Open Risk joins the Digital4Sustainability Alliance community
We are very happy to announce that Open Risk has joined the Digital4Sustainability Alliance Community, a European initiative dedicated to advancing the digital and sustainability skills required to accelerate the twin transition.
About the Digital4Sustainability project
Digital4Sustainability (D4S) is a project funded under the EU’s Erasmus+ programme1. The project is dedicated to accelerating the digital and green transitions (the so-called twin transition2), both within the ICT sector and across European industries. The consortium includes digital and sustainability experts, business associations, universities, and Vocational Education and Training (VET) providers from across Europe.
Open Risk recently joined the Digital4Sustainability Alliance community and this blog post explains the what and why.
More concretely, D4S is coordinated by the EUROPEAN DIGITAL SME ALLIANCE under the grant agreement no 101140316 (ERASMUS-EDU-2023-PI-ALL-INNO) to support the implementation of the Pact for Skills by developing a sectoral strategy on digital sustainability skills.
The D4S project mission is to develop and implement innovative training programmes that provide professionals and businesses with the skills and knowledge needed in a rapidly evolving landscape, where digital technology and sustainability intersect in non-trivial ways.3 It aims to equip Europe’s workforce with the essential new skills required to drive environmental and digital transformation, addressing urgent industry needs and contributing to a more sustainable future.
The initial four-year project - from February 2024 to January 2028 - involves the launch of urgently needed training programmes and international pilot training programmes, aiming to develop a long-term pan-European education and training initiative.
The consortium brings together 24 members of the Digital Large-Scale Partnership under the Pact for Skills from 12 EU countries, including leading educational institutions, industry associations and sustainability experts.4 5 You can learn more about members in the dedicated D4S page:
The D4S mission goes to the heart of the sustainability transition challenges: Digital tech is essential infrastructure to help manage the information complexity of modern economies, and the sustainability transition is nothing if not complex, as it touches practically every aspect of modern society: energy systems, manufacturing, transport, land use and food systems, to name but a few. At the same time, from e-waste to the gigantic data center environmental and social impacts, the digitization of the economy has significant sustainability implications.
The D4S strategy provides a pathway for upskilling and reskilling the European workforce, both contributing to the goal of making the ICT sector more sustainable and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 across all sectors through digital technologies. Put simply: Digital professionals need sustainability skills and sustainability professionals need digital professional skills.
More concretely, D4S work and deliverables proceed along the following six dimensions:
- A Comprehensive Digital Sustainability Skills Strategy: A collaborative roadmap providing concrete actions, milestones, and policy recommendations to address skills gaps and unlock net-zero emissions by 2050.
- Modular HE/VET Learning Programmes: Demand-led training curricula covering EQF levels 3 to 8, designed to equip the workforce with the advanced digital and green competencies required for industrial transformation.
- EU-Recognised Certifications: A stackable system of micro-credentials and certifications aligned with national frameworks to ensure the formal recognition of skills and facilitate professional mobility.
- Direct Workforce Training: The reskilling and upskilling of at least 500 participants through urgent programmes for decision-makers and pilot sessions for emerging occupational roles.
- Ready-to-Use Resource Packages: Standardised, downloadable training materials and teaching resources to enable educational providers across the EU to rapidly adopt and deliver the new curricula.
- The European Digital Sustainability Skills Platform (EDSSP): A central hub to foster long-term collaboration, knowledge exchange, and best practice sharing between industry leaders and education providers
The results of the project are communicated in the project resources page.
Our Commitment
At Open Risk, we recognised early on that digitalisation and sustainability are deeply interconnected and we are fundamentally aligned with the objectives of the Digital4Sustainability initiative. For a long time we have been probing the possibilities of accelerated, digitally enabled learning and tools, with a particular focus in the domains of risk management and sustainable finance.
Our participation in the Alliance Community reflects our commitment to empowering Europe’s workforce, fostering innovation, and contributing to a more competitive, inclusive, and sustainable continent.
Why We Joined the Digital4Sustainability Alliance Community
The collective capability to utilize digital technology fully (and sustainably!) will be a key success factor for modern economies towards reaching sustainability. Within the European context the D4S project is a catalyst in this direction.
The transparency and empowerment of open standards, open source and open data are levers that can be used to great effect, as has been shown again and again in many domains. The D4S initiative embodies thus some of the core convictions behind Open Risk - but on a much grander scale.
The collaborative approach helps create deep and resourceful ecosystems that ensure training programmes that are aligned with current industry needs, but also address ever-changing future requirements.
What it Means in Practice
Our ongoing focus has been developing digital capabilities (open source frameworks, eLearning resources) for risk management and sustainable finance. We target real-world impact by providing readily usable knowledge and expertise towards developing and implementing sustainable digital solutions. We will be supporting D4S initiatives that prioritise digital sustainability skills in these specific domains and, where applicable, in horizontal, cross-cutting topics.
Central in these efforts will be our Open Risk Academy platform which provides hands-on online eLearning courses in a variety of sustainability topics and the Open Risk Manual, a comprehensive wiki documenting the target knowledge base.
These resources combine theoretical knowledge, mathematical and domain specific knowledge, with practical coding skills. They address emerging skills needs in diverse areas such as Sustainable Finance, Green Public Procurement, Sustainable Portfolio Management, as well as more general Data Engineering and Data Science topics needed to support the above.
In summary, our participation will strengthen collaboration with peers across Europe, streamline, enhance and align our training programmes, and contribute to the collective effort of building a resilient, green, and digitally skilled workforce.
Watch this space!
Learn More
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Not to be confused with a similarly named United Nations initiative! ↩︎
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The twin green & digital transition: How sustainable digital technologies could enable a carbon-neutral EU by 2050 ↩︎
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To Find Out More Visit the official Digital4Sustainability website where you can learn more about the Alliance Community and how you might get involved. ↩︎
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The European DIGITAL SME Alliance is the largest network of ICT small and medium enterprises in Europe, representing more than 45,000 companies ↩︎
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