18 May 2011: Held during the 2012 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum, “e-Environment Day” brought together experts from the public and private sectors and civil society to examine the role of the information society in the protection of the environment.

E-Environment Day was co-organized by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Basel Convention and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and took place on 18 May 2011, in Geneva, Switzerland.

Discussions during the day highlighted the potential synergies and linkages between the WSIS, the sustainable development agenda and green growth strategies, identifying several activities to be followed up within the process of the WSIS for 2012. A special call was made during the event to provide the outcomes of this process as an input for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20).

Participants highlighted the enormous power of technological innovation and the information and communication technologies (ICT) sector in catalyzing the transition to a green economy, in particular by providing tangible solutions to promote energy efficiency, sound waste management and carbon emissions reduction. [WSIS Forum Website]