Since 2021, we’ve been running our Green Web Fellowship – a cohort of five fellows delivering projects that explore the intersection of digital rights and climate justice. They learn together and from other practitioners about what powers control the internet, how it is fueled, and what to do about it. In this post, Katrin recaps the 2024 Green Web Fellowship program and reflects on the learnings and insights generated by the five fellows Luã Cruz, Cathy Richards, Andreea Belu, Samantha Ndiwalana, and Sofija Stefanović.
The third Green Web Fellowship cohort ran between December 2023 and May 2024. Now, after some time has passed, I look back and reflect on the ideas and insights this cohort generated. While writing this, I realise that allowing time for things to clarify, settle and evolve since the programme ended is very beneficial. Its a good time to look back on what we did and what impact this program had on the larger community.
In the first part of this blogpost, I spend some time reflecting on the things that each of the fellows discovered, or that shed a different light on certain topics. It’s also an opportunity to collate all the work in one place. In the second part, I share the learnings of running the program and what will come next.
Insights from the Green Web Fellows 2024
Andreea Belu
Quick recap
Andreea’s posts
Andreea’s project
A media monitoring research on the term ‘twin transition’ between 2019-2023 within the European Union; as well as a map of the emerging techno-solutionist narratives in the context of climate emergency.
Since the fellowship, Andreea has become more confident in bringing up topics around green militarism in the digital rights community and has gained a better understanding on how to situate the fellowship findings into broader militarisation and defense developments in the EU (e.g. ReArm Europe) and Global Majority spaces. Andreea has visibilised the topic in philantropic forums and public events. For example, she participated at a MozFest Panel, the Summer School on Sustainable ICT, a panel as well as a workshop at RightsCon 2025 as well as a convening before the Brussels Tech And Society Summit. Andreea also co-authored a blog at EDRi about the topic.
A few insights that bridge digital rights and climate justice
- The narrative of the European ‘twin transition’ is supposed to highlight the positive impact of digitalisation and sustainability. Andreea’s media analysis showed how it is often used as a political solution for Europe’s environmental crisis and for new economic opportunities.
- The narrative of the ‘twin transition’ also functions as a distraction. For example, the need for minerals and energy impact indigenous communities, refugees, or farmers across the ‘majority world’. In the European media landscape, ‘twin transition’ is often used in combination with militarisation and securitisation narratives. There is a need to focus on justice-based approaches, as it seems that ‘sustainability’ narratives veil the underlying debates on (geopolitical) power.
- There is a close link between the military industrial complex, securitisation, digital technologies, and the climate crisis. This is a field at the intersection of digital rights and climate justice that needs much more research, attention and conversations.
Luã Cruz
Quick recap
Luã’s posts
- Starlink’s Amazonian Adventure: Bridging Gaps or just Adding Concerns?
- Starlink’s Amazonian Dilemma: More than Speed vs. Self-Determination
- Starlink in the Amazon: Reflections on humbleness, Wayuri and the dangers ahead
- Starlink na Amazônia: Reflexões sobre humildade, Wayuri e os perigos que estão por vir
Luã’s project
An immersive, qualitative research project in the Amazon that investigates socio-environmental justice aspects of connectivity policies.
Since the fellowship, Luã has continued work on the project. For example, he has been consulting InternetLab’s project Network in the Forests. He also wrote an op-ed for Estadão, has been interviewed in Sumauma, and had his blog post quoted in Intercept Brazil. The Brazilian coalition of Digital Rights Organisations also featured his work. Luã was also invited by the Brazilian government to join the network of partners of the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change. He also participated in the Sustainable and Equitable Internet Infrastructure Dialogue Series.
A few insights that bridge digital rights and climate justice:
- Starlink challenges the ways that impacted communities are governing their networks. It brings forward new issues around community decision-making and meaningful connectivity infrastructure. Since last year, it seems like the problem has emerged in many different parts of the world. For example, in Sudan or Kenya. Luã writes: “The world seems to be getting worse, but at the same time, more people seem to be realizing this and are doing something about it.”
- Just asking for community connectivity is not enough. Connectivity from a socio-environmental justice perspective is much more complex and fine-grained. For example, why go with a slower internet if Starlink offers fast and reliable access? A provocative question, but one that stuck with the community ever since Luã did his research.
- Colonial power structures are continued and sometimes even amplified when it comes to connectivity policies in the Amazon and the Majority World. There is a lot to learn (and unlearn) from history.
Samantha Ndiwalana
Quick recap
Samantha’s posts
Samantha’s project
An investigative research project about the social and environmental impacts of data centres in South Africa — and beyond.
Since last year, Samantha has changed roles and is now the Ranking Digital Rights Research Lead at the World Benchmarking Alliance. The fellowship also made Samantha more certain that responsible technology is what she would like to focus on, learn more and grow in her career. She also attended events and has spoken to many different people working on responsible technology in general and data centres in specific. In terms of South Africa, Samantha says: “Data centres are still very under the radar, but more and more people are writing about and speaking about tech, not from a business perspective, but from a people first perspective, and that’s great to see.”
A few insights that bridge digital rights and climate justice:
- The lack of transparency and the missing data on how data centres operate could be intentional. It can be a strategy to gain power over people. Globalised efforts to understand this strategy are needed.
