GDDS
SAGE is a Digital Europe co-funded project developing a federated, secure, and interoperable data space to support the key pillars of the European Green Deal, called Green Deal Data Space (GDDS). By connecting diverse sources of environmental data under shared governance and trust frameworks, GDDS will enable organisations across Europe to collaborate on the most pressing sustainability challenges of our time — spanning biodiversity, climate adaptation, circular economy, and zero pollution.
The puzzle
Challenge and Context
Delivering on the ambitions of the European Green Deal requires coordinated action across governments, research institutions, businesses, and civil society — but the data needed to drive this action remains fragmented, siloed, and difficult to share. Environmental datasets are often a mix of sensitive, restricted, and publicly available information held by different organisations with different systems, standards, and levels of openness. Without a trusted, interoperable foundation for combining and exchanging this data, evidence-based decision-making on biodiversity loss, climate resilience, pollution reduction, and circular economy transitions remains severely constrained.
Solution
GDDS addresses these challenges by building a federated data space that integrates proven technology stacks and governance frameworks to connect disparate data sources. Utilising semantic interoperability, it safely combines sensitive, restricted, open, and public data while guaranteeing security and data sovereignty. In order to achieve key Green Deal objectives, the project empowers organisations through ten core use cases: Air Quality and Health (EIRENE), BECO2, Forest Data Space, GEESE, NECST, Pollinator Monitoring (PMDS), Remote Sensing for Forest Inventories, Soil Circularity, Textile Circularity, and Zero Defect Manufacturing (ZDM).
How it works
The SAGE consortium kicked off in March 2025 to build a proof-of-concept infrastructure, advancing to an operational Green Deal Data Space (GDDS) by March 2028 under a standalone legal entity and decentralised governance. Core to GDDS is data sovereignty and semantic interoperability, enabling participants to share restricted and open data while retaining full control. Through a federated catalogue, it connects earth observation and research data, ensuring interoperability with other Common European Data Spaces. Aligned with the Digital Europe Programme, GDDS targets biodiversity, climate adaptation, circular economy, and zero pollution to drive evidence-based decision-making.
Added Value Through the iSHARE Trust Framework
The iSHARE Trust Framework provides the governance and trust backbone for GDDS, establishing standardised mechanisms for identity verification, authentication, and authorisation. This enables participants to exchange environmental data while maintaining data sovereignty, advancing the European Green Deal. iSHARE leads the Governance Framework to co-create the GDDS Rulebook—built on the DSSC Blueprint—and proposed the Strategic Steering Committee. Contributing across all work packages, iSHARE connects technical, legal, and operational dimensions into a living governance framework for the GDDS community.
Contributors
