Resolving the energy-food-nature trilemma in land use: The role of digitalisation and EU policies

Europe is grappling with an intensifying challenge in balancing land use for food production, renewable energy generation, and nature conservation. With 80% of Europe’s land already used for human activities, this energy-food-nature trilemma is compounded by external pressures, including the energy crisis, rising food prices, and geopolitical tensions. These challenges risk undermining the EU’s Green Deal objectives of climate neutrality and biodiversity restoration.

Digitalisation offers transformative solutions to address these pressures. Tools such as earth observation systems, artificial intelligence (AI), and innovative farming technologies can enhance land-use efficiency, reduce trade-offs, and foster synergies. However, uneven access to digital infrastructure, fragmented data governance, and unmanaged environmental risks from digital technologies limit their effectiveness.

To ensure digital solutions support sustainable land management and align with EU policy objectives, this paper stresses the need to:

• Develop a digitally-driven vision for land use to balance food, energy, and biodiversity needs while enhancing sustainability and resilience. The vision should aim to hamonise the policy framework and inform the upcoming Vision for Agriculture and Food, Clean Industrial Deal, and post-2027 CAP framework.
• Enhance digital capacity, data governance, and interoperability to enable policymakers, farmers, and conservation actors to feed and retrieve data and make informed decisions based on real-time, harmonised datasets.
• Promote digital solutions that enable mixed-use practices for land sharing and innovative farming practices for land sparing to balance energy, food, and biodiversity demands while reducing pressure on land.
• Address the environmental and social costs of digitalisation by implementing measures to minimise resource consumption, prevent and manage e-waste, and promote equitable access to digital infrastructure across rural and underserved regions.