you.

>> JESSIE OLIVER: No problem.  It is my pleasure.  Decide need to warn you, we have a massive storm going on outside with massive lightning and thunder and everything else.  I hope I don't lose power!  Here we are!  I will give a quick, dirty overview of the main recommendations and then kind of give some nuanced details on each one.  We had a lot of really intensive, awesome discussions with a lot of really big movers and shakers in this space and we decide there had are three main things we want to focus on at this stage.

There's a lot of environmental data out there, we need to figure out how to standardize, but also to harmonize existing datasets into those standards so that they can be readily used.  We need to make sure that that data is accessible and not just in the sense of making sure that it is online and findable by those fair principles and also thinking in mind different ways about care principles, making sure that indigenous communities and local communities are considered in the way that governance is structured, and then increasing cooperation to maximize the impact of that environmental information through digitization.

Next slide, please.

To get into that standardization and harmonization aspect, we're proposing to establish some global standards.  There is always some for biodiversity, different things like that.  Kind of coalescing them, bringing them together in different ways, and ensuring that they're strongly guided by data governance through the fair and CARE principles, if you're not super familiar with those, they're well worth a good read because they're quite useful in thinking about the digital and infrastructure for creating these things and the human components, the ethics of making sure that the data is represented in a way that's responsible for diverse communities and processing should be inclusive, the process.  Ensuring we include all of the different stakeholders that we're hoping to target in the conversation from the very get-go with multiple stakeholders.

Recommendation 2..

This is ensuring that it is accessible but thinking in a broader way than what's talked about with the standardization and the CARE principle, thinking about the information in terms of are they going to be able to interpret the information that's been analyzed and that making sense of that actual environmental data, you want to make sure that there is knowledge exchange and equity and knowledge and being able to ensure that people that may not have the knowledge can gain access to information to maybe understand more complex concepts and thinking about being very transparent about all the different processes involved in environmental data from collection to analysis to dissemination, and thinking about conveying and tailoring information both for broad use and forgetting that particular audiences and ‑‑ not forgetting the particular audiences and for them to understand and digest and to use that information, thinking a lot about tech design and thinking about how our creative ways are that we can illicit, understand the needs of diverse communities.

All right.  Next one.

Recommendation 3, this is one I'm super passionate about too.  I really believe we can do so much for collaboration if we maximize the impact with digitalizing information through mechanisms of including the public in a lot of the processes and if we think about things like the Sustainable Development Goals, there has always been a lot of work exploring how the public through citizen science and other open science mechanisms can contribute to things like the Sustainable Development Goals and we also are looking at broader types of collaboration between, you know, industry, NGO, all of the different sectors that this information actually can impact and influence to inspire change and building capacity for underserved, underrepresented communities as well and making sure again that we're super accountable and transparent in all of the process as to even how we tried to ensure to be inclusive and to be receptive to input from that process because we also need to continually evaluate and to iterate how we do things as we learn.

I think that's it for me.

>> FLURINA WASPI: Thank you very much, Jessie for that overview.  Jessie works for the Australian citizen Association for anyone that wants to reach out to Jessie, that's where her main expertise among others lie.  I hope that's okay that you may ‑‑

>> JESSIE OLIVER: I'm a tech design researcher professionally as well.

>> FLURINA WASPI: Thank you very much.

Now our second ‑‑ on to our second chapter, which is the food and water system chapter.

We are very lucky that we have David actually on sight here with us today.  Thank you very much, David.  Over to you.

>> DAVID OEHMEN: Thank you, Flurina.  Thank you for the invitation to be here.

It's a great place to be.  I have learned tremendously a lot throughout the whole week.

First of all, I want to is a say a lot of thanks to my coauthors in this chapter that can't be here today but hopefully are online or may not be because we also distributed widely in terms of time zones so some are in British Colombia and it may be too early for them!  Thanks to all of you.

In the food and water systems chapter, I mean, we have tried to distill what digitalization contribute here, access to food, clean water, it is actually a Human Rights and still yet today 800 million people are facing hunger and many live in food insecurity, as you all know, we're facing a future in which the numbers will continue to grow, the stress to be more efficient in these systems is absolutely crucial.

As one part, of course, like with digitization, it is not the golden bullet here, so we cannot change, transform, Tuesday to transform the whole system but it can be one very powerful tool in a toolbox is and we have framed five recommendations that we hope will help achieve that or to help stimulate the policymakers around the world to think of how they can probably approach digitalizing their food and water system.

The first recommendation, it is ‑‑ it is probably more of a reminder than a recommendation, it is more like a preambulary text, a preambulary recommendation that digitization and food systems should always be applied with contextual specificity and sensitivity.  What do we want to say with that, it is important that when you come from an ICT sector, from a bigger vender, you develop the solution and the solution has to fit as many use cases as possible.  We need to understand that food and water systems are very vulnerable and very specific and locally context specific systems.  It is difficult to come in with solutions and just paint with a broad brush over it and say this is the solution you need to use from now on.

As a reminder for policymaker, when these kinds of strategies or tools, anything is put in place, in order to help make the systems future proof, that they need to be very careful of the context and not try to improve something that's probably already working pretty fine through local indigenous knowledge and through the knowledge of people who have been working with this system or in these systems for a long time already.

