Better understanding, anticipating and addressing the biodiversity benefits and impacts of the clean and digital industries

Expected Outcome:

Proposals are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• society, end-users, industry and decision makers better understand, anticipate and address biodiversity impacts of Europe’s reindustrialisation and decarbonisation across the value chain, from the demand-side and the design and operational phase to the end-of-life and waste phases, thus preserving biodiversity and ecosystem services by choosing least-harm transition options;

• society, end-users, industry and decision makers understand the benefits and impacts on biodiversity of societal, political, economic and technological choices, taking into account the direct, indirect and cumulative, and spatial and temporal dimensions, thus avoiding burden-shifting across ecosystems, regions and value chains;

• clean and digital industries are more resilient and provided with solutions to mitigate their impacts on terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems and work towards a nature-positive economy, in line the EU Taxonomy and the Do No Significant Harm principle.

Scope:

One of the EU’s biggest priorities is to achieve the sovereign clean transition and digital transition. The Clean Industrial Deal is Europe’s plan to improve competitiveness and reduce carbon emissions through circularity, focusing on energy-intensive sectors and clean technology, including the critical raw materials and energy infrastructure that supports them. The European Union also aims to lead the digital transition and the AI revolution, notably through the construction of data centres. These sectors contribute to climate mitigation and broader environmental objectives, by moving away from the fossil-based, non-circular, business-as-usual models. However, as the IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment states, it is necessary to address the biodiversity impacts and dependencies of these industries and the underlying societal demand to reduce trade-offs and foster nature-positive benefits. By equipping stakeholders with practical and science-based decision-support capabilities, this topic aims to enhance the biodiversity performance of these industries compared to the status quo, increase public acceptance and deliver a wider range of benefits to society. Industries in scope of this topic are all European-based industries relevant to the Clean Industrial Deal, and the digital and artificial intelligence industry including the European-based physical infrastructures directly supporting them (i.e. transport, energy production and electricity grid, mining, extractive and mineral processing, data centres, etc.). Data-intensive industries, in particular Intellectual Property rights industries and copyright, should be supported in assessing the biodiversity impacts of their digital production and consumption.

This topic is expected to support the objectives of EU biodiversity strategy for 2030, the Critical Raw Materials Act, the Clean Industrial Deal roadmap and to support stakeholders in complying with the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive, the Nature Directives, the EU Taxonomy Regulation, the TEN- E and TEN-T regulations. Proposals should ensure geographical coverage across at least three EU/or Associated Country biogeographical regions[1].

Proposals should, for minimum five different industrial activities (at the ISIC division/NACE level[2]):

• develop typologies of biodiversity benefits, impacts and dependencies in terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems per industrial activity building on the ENCORE database[3]. This should support industries in assessing their biodiversity impacts and dependencies and comply with their due diligence reporting obligations[4] and Sustainability Certification Alignment;

• taking into account the projected growth of the EU industrial and digital sector, assess holistically their direct, indirect and cumulative impacts on natural resources (abstraction, extraction and contamination), terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems and ecological connectivity of these industrial developments, considering their spatial and temporal dimensions, using where appropriate Absolute Environmental Sustainability Assessment (AESA)[5];

• compare business-as-usual industries to decarbonized, digitalized and circular industries by providing cost-benefit assessments of biodiversity mitigation measures and developing spatialized biodiversity-focused scenarios analysing the trade-offs and synergies of alternative technological, economical and societal pathways at the European scale, using natural capital accounting, lifecycle analysis and system dynamics modelling;

• provide recommendations and tools that directly inform society, industries and decision makers on biodiversity-sensitive societal, economic and technological trajectories (e.g. policy gaps, addressing the underlying drivers of demand, infrastructure permitting processes and spatial planning, “biodiversity friendly” technological alternatives, investment screening, biodiversity mitigation hierarchy implementation, etc.);

• involve industrial partners, local authorities and civil society organizations in testing and operationalising the recommendations and retrieving early evidence in practical conditions (e.g. piloting nature-based mitigation solutions, after-use of industrial sites, biodiversity stress-tests, etc.), demonstrating measurable improvements and secured ecosystem services.

Proposals should cooperate with relevant projects funded under the Clean Industrial Deal Horizon Europe call.

This topic requires a transdisciplinary approach, with the effective contribution of industrial partners, institutions, civil society, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact for the clean and digital transition of the related research activities. In addition, this topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

In order to increase synergies and the impact of the projects, all proposals selected for funding should form a cluster and are expected to participate in common networking and joint activities, including with projects from other calls where deemed appropriate. These activities should be included in a dedicated work package, having sufficient budget allocated to it. These activities may include:

• a common dissemination and communication strategy;

• common Data Management Strategy and Common Policy Strategy (including joint policy briefs);

• thematic workshops/trainings/working groups on issues of common interest (e.g. data management and exchange);

• close cooperation with the EC Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity (KCBD)[6] and its Science Service, including participating in answering science to policy requests.

[1] EEA dataset Biogeographical regions, Europe 2016, ver.1, available here: Biogeographical regions

[2] ISIC (International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities) and NACE (EU classification of economic activities)

[3] ENCORE, Exploring Natural Capital Opportunities, Risks and Exposure (UNEP, 2026)

[4] Simplified sustainability reporting and due diligence rules for businesses: new text adopted by the EP on 16/12/2025

[5] JRC Publications Repository - Guidance for applying absolute environmental sustainability assessment on activities at different scales

[6] https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/biodiversity-knowledge-centre_en