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Project overview
A consulting and research-based project developed from the earlier Digital Ecology concept, focused on supporting organisations in critically reducing their digital environmental impact while transforming their internal relationships with technology. The project operated at the intersection of environmental responsibility, organisational culture, and ethical technological practice, positioning digital transformation not as a purely technical process but as a cultural and systemic one.
The Digital Ecology Institute offered strategic support through audits, workshops and long-term transformation processes, addressing both measurable environmental impacts and the less tangible dimensions of technological behaviour, decision-making and institutional values.
Main objectives
The project provided organisations with structured pathways to reconfigure their digital practices in response to environmental and ethical concerns. This included research into levels of ecological awareness within the IT sector (which proved to be critically low), the implementation of digital sustainability audits, and the facilitation of foresight workshops focused on environmentally responsible product development.
Beyond operational optimisation, the project sought to intervene at the level of organisational culture. It questioned dominant paradigms of control, surveillance and efficiency driven by digital systems, and supported the transition towards more open, collaborative and transparent models of interaction. This often involved shifting from proprietary ecosystems towards open-source solutions prioritising autonomy, privacy and long-term resilience.
The work positioned technological systems not as neutral tools, but as material expressions of organisational values and power structures.
Achieved results
The project delivered comprehensive transformation strategies that addressed both ecological performance and internal coherence of digital workflows. Through audits and consultative processes, organisations implemented changes ranging from micro-level optimisations (such as reducing unnecessary data loads and rethinking email practices) to structural migrations of communication and collaboration tools.
The most impactful outcomes emerged during what could be described as internal “digital revolutions”, where institutions fundamentally reconsidered their approach to information governance, knowledge sharing and collective decision-making. These shifts resulted not only in reduced environmental impact, but also in improved transparency, trust and operational fluidity.
Main reflection
Over time, I realised that the language I had adopted, particularly the term “digital ecology” unintentionally reinforced a dualism between the digital and the human. It suggested that technology exists as an external layer acting upon us, rather than as an extension of our cognitive, emotional and social realities.
This insight revealed a deeper limitation: focusing primarily on environmental metrics and efficiency risks treating symptoms while leaving the core logic of technological behaviour untouched. While optimising servers, reducing data loads or streamlining workflows are necessary actions, they do not address the fundamental question of why these systems exist, whose needs they serve, and what forms of life they ultimately support.
I also came to recognise that ecology, in its classical scientific sense, is oriented towards observation rather than transformation. It describes relationships without necessarily intervening in them. This conceptual framing began to feel insufficient for the type of change I sought to engage in.
As a result, I consciously suspended the Digital Ecology Institute as a formal project. This decision marked a conceptual shift towards regenerative thinking, an approach that moves beyond minimising harm and instead seeks to actively restore, rebalance and re-envision our relationship with technological systems.
Regeneration, unlike ecological observation, implies agency, responsibility and care. It situates transformation not in tools alone, but in mindset, values and collective imagination. This project therefore became a crucial transitional stage, one that clarified the limits of technical optimisation and opened space for a more profound, holistic engagement with the digital world as a living, relational system.