The Green Screen Climate Justice and Digital Rights Catalyst Fund

RESEARCH QUESTION 

The main research question for this project is: How do climate justice and digital rights movements envision sustainable and equitable internet infrastructures, and how can they best influence internet governance spaces? This project aims to illuminate the dual role of the internet and technology as both potential mitigators of the climate crisis and contributors to hidden ecological and social costs and inequities inherent in the internet that exists today and develop interventions. The goal is to develop clear pathways forward that avoid misleading technical solutions and provide an honest assessment of the current state of internet infrastructure, focusing on who maintains it and at what cost. 

WHY IS THIS RESEARCH IMPORTANT? 

The climate crisis poses an increasing threat to life on Earth, with the internet and digital technologies exacerbating systemic inequalities and environmental degradation. Sustainable solutions often focus narrowly on energy consumption and efficiency of protocols, overlooking broader harms and not looking at the consequences of the infrastructure. Integrating climate and environmental justice into internet governance can shift actions towards more equitable infrastructure. The Green Screen Climate Justice and Digital Rights Catalyst Fund aims to support emerging work that merges the needs of climate justice and internet infrastructure communities, fostering collaborative, multidisciplinary investigations to influence dominant discourses and practices. 

METHODOLOGY  

The Green Screen Catalyst Fund will act as a catalyst to strengthen individuals’, organisations’, and the network of emerging leaders’ capacity to engage on the specific issues related to climate justice and the internet. We will do this in a number of ways. Through the small grants mechanism, the project will fund the climate justice and digital rights community to engage in research and test out initial ideas on the nexus of climate justice and the internet. Grantees of the Fund will determine specific methodologies, emphasizing decolonizing and intersectional approaches. 

The fund will also facilitate capacity building, strategy development, and dissemination of findings through travel and participation in internet governance spaces. The project will include regional and contextual diversity, co-design open calls, and integrate feedback from community members to ensure thoughtful decision-making and effective outreach. This approach aims to democratize research and influence policy and industry practices. 

MEDIA AND PUBLICATIONS 

See below for research publications and other articles related to the research. 

Announcing the new Catalyst Fund awardees tackling climate justice and digital rights 

This New Fund’s Working at the Intersection of Climate Justice and Digital Rights – Inside Philanthropy  

https://www.youtube.com/live/lLJZ0il0UBM?feature=shared

Intersections of Digital Rights and Environmental and Climate Justice – Ford Foundation 

“Wasting Away: Connecting the Political Struggles Between Our “Digital” and Physical World(s),” Prater Galerie https://copypaste.pratergalerie.de/wasting-away-connecting-the-political-struggles-between-our-digital-and-physical-worlds/ 

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