The second recommendation, it is to increase capacities for the use of space derived data for ensuring food and water security locally.  There is ‑‑ there is ‑‑ when I go to conference, I'm always shown this great observation, there is always a trick to it.  Either there are predefined solutions, they serve one use case, adaptability, they're not high or you've amazing data output, but then you need to use that data yourself.

So as an example, the EO program, when you go to country, that would benefit from this ‑‑ from this information the most, they have the least capacity to object association that and to use it and tailor it to the local needs.  This recommendation is actually reminding policymakers about when you want to actually get good ‑‑ make good use of earth observation data, we had a citizen scientist before that needs to complement the earth observation data, that they always need to think of where that capacity comes from.

The third recommendation, it is to preparing national and regional plans and strategies to use the digital tools for the optimization of inefficient water systems and that's particularly in developing countries ‑‑ and this sounds maybe a bit counterintuitive.  When you think about water systems, they are normally, of course, looking differently all over the world and they definitely look different in the Global North and in the Global South.  Oftentimes they are water systems that are there to stay for a long time.  Or they're being built up newly for ‑‑ like in developing countries when there is some kind of infrastructure.  Studies found the investment in digitization brings the highest efficiency yields in terms of how water is used and collected and used.  The data that's collected to bring more efficiencies when the systems are inefficient.

Definitely in developing country, it will bring ‑‑ like we're painting it with a broad brush, but it should be considered, could bring high efficiency gains.

The fourth one, is to develop and adopt tools and processes that reduce inefficiency was the food systems, when you think of the whole food system, it is responsible for 33% of the greenhouse gas emission, I don't have the number of the food waste, the on the shelf food waste from each of the ‑‑ from the global food system, it is important that when looking at the challenges we face, we improve efficiency along the whole, production, transport, consumption chain.  In this recommendation, we're alluding a little bit with a needs to be done here in terms of reducing the inefficiencies and how digitization play as major role in that point.

The last one, it is one that I think is particularly important when you look at recent cases especially also very much from the developed nations where systems, especially water systems, have been held like hostage because their cybersecurity was not up to date and understanding that cybersecurity may be ‑‑ here you may have a higher aware, when talking to policymaker, they tend ‑‑ they appreciate the fancy solution and a little bit less like how to make it secure and how you will get the investment in that.

This is a reminder this is a crucial part.  The water system, it is vulnerable, critical infrastructure, and if you have bigger structure, like a food system, it is as well.  An important note to keep that in mind.

I just want to close with saying, okay, that this has come ‑‑ this work has been very interesting and collaborative.  We had a lot of expertise in the group.  We tried to look at the issue from a lot of angles, but of course it is not exhaustive, it is just a snapshot of five things we thought would be valuable for ‑‑ as a policy recommendation and there can be many more and having said that, I want to thank the IGF and also the Swiss government who gave the seed funding for this we just heard, for this space.  We as UN climate change, we're of course trying to reach out and see, okay, what can other sectors bring, other organizations, other communities bring in terms of solutions to the issues of change, adaptation, mitigation.  We're looking forward to how the PNE will further eye involve and looking forward to the finalized report.

Thank you.

Over to you.

>> FLURINA WASPI: Thank you very much, David, for that comprehensive overview and David is joining from UNFCCC, he's an expert on climate change and adaptation, that just complements the picture.  Thank you for leading the work stream.

Now we have our third chapter on supply chain and circulatory, where we have interrogated how to use the supply chain making it circular and transparent.  We have two of the coauthors work stream leads here with us today, it is Leandro Navarro from UPC and Carlos Rey‑Moreno from ITU.  Over to the both of you.

>> LEANDRO NAVARRO: Thank you, IGF, thank you to the organizers for bringing us this opportunity to work on this report.

You know, it is not about contributing but how much we can learn from being in the process.  Thank you for that, it is amaze, thank you to the amazing authors that put together this chapter.  You know, when we talk about supply chain transparency, circulatory, in the domain of digital technology, in any human activity, we tend to add in layers and every layer adds a bit of environmental impact.  It is very difficult to come up with solutions that somehow decrease the sum of all of the editions we make in the world.

So in a way, it is ‑‑ it is human, ICT is part of the environmental problem and also the Internet Protocol part, the digitization, the Digital Transformation can bring solutions and these solutions have to be really effective, that's I think the added value of the word transformation, Digital Transformation, because we have to enable at some point that the processes are much more efficient.

With regarding the recommendations, we selected four which cover different aspects.  One is about the environmental efficiency of the digital technology itself.  We think in bits, but below the bits, supporting them, there is a lot of material, cables on land, sea, antennas, on the sea, so forth, on the land, we have to make sure that digital technology is not a part of the problem by certain measures.

The second recommendation, it was about how to bring transformation, the Digital Transformation to all supply chains for any sector because it may save a lot by digitalizing their processes.  Going back again to the ICT structure, we have to make sure that it is not only that the ICT elements are efficient and they have to be used smart and that means extending the life span as much as possible and making sure that they do not pollute the environment.

Finally, we are altogether let's say but only those that can afford.  Only those that have connectivity, only those that have resources to transform their processes and well, we could apply to everything, bullets at least focus on the Internet Protocol part, repair, the eWaste management, different aspects that require support and funds and requires expertise to implement especially the low and middle‑income countries.

