On the environmental fragilities of digital solutionism. Articulating ‘digital’ and ‘green’ in the EU’s ‘twin transition’

Abstract

Since 2019, the European Union has championed a novel approach to addressing the mounting environmental crises: the so-called ‘twin transition.’ This concept posits that digital innovations and sustainability objectives can reinforce one another, fostering a mutually beneficial relationship. The increasing prominence of the twin transition in policymaking and related discourses seems to subtly reconfigure the very framework of environmental governance. Its pervasive use renders it a quintessential buzzword–albeit a unique one, as it fuses two already prevalent terms: the ‘digital transition’ and the ‘green transition.’ This article explores how the twin transition is constructed within EU policy discourse, examining how these two initially separate transitions are brought together. This integration, however, is asymmetric: the logic of digital solutionism increasingly shapes what qualifies as an environmental problem, thereby digitally framing sustainability challenges. Yet, the fragility of this articulation becomes increasingly apparent. The environmental impacts of digital technologies themselves expose cracks in the assumed synergy between ‘digital’ and ‘green.’ This provides a critical perspective on the digital-solutionist tendencies shaping contemporary environmental governance. Moving beyond these limitations would open new avenues for constructing more multi-dimensional, collectively imagined problem-solving frameworks–ones that harness the potential of digital technologies while acknowledging also its limitations.