Funded by the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) through the ATRAE programme, DataECO – Environmental Activism Through and Against Data in the Platform Society is a €1 million project that explores how environmental activism unfolds in the age of algorithms and AI. Led by Emiliano Treré at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, the project is hosted within the Novos Medios research group and the Institute for the Study and Development of Galicia (IDEGA), a leading interdisciplinary research centre on social and environmental change.
DataECO addresses the paradoxes of digital activism in the climate era: while activists increasingly rely on algorithms and digital infrastructures to mobilise and amplify their struggles, these same infrastructures carry significant environmental costs. The project examines how diverse actors—activists, deniers, journalists, corporations, and policymakers—navigate and contest these contradictions, shaping competing imaginaries of the climate crisis and the digital future.
Building on Treré’s long-standing research on algorithmic politics and data justice, DataECO expands the Data Justice Lab’s focus into environmental domains, developing one of the first integrated frameworks for studying the entanglement of climate activism, data infrastructures, and AI. Combining digital ethnography, qualitative interviews, and media analysis across Spain, Italy, Ireland, and Chile, the project will produce several academic and public-facing outputs, including articles, policy reports, and a participatory toolkit for activists and decision-makers.
The project acknowledges generous additional funding by the CONSELLERÍA DE EDUCACIÓN, CIENCIA, UNIVERSIDADES E FORMACIÓN PROFESIONAL of the Xunta de Galicia, Spain.
The project started on 1 September 2025.