If you go to the first recommendation, yeah, regarding the maximizing the environmental efficiency of digital technology, well, of course, it can be done by improving each process individually, but apart from that, apart from the eco design, apart from due diligence when we procure by devices, about care or knowing and keeping the devices on track and that we have the information to do a waste processing in the most optimal way that results into knowing details, into sharing data paralleling this process to happen, how to repair, how to choose the product initially, how to refurbish it, how to recycle it according to materials and the way it was built.  The digitization of this chain of custody, all of these parts, for all of the processes that are involved in the life span of a device, there is a concept that's the digital passport that's a way to put together this information so that every process, every participant has the right information.  Of course, that implies as well that all of the digital information can be used to implement policies, methods, incentives to make sure that altogether we choose, we make sure that technologies, it is as efficient as possible and we promote that as hard as we can.

Then moving to the second recommendation, yeah.  As I said, it is not only the effect on the Internet Protocol sector but also the effect on every sector.  Digitization can bring a lot of benefits for what we call the manufacturing supply chains but also what happens after the initial use, how these devices are built can be used, reused, repaired, dismantled into pieces, reuse the pieces, decompose it into secondary raw materials and finally somehow dealt with in landfills, whatever, minimizing the impact.  For that we need knowledge and we need responsibility in every place, we knees traceability, we need to know what happened with the device when it was manufactured before us and what will happen or I mean, after a certain time what happened with the device that passed through our hands and we have to make sure that this is done in the right way.

We need to ensure interoperability and to mention, because in our sectorial solution, but we need to be integrated altogether really to give us a complete view of what we are doing and we'll link the data, blockchain technology, AI, machine learning, technologies that are promising to be part of the solution and those sometimes are part of a problem.  Then, well, for interoperability, for all of these objective, we need international standards, we need to agree on how to implement the interoperability, we need rules that promote those mechanisms and we need ways to scale up and adopt these solutions which means piloting development, support for digitization of all of these processes and also blockchains.  Then if you move to the third recommendation, Chris will explain that one.

>> CHRIS IP: Thank you, Leandro.

Thank you for having me.

For policy recommendation number 3, we want to emphasize on the role of international standards when it comes to implementing circulatory (poor audio quality).

‑‑ how ICTs are designed for recyclability, repairability, among other circular principles.  We have also discussed how for example extended producer responsibility policy is used to improve and avoid management of different Internet Protocol products and equipment.

I think we can all agree that these are very important qualities that help to improve the ‑‑ (poor audio quality, speaker coming in and out).

‑‑ it is important in our chapter ‑‑ oh, sorry.  I probably ‑‑ probably just the Internet.  Hopefully it is working a little bit better right now.

I will just keep going for a minute.  Yeah.

With that in mind, we thought it was very important that in our chapter there needs to be a policy recommendation that can have concrete means for people to take action and to support the implementation of circulatory in the Internet Protocol selection.  That's what this particular recommendation is about.

International standard, they're practical tools that contain guidelines and recommendations that anyone can use to improve the circulatory and, you know, the chapter, we actually looked at a couple of examples and one of them is 10.23 and what this standard does is looks at the circulatory of the Internet Protocol goods based on a scoring system and the benefit of using this standard, it is that product designer, they can use this to determine the level of circulatory of the design and with that information they would be able to improve the design in the very early stage of the Internet Protocol life cycle.

(Poor audio quality).

This is the guidance for a policymaker to implement a EPR system, the extended user responsibility system and to enhance the management of ICTs.  Just very quickly, I also want to mention another standard that I believe is not on the slide, but it is in the chapter, which is L.1470 and this particular standard provide as guidance specifically for the Internet Protocol sector to set emission reduction trajectory in line with the common targets in the Paris Agreement.

(Poor audio quality)..

specifically for the Internet Protocol industry and so the standard like this one, it can really help to provide the exact tools the sector needed to set a clear pathway to reach net zero.  You can learn hour about the standard in our chapter.

Thank you, back to you.

>> LEANDRO NAVARRO: Thank you so much.

The fourth recommendation, the last one, we can ‑‑ we can agree on sharing the best ways of things here, as the standard proposes, but sometimes we don't have the resources to implement it, it is very important to make sure there are funds, knowledge that should be available to help those that need also to tackle the challenges and to operate all of the steps in the Internet Protocol supply and diverse supply chain.  Otherwise we will just know how do it and we won't do it.

There's a list here of the different elements that need to be addressed, like for instance, eWaste dumping grounds, how to integrate a repair in the formal process and give them the opportunity to really contribute to the climate protection.  We have ‑‑ we have ‑‑ we see needs for better operations, better equipment for informal workers that are in low and middle‑income countries, doing a major part of the dirty work in the circular economy.  We need to have finances for investments that are desperately needed.  We need help to develop the legislation in different regions to protect them and to protect them from abuse from our side and also from abuse from inside and we have to have ways to enforce those legislations, it is not enough to write it, it has to work.

We have to find local ways of doing things because the models aren't working, which economies may not translate well in others.

We need capacity building, we need institutions to know how to do, what to do, and to develop the knowledge with them, not just for them.

The next slide, it shows an image of the four scopes we look at, the digital technology, blockchain, supply chains, Developing Countries and we would love to maximize the efficiency of one into circulatory to another, helping with the digitalization of all supply chains and support developing countries to tackle those challenges and not only countries but also communities because it is a global problem.  That's all regarding the supply chain transparency.

Thank you so much for bringing to us this point.

