Document vV055B517dRx3KdQjm40NLmE9

Ares(2021)7604895 From: Sent: To: jeudi 10 septembre 2020 13:12 VASCEGA Marius (CAB-SINKEVICIUS); Subject: Flash report on VC meeting ENV CAB and MS, 10-09-2021 Present: and (Microsoft xxx), (Microsoft) and (cabinet Sinkevisius) (ENV) did also attend. took care of the organisation of the webex meeting. introduced the current policy context in the EU with COVID-19 pushing for solidarity to help recover from the pandemics. This public money (biggest budget in EU history) should be wisely used and promote investments in circular economy, natural capital, new transport and energy systems. While the political focus is currently on most urgent sectors affected by COVID, it is also important to continue raising political attention on the need to address long-standing issues as the biodiversity, climate and resources crises. He stressed the need to connect the green and digital agendas. reflected on Microsoft's increased responsibility in linking digitalisation with sustainability in broad sense: more sustainable technologies (objective to have data centres relying on renewable energy everywhere), sustainability announcement made 6 months ago and focusing on carbon, biodiversity, waste and water with the objective to remove all historical emissions from Microsoft since 1975 by 2050 across the whole supply chain and to share the lessons with other companies including SMEs, massive investment in carbon capture technology to remove all emissions beyond Microsoft, biodiversity announcement for utilising data for protecting biodiversity around Europe, planetary computer providing data to benefit research and citizens, single use of plastics removed in the whole supply chain including at staff level, upcoming announcement on water, etc. As part of the Corporate Leaders' group in Europe, Microsoft co-signed a green recovery and sustainability commitment to be out soon. He recently met MEP on this. provided more details on marrying green and digital policies, for instance by connecting available dispersed data sources, developing a planetary computer and data spaces. Recent discussions with DG MARE have taken place to better use existing data and exploit IA to analyse them (e.g. observe oceans, control fisheries through facial recognition in Nordic project, work with EEA using IA to monitor air quality much more accurately). welcomed these initiatives, which are in line with EU business model for data sharing and services provision while stressing EU sensitivity on data protection. He mentioned other important issues for EU such as the need to prolong the lifetime of cell phones to save resources, decreasing e-waste, develop data centres, communication networks, and opportunities for new businesses. The meeting ended with an agreement to continue the discussion, possibly face-to-face, also at technical level on dedicated projects. Microsoft will send additional information on their initiatives. Senior Expert European Commission DG ENV xxx Avenue de Beaulieu, 5 B - 1160 Bruxelles