- Often, private-public partnerships are the first step towards intransparency. They can also create monopolised markets, that then lack regulation and meaningful oversight.
- The impact of data centres is similar in South Africa, South America, Europe, and also the United States. Information asymmetry makes research in the field very difficult. It is still unclear what impact data centres in South Africa have on communities, for example because of water or noise pollution.
Cathy Richards
Quick recap
Cathy’s posts
Cathy’s project
An open source guide on GitBook that is designed to provide responsibility, ethics and pricacy considerations for users and developers of GIS data.
Since autumn 2024, Cathy works at the Open Environmental Data Project as Civic Science Fellow / Data Inclusion specialist and could bring a lot of her fellowship insights into this new role. For example, OEDP works on a ‘data archiving’ project. The guide Cathy published also inspired an event at climate week in NYC. Cathy was also in the Code Green Podcast and in the Activists for Tech Podcast. When she was still at The Engine Room, she also did more research on small/local AI that was informed by her fellowship project.
A few insights that bridge digital rights and climate justice:
- Maps are not simple representations of reality. They come with a particular understanding of the world. A responsible and ethical approach to mapmaking is urgently needed.
- There is a bias in GIS that stems from colonial histories. The majority of mapmaking stems from white Europeans that built specific assumptions into data and maps. It’s important to be aware of that, and to foster initiatives that work on alternative maps and decolonising GIS.
- GIS is often crucial in the work of environmental justice initiatives to accurately identify and report issues such as pollution or resource distribution. That is why accurate data is very important, because it feeds into the work of environmental justice initiatives and can inform their advocacy and campaigning.
Sofija Stevanovič
Quick recap
Sofija’s posts
Sofija’s project
A research project on holistic security infrastructure for environmental defenders in Serbia; as well as application of the research into practice
Since the fellowship, Sofija has worked increasingly in collectives and has engaged more deeply and practically with transformative justice communities and safety and accountability processes. Sofija has also developed her teaching practice in a more focused way within and outside academic institutions. She also published a text in Hekler and facilitated a session at WienWoche that were also influenced by the fellowship program.
A few insights that bridge digital rights and climate justice:
- There is security and then there is holistic security. Holistic security takes both online and offline security into account. It does not only look at digital tools, but looks at the collective as a whole and aims to establish collective care.
- Many local struggles are intertwined with global structures of power. Building local collectives that center care and healing, while also pushing for transformation, is a difficult task but definitely needed.
Learning from the process
For the 2024 cohort, we received thousands of applications. It was challenging from a program manager perspective, particularly because we saw the increased use of ChatGPT and other AI-tools.
There were also quite a lot of applications that focused on sustainability with the help of digital technologies. For example, how a school or an agriculture project could be made more sustainable by developing and applying digital tools. In the future, we’ll make the call for applications more targeted and also to ask for more detailed project proposals.
It also became clear that the work at the intersection of digital rights and climate justice is increasingly well understood across research, activism, and movement building more generally. We received many strong applications from researchers across the world, and from people that actually work at this intersection.
Just as a comparison, if you read the blog posts of the first fellowship cohort in 2021, it becomes clear how much has happened since then. While 2021 fellows were trying to understand what the intersection of digital rights and climate justice could look like, the 2024 applicants were proposing projects that built upon those previously laid foundations.
Fast forward, we selected the five fellows and designed a slightly shorter fellowship of six months, more targeted and with clearer goals from the very beginning. We had weekly meetings, offered consultation and training sessions where needed. For example, we organised a digital security training with the Security Helpline from AccessNow (thank you again, Patricia!) and a talk on digital rights and colonialism by Paola Ricaurte (thank you as well!).
Fellows worked on their projects, supported each other, and learned across geographies and disciplines. In May 2024 we held the final presentations, attended by thirty people from the fellowship network. It was amazing to see the movement growing, and we are all very grateful for the connections that have been made since then.
Insights beyond the fellowship
After successfully completing the 2024 fellowship cohort, we spent time connecting the fellows with our broader network. For example, in October we organised a networking event for all cohorts of the Green Web Fellowship and the current cohort of the Catalyst Fund awardees.
What became clear during this event is how much the field has matured. There is a growing body of research work, researchers are better connected, and the topics are better understood.
It is also clear from conversations with others that the fellowship is highly appreciated and needed. For example, the continued expansion of fossil fuels for digital infrastructure and the heavy industry lobbying has squeezed out the space for public interest perspectives in policy debates.
The fellowship continues to deepen the solidarity network of practitioners and sharpen the arguments of movement leaders who advocate for a more just and sustainable internet. This in turn grows public interest power and influence in key decision-making spaces, like internet standards bodies or governmental digital policy teams.
Also looking at our work within the Green Web Foundation, the fellowship informed other areas of work. For example the Joint Statement on Limiting AI’s Environmental Impact and our involvement in the W3C interest group.
What’s next?
Currently, we are talking to different members of the network about possible focus areas for the next fellowship program. But for now, we also want to say a big thank you to the fellows, advisors, funders and the network. Thank you for your trust, curiosity and support – to many more fellowships!