>> FLURINA WASPI: Thank you very much, Leandro and Chris.  It was a pleasure to work with you on that chapter and the friendly illustration in the slides, it is a serious topic, thank you a lot.  Those of you that just joined us, a recap, we heard recommendations on environment data, food and water system and supply chain and circulatory in, the Zoom chat there is a link to the presentation.  Check that out if you want to and scroll back or skip something, and for the future reference.  For those that have been asking in the chat, so we haven't or I made the executive decision not to share the whole report with everyone at this point just because we are still working on it and want to provide a full draft or at some point it is messy for calls if there is a lot of inputs coming in.  If there are people, participants here who would really like to give an additional feedback and to have specialized experience in one of the chapters, then please reach out to me or any of us and our contacts are provided in the information and also on the PNE side which I have linked in the presentation and I'm sure we'll find a way to include you in the final sprint.

I hope that you can understand that process of work.

Feel free to check out this presentation we're currently on.  I will for sure already give you some information.

Now we have a final chapter to present to you on overarching issues for which we have Florian who is joining us also from the Netherlands to present this chapter.

Over to you.

>> FLORIAN CORTEZ: Hey, everyone!  So I'm joining from rainy Holland, but I'm a Brazilian national and I will talk about the overarching issues that are connected to governance aspects.  In that sense, they touch upon all of the domain, across the domains.  It is a broader take that talks about the governance issues related to environmental policymaking and how digitization is an asset here.  The three recommendations refer first to increasing inclusivity.  That's basically access to the online environment for more individuals, more equitably.

Second, to use ‑‑ rely on evidence‑based decision making.  To have the data that is obtained via this ‑‑ the policy level, it will be informed by this type of data and not only private organizations, but also that it can guide better policymaking.

Third, we also recommend to explore participatory eDemocracy approaches that can be also important for citizen buy‑in for the type of environmental reforms that will be needed to go forward.  Now I will look at those separately, in more detail.  Regarding inclusivity, so it is just released by the ITU that more than a world's population can't access the Internet.  We have a problem of inclusivity and access.

The idea here, it is to increase access, we recommend, thinking that an individual community and country level, and not only access is important, but also digital literacy to make the most of access and another point that we emphasized, it is that digital infrastructure is designed in a way that allows a broad participation.  Relying on opensource for example, and providing the infrastructure that's accessible more freely and we encourage also more developed countries to help building the digital capacities more broadly around the world o and to strengthen the individual institutions and social areas of access, via research on the capabilities that are needed in terms of infrastructure, but also capacity building for the individual level, for example.

If we come to recommendation number 2, which is to rely on evidence for policymakers and to do that in a better way so we should invest in this data collection, also especially environmental data collection that can be helpful to guide environmental policy going forward.  This important also because objective data is important to guide policymaking in times where it can be polarized environments and to make the obtaining of data, the transparent process, it may be to tip the tide in favor of a more informed policymaking process and then policymakers should also invest and create in the lagging indicators to guide the environment policymaking processes going forward and to help with policy implementation where the lagging indicators are important to review what worked and what didn't work.

Benchmark indicator, they're also important to facilitate different governance communities, different communities, provinces can compare their efforts and to avoid also free riding and that all governance units feel everyone is doing their fair share in achieving certain targets.

With that, we come to the third and last recommendation on this governance angle.

When you think of eParticipation, and how to via technology encourage remote participation, remote voting that's safe enough and we want to encourage that more diverse stakeholders can then engage in the political process, to counter balance interests that are blocking the size of environmental reform and here, this relates very strongly to the first issue of inclusivity, because if you try out E. participation, but people don't have Internet access, it just reproduces inequities.

It is important to think of these recommendations jointly.  If not, you may not have the desired outcome.

Then with this type of eParticipation, performance monitoring of what the policymakers are trying, in the environmental field, it becomes possible, citizen feedback logs can be implemented and basically that's also important to check on what the politicians are doing to increase accountability of policymakers because either wise they get ‑‑ they can be influenced by the vested interest that has a different type of privilege, accessing the political process.

So these tolls for eParticipation can also help with a couple of other objectives that are important for the environmental policy field.  To better advocate the environmental investments according to what the local context asks for, and like that, maybe also at the local level, the abatement costs can be considered.  Citizens know where the taxpayer money will have the biggest effect in terms of reducing the environmental negative externality, and then encouraging participation, you can identify where the capacity building needs to be targeted at.  Every governance unit may have different needs and so if the government, the national government, international NGO wants to assist in capacity building, it needs to be according to the local needs and the digital tools to survey what needs exist and are important here, and then via the participation, we think also about participatory budgeting, where you've assemblies help, where you can prepare holding meetings online and increase the incentives to participate by making it less costly to attend to such political events is important for increasing the communication among citizens and that ultimately may build trust that's needed for this type of environmental reforms that will be needed to face the climate challenges that we're facing.

Exchange of information across governance units of course remains important.  To keep it tailored to the local level, but via digital communication and via data sharing and benchmarks to have also the overall policy targets of the higher level governance units accounted for.

So with that, we still have last slide where we tried to make sense of the different facets of the governance angle.  Since they kind of feed into each other, it is important to look at them in conjunction with each other so that the overall outcome can be achieved properly.

Thank you so much.

The work, I have to thank also to Peter and to Flurina especially, other contributors to the chapter and I'm reflecting the joint work on all of us who have been talking on these issues.

>> FLURINA WASPI: Thank you so much, thank you for the last slide, Florian.  Visuals are helpful.

With that, we're actually at the end of the formal presentation of what we have been thinking about in the chapters and we're looking forward to your feedbacks, so I have prepared some questions on what we expect from you or what we would be grateful for in terms of feedback, it is not the same or as I have mentioned, we're in the final stages of drafting this report.  There is specific feedback that would be helpful to us.

For example, just whether the recommendations make sense to you in the sense that you understand what they're meaning to say?  Where thought processes be clarified?  Are there elements you wish to be strengthened, just explained differently?  Do you have important resources you would like to share with us that's maybe a bit easier in the chat function.  We have 50 people in the chat.  Feel free to Sherry sources that pertain to the chapters presented.  That's helpful.  We have included case studies, if you know of interesting case studies that could be helpful don't hesitate to let us know about them.

Then also for the people in the room, we are also looking for a dialogue with you so feel free to make comments in general on which aspects may be particularly important to you or how could these recommendations be applied in your specific context?  I will just show on the next slide an overview of all of the recommendations again.  For your reference, so really just to kind of have clarification that these kinds of comments maybe won't necessarily make it into the report at this stage but we will take them up for further dialogue and for further work with the PNE.

The specific feedback we really welcome also to be able to put it in ‑‑ integrated in the final round of revision of the report.

So with that said, here is the overview of the different ‑‑ all of the recommendations, it is very hard to read from afar.  Feel free to come closer for people in the room with us.  For the people at home, in front of their screens, it may be easier to scroll in and out.  You have the access to the presentation in your Zoom chat. 

With that said, now the open discussion round is open.  We have a microphone that can go around in this room.  We have about I would say 30 participants in here and another 50 in the Zoom chat.  We might just start with the Zoom because I have seen that there are quite a few commence.  We'll ask somebody to break the ice and that probably will probably be an active contributor, he doesn't mind taking the floor.

Would you mind if I give over to you?  I know that you have made some comments during the time all of the others could maybe think about what they would like to add which would be helpful to us.

Thank you.

>> HORST KREMERS:  Thank you for giving me the chance.

I think I don't have to mention too much.  I have made some remarks and recommendations for maybe one or the other point for me, the problem is, to make the problem case, not on standard procedures of everything, being operable, this is not really new to a lot of people.  The situation, to at least explain with certain scenarios, that's why it is important there, that's what mean improving governance in there, in some places it is suboptimal, in some places in the world it is disastrous.  That's things that help in disasters where governance is a little bit different required than in general case.  You see these things certainly would be nice to have included a little bit, of course ‑‑ you know, I am in the Amazon Basin, not just Brazil but the neighboring states have part of the Amazon Basin as it is called, the larger area, and what's happening there, so much of these disasters which every one of us know, those that don't, please look into Amazon Basin environmental disasters and there is certainly a lot of information there.  There are other situations in our world where we can exemplify on the desperate need of these things that we're calling for.

Thank you.

>> FLURINA WASPI: Thank you very much, Horst.

If I understood you correctly, you're wishing for a more specific focus for other types of output document where we could more ‑‑ go into more detail on what these recommendations could be, could look like implemented to a specific context.

>> HORST KREMERS:  That's right.

>> FLURINA WASPI: Thank you.

Anyone who wants to add to what's just been said or bring something else up?  You can raise your hand in the chat function or raise your hand here in the audience.  We can clearly see you.  Don't be shy.

There is someone in the audience.  The microphone is coming.

>> AUDIENCE: Thank you.

In the other session, I just came and joined this session, listened to the presentation which are regarding the policy area, the environmental, all related to the eParticipation, inclusiveness, coming to Internet.  How do you ‑‑ we're interested in the area, and the resources, the material, the access to the material, to have the material.  So especially the eWaste area, very key, when it comes to technology.  The people, they're gaged in technology networks, users are responding and other new things coming.  So definitely to manage the eWaste, if we're not careful in the future ‑‑ we have to ‑‑ we have to look at the different things in our country, the policy and so on in the country, I think there is issues that we have, other country, developing policies and capacity building when it comes to eWaste.  If you look at most of the African regulatory Y they are ‑‑ they're policy with the waste, specifically eWaste is not captured in that aspect with other barriers, people in other countries, others are developing policies and focused on eWaste. 

A recommendation, a thing you can do to encounter this eWaste area, it would be to develop something specifically for eWaste, there should be a national program for all governments around the world to identify that eWaste so ministry, agency responsible for policy areas, a stakeholder to develop a program collecting data on the eWaste and capturing the attention, so there should be an annual event on working to give more people the opportunity and leverage the spreading of the idea of eWaste and keeping it at a level, with any awareness, this is probably difficult.  Most ‑‑ they don't care, you have the individual, so any more, you have to concentrate on eWaste.  Thank you.

>> FLURINA WASPI: Thank you very much.

If I have understood basically, essentially you are really calling upon more action in the area of eWaste and maybe also you mentioned a national program that should be instilled and also this key issue of responsibility which we also touch upon in the report.  The question of whether the problem of eWaste is not only a problem or a crisis of responsibility in the sense that people need to or companies may also have to take responsibility of the waste they're producing.  I'm looking forward to ‑‑ I see that Leandro raised his hand and they have discussed this eWaste in their discussions.

>> LEANDRO NAVARRO: Thank you.

Yeah.  In fact, I wanted to reply to the previous two comments.

eWaste is a huge problem.  It is reflected in the report.  We're talking millions of tons produced every year, nearly 60 billion U.S. dollar as year of resources lost.  A lot of disasters everywhere, many countries in the world without any policy which allows them ‑‑ which prevents them from importing eWaste.  It is a huge problem.  It is covered and deserves all of our attention if you look at it from a monitor from the UN, they focus specifically on that.

At the same time, this is the end of the chain, but we have to make sure also that we do not produce as much as we have been producing in the last years.  We have to make sure that things, devices are kept as long as possible, delaying the arrival to the eWaste process, we have to make sure that the devices are designed in a way that they are affordability, not for replacement, quick replacement, we have to make sure that in the materials, they are collected in a way that come from good not only environmental but working conditions in mining.  This is also another disaster.

You know, I think we tried to cover everything, but as someone else has said, we can ‑‑ we couldn't cover everything.  We have some things to do in the coming years as well and particularly when you read the document when the document is available, you may think we're looking at it from a top‑level, top‑down perspective sometimes looks like we don't care about the details but the details are there and it is really important and we discuss about collecting case studies because it is only there when you look at the problem from bottom up and from the ‑‑ I mean, it is only when we grow up that we can write about it, but it is only when we're in the details that when in addition to understanding the problem, we can find the solutions for it.  The problems, it is not for being studied, it is being eradicated.  Yeah.

I mean, thank you.  All of this feedback helps us to really plan on what to do next.

>> FLURINA WASPI: Thank you.

I see that we have a question in the chat.  It is a question of have you specifically considered rebound affects and how to address them in the reports.  I don't know how you can think through this, the work stream leads, that could be a topic in most topic areas that we have addressed.  Maybe for those that are not as familiar.  I would say in my own words that rebound effect kind of related mechanism, we often observe when there is an increase in efficiency that then also leads to an increase in demand for a specific product or service so to broadly say what I would consider rebound affects to be.  Maybe others disagree or otherwise amend this.

Feel free to comment on that work stream leads and other participants, of course.

>> JESSIE OLIVER: Who were you wanting to speak to that?

>> FLURINA WASPI: It is open.  Feel free to since you already have the microphone, feel free to speak..

>> ILIAS LAKOVIDIS:   I want to take this one. 

Allow me to say a few words.  Digital slicings have a positive effect but within the frame of boundary affects.  Okay.  Let's take an example of connected mobility, 5G will have connectability, rather than buying cars you can take services within the city center and there are conditions that we need to respect, this kind of sustainability by design from the beginning, because if these cars are deployed in the city center and the ownership of  car by all residents, they're anyway not desensitized, people basically buy cars anyway, you don't gain as much.  Second, if these cars constantly moving, they will not gain much with the climate benefits.  If the cars start to be used, that's a big rebound, to transport objects rather than people.  Imagine you have a friend across the city wants a bottle of wine because it is late and he, you know, doesn't want to go out, and just starts sticking objects and little things in these cars, then you weigh out of any kind of benefits that you wanted to gain by this connected mobility.  That's true for any digital solution.

So precision farming, if you don't do it in a way that we respect the minimum principle of how many devices we need, how much connectivity we need for a given purpose, then you will not achieve much and the rebound effects, even the direct footprint of the digital solutions may be bigger than the benefits you want to achieve.

In the precision farming for example, you can go for it by trying to sell gadgets to every farmer by GPS, by drone, satellite connectivity, by IoT and stick a lot of connected devices in this world and planet, you can saturate the farming with devices and it will be hard time to really offset this with the gains with the water and fertilizer and water management.  Another way to do it, the agricultural companies become service companies, they get fewer devices to service bigger fields, and more fields, and they are incentivized to be a service company to minimize the pesticides and fertilizer, whatever the agriculture products because they're costs to them.  There are many other examples you can talk about, manufacturing, you can talk about efficiency, energy efficiency of buildings, we have to keep in mind digital solutions do marvelous things, deploying that alone without a boundary condition to remove the direct footprint effect, it will not do it.

>> FLORIAN CORTEZ: Maybe I can add to the rebound effect issue.

One point, if the carbon price has increased over time incrementally, it will trickle down to users and so in that sense, increasing efficiency will just keep the end user spending constant that counteracts the rebound effect in the sense that if we acknowledge that we need to increase carbon prices, so the overall use, it is not due to efficiency gains, the price of the use increases according to the carbon price so that was just one comment regarding that that I wanted it make.

>> FLURINA WASPI: Thank you.  Thank you to Ilius joining from the European Commission where he's working also on matters such as the digital product passport.  It is great to have you on board with us.  Thank you.

Is there anyone else that wants to add on this issue of rebound effects?

>> JESSIE OLIVER: I'm sort of interested in asking a question relating to that based on what I heard if that's okay.

I'm curious they how you localize that, how do you customize that in a way that I think what you are all talking about is absolutely awesome and I'm thinking about the participatory side of it, making sure whatever we're trying to promote is actually what communities need and are going to utilize in an efficient way that makes sense and how do you evaluate that.  I would take that from a tech design perspective.  I'm wondering if other people have other ideas that could be incorporated in recommendations for an approach on that, not just focused on industry.

>> FLURINA WASPI: That's an interesting question.  It was mentioned, will industry business take care, I'm not exactly sure what he means, Horst, but the sense of ‑‑ it is interesting to consider all different stakeholders.  Obviously from that perspective, you're probably more focused on the citizens and on the civil participation and obviously there is also private public stakeholders involved.  That's an interesting question you are asking.  Could we develop a recommendation that maybe targets the rebounding effects but depending on who it is applied to, right, do we target citizen involvement ‑‑

>> JESSIE OLIVER: I'm thinking of the incentivization, what's the incentive even if looking at industry, what's the incentive for them not to design for obsolescence, if they design for object lessens, they can change things quickly and we end up with lots of eWaste, what's the incentive to not do that?  If people aren't buying product as much.  Thinking about it from a consumer perspective and also the industry perspective.

>> ILIAS LAKOVIDIS:  If you move the business model from quantity driven business model to kind of ‑‑ meaning more devices that you sell, the more money you make, if you move into service model, then you have all of the incentives to make sure that your consumers that are paying services to use for other things, using the devices, they keep the devices as long as possible.  It is a cost to you for them to come and change or repair it and refurbish that all the time.

You are incentivized to make sure that these things last because you make money on service, not the devices.

That's true for any sector, not only electronics.

>> JESSIE OLIVER: I think it would be great if the UN could play a role in advocating for companies that do that though.  Oftentimes the way things that the electronics seem to be resourced, it is cheaper just to remake them almost than to do the service depending on what ‑‑

>> ILIAS IAKOVIDIS:  It is happening already.  For Telecom, for data center, the service, they are already on a model and many companies offer them and they do three cycles of refurbishment, for that to be a sustainable model for them, profitable, actually the profit margin on a secondhand server is bigger than selling new one.  That could be done, we could trickle, go down to kind of consumer electronics for this model as well.  At the moment, it just applies to the bigger equipment.

>> FLURINA WASPI: David is also wanting to say something, I'm not sure if the mic works.

>> LEANDRO NAVARRO: There is a model that's very close to all of us, it is if you're connecting to the Internet through a fixed line the router you're using is serve advertised, you pay for the service to connect to the Internet and the manufacture is interested that this router lasts as long as possible and they repair them, premanufacture them and they give them to another customer when you leave they buy the devices that are cheap and their business, it works much, much better.

>> JESSIE OLIVER: I found that really interesting.

As an example to the router scenario, I just was required to change my router and I asked them what can I do with my old one and they literally said throw it away.  I was shocked because I live in Australia!  Like, what!  You're doing this nationally!  This is insane.  I was really disappointed.  I wanted to know, maybe you know and this may be tangential, as a recommendation, where do we go to find out what to do with this stuff if we really want to do the responsible thing and know that it will actually be recycled and it is not just green washing.

>> DAVID OEHMEN: I think this works.  Excellent.

I just wanted to come back probably, I think we're very deep in a very specific discussion, and I think a major discussion around the topic that we had in terms of food and water systems, it is that also even going one stage down, because of talking about political decision making, it is the decision making that explains that technology should be applied because it sounds fancy.  I think there's normally an inherent problem with that, because if, for example, there is no ‑‑ it hasn't been planned properly, there is no real connectivity at a certain point or, you know, IT systems are so complex, especially developing country, sometimes it is wrong there, people come, there was a predefined solution, saying this is the solution you need to use from now on.

Where on the contrary, we have sometimes ‑‑ we do have communities knowing what to do to adapt to climate change because they have different kinds of data and they have experience and I think in the whole discussion we can never forget that we need to apply these tools smartly and they need to be used where there can be most efficient in terms of where can they add value and there is a lot of problems with the rebound solutions, they're implemented somewhere, like where they don't fit properly, there's not been the proper use case, it has not been ‑‑ the problem solution is not the right one for what is actually needed.  I think that's something that we see everywhere, that the technology, it is introduced, ICT solution is introduced and it actually doesn't do with a people expect it had to do because there were breaches in the defining the business requirements.

I think when thinking about the rebound effects, it is very important to keep in mind, like, when do we need to go, when do we really need ‑‑ where can this fancy new technology be applied to make or give an added value and where it is basically adding to the problem.  We say if we have rebound effects we'll end up with a lot of trash that comes from ICT solutions.

Probably as others have said, if we're transforming to the service economy, service provider, that of course is like one potential solution, but also it has some kind of downside of course, when you look especially for ‑‑ to the Global South, service provider, they may come from the Global North and then just put their ‑‑ distinguish their services, offer their services.  We see that with global companies that will not lease, but they provide seeds to farmer, they ‑‑ which they cannot use to ‑‑  Tuesday recede, you have to buy the new pack of seed.  So there are a lot of things around this.  It is a complex discussion.  We could write a report that's as long as the report we have put now, I think we have started the thinking, a lot of area, and I think we had the discussion about the future of the PNE and yesterday also.  It can be added a lot of depth to everything we have put in the report and I think it is also needed.

Looking forward to doing that.

>> FLURINA WASPI: Thank you very much, David.  Our Co‑Chair Daniel that's just appeared on the screen has made a valuable comment in the chat we should be mindful to encourage everyone to speak.

Again, once again, please don't be scared to raise your hand virtually or hear in the audience.

On that note, we have a question in the audience.  I hope that the microphone can be brought.

>> AUDIENCE: I do have kind of a question/comment, just for the sake of the participation. 

I'm Raquel, the counterpart for the Sister Policy Network on Meaningful Access.  Thank you very much first for the great panel.  I have learned a lot to be honest.  If your goal was to bring more people into the topic, I'm certainly more interested and more curious. 

Then I also saw a lot of synergy in particular with one of the discussions that we had and I know we had our main session yesterday, that for the fact that meaningful access means different things for different people.  For some, it is their way of education, for some, it is their way to communicate with their family and for some in emergency, risky areas, it is an emergency lifeline.  By hearing the discussions now, I would perhaps tease the panelists and the PNE to think if one of the properties for meaningful access is also environmental sustainability.  That's not been raised in previous discussion and it may be a cross polarization between the Policy Networks.  Thank you very much, you're very lucky to have Flurina, my lucky counterpart.  Thank you.

>> FLURINA WASPI: Thank you.

It is a great suggestion to expand, you have to be careful with expanding existing concepts but we have encountered a struggle in the PNE report as well to be able to really define the different concept of sustainability and environmental sustainability because the concepts, they mean different things in different contexts.

Thank you for that additional food for thought.

We have officially 3 minutes left.  I know we can go a bit over.

I just don't want to rush us.

If there is one, two final questions, I will encourage everyone and anyone to speak.  If not, you can always reach us via email, please just bear in mind that if you want to make contribution to the report, something that you really want us to take into account, to do it as rapidly as possible, and if possible with regard to the questions we have specified here.

Feel free to reach out to us any time on these issues.

>> JUWANG ZHU: (Speaking off microphone)..

Just very quickly, a comment, much of the discussion has been focused on tech oriented solutions, they're very badly needed and they may drive much of the progress, but I also hope that we can expand the scope of discussion.  A lot of the technical solutions will not, unless there is a change mindset, moving from the economy that was just mentioned, to a shared economy, a lot of things can be shared, and not thrown away.  It is not a global phenomenon, a lot of local communities, Saturday, it is a share day where they bring products they no longer need and then they can be used by other, it is a growing phenomenon and it can be applied to some of the issues we're facing now in order to help protect the environments, it is way for us to think outside of technology solutions and to see whether changes in mindset can advance the solution.  Thank you.

>> FLURINA WASPI: 

I invite Daniel ‑‑ I'm confused with the different Daniels and David on the call, I want to introduce officially our Co‑Chair Dan we will yell with us on the call for the final parting and Outlook words.

Thank you for joining us Daniel from Microsoft.

>> DANIEL EMEJULU: Thank you very much, Flurina.  I will endeavor to be concise in the time that we have to close just to tell a bit of the story to everybody who is joining this session.

As mentioned, this was kicked off and launched last December at the IGF annual meeting, however, as a multistakeholder group we only came together for the first time in April of this year.  In a couple of day, it will be eight months exactly that we have been functioning on a monthly basis since April and in other meetings.  We should take a moment and reflect on the fact that we're in a pandemic and we have many people in this multistakeholder group across time zones, geography, to bring together this initial report draft, it is really impressive and it is great thanks and testament to all of the initiative and investment and time that's been provided.  Other points I want to share in the story of the group and the continuing evolution, it is that we decided earlier on back in April I believe we wanted to make this available, adjustable to all audiences, we did not want to write a theoretical, academically intensive report, we wanted something that would be easy or policymakers and wider audiences to take and to digest you notice we have three, four chapters and ‑‑ recommendations for the chapters and we looked to the themes that is timely with the topic, we took a perspective not only looking at benefits and risks, looking at the continuum and the Spectrum in between.

So I hope that you notice these nuances and we tend to develop these further.

A comment that we received in our wide consultation on the current draft in November, and it is has been echoed here again today by the gentleman who spoke about eWaste, it is that we do need to have a developing country perspective in the report.

There are many challenges and opportunities in the developing world at the intersection of the environment and technology and we believe this forum that the Internet Governance put ‑‑ the Internet Governance Forum put together, it gives us a really meaningful and golden opportunity to address these challenges and opportunities to people who really need them, including in Developing Countries.

That's really a challenge to all of the chapter leads, de facto chapter leads, to go over this and as we take this feedback, to make sure that we're doing service to people who will benefit from this specialized knowledge.

Another point that we talk about often, as Co‑Chairs, we want to have as many case studies as possible to make the theoretical ideas, exploratory ideas, because we're also learning about the intersection if we're honest.  We want to have as many cases to make this real and meaningful for people to contextualize.

I know that many of the private sector organizations are represented here, IGF, a multistakeholder forum, they have a wealth of case studies and they're in specific areas where there is a specific solution.  Mindful we're running out of time.    We'll disseminate this, we're working with partners to get the message out, the message has already gone out at the UN high‑level panel and we look forward to more opportunities to discuss and implement these ideas.

Thank you, all.  A pleasure to be here representing Microsoft and my other Co‑Chairs.

>> FLURINA WASPI: Thank you so much to everyone.  I think is that sometimes these panels just cutoff, I didn't want this to happen to you, Daniel.  Thank you for your valuable remarks.

Also I think I put up the last slide, just thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the Co‑Chair, to the work stream leads, et cetera, to the coauthors and reviewers as well.

To all of you for being here today, of course, in the plenary, on site, virtually, in Zoom, we hope to talk to you again very soon.  Don't hesitate to reach out to us any time you feel like it.

Thank you to my panelists who have been here with me today.

It was a pleasure.