v2025-04-01
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Icebreaker Principles for data infrastructure
- Trusted data is essential to our future
- Access to data must be open
- Rules for data sharing should address public and private sector needs
- Governance for data infrastructure must be open and independent
- Mandates for data infrastructure engagement are required (from industry or government)
- Trusted
Accurate, trustworthy data that informs actions is essential to decision-makers across finance, industry and government. For example, it helps derisk financial instruments, accelerate new technologies to market and enable monitoring against science-based targets. - Access
Data must be made discoverable and accessible to those who need it. To unlock public and private sector benefits, the ability to effectively share data (using Open or Shared licenses) across sectors is essential. This can include any sector from finance, agriculture, water, transport, to energy and the built world. Data must be machine-readable and have open metadata to enable its discovery (following FAIR principles). - Rules
To enable access to data, the definition of the rules used to share it requires participation from diverse actors. Robust policies and standards can also support assurance and audit. Data owners need to be able to control who can access it in a manner that addresses commercial, legal and regulatory requirements. - Governance
To maintain an open market, data infrastructure must include public and private sector actors in its design, implementation and enforcement. A market-neutral body is a preferred approach to developing such data infrastructure and will include remits of data governance, policy, licensing, technical and operational principles. This infrastructure needs to be developed, and iterated upon, at a pace that is relevant to the urgency of the issues being tackled. Both its processes, and outputs related to its implementation, should be openly licenced. - Mandates
To close data gaps as rapidly as possible and address the public interest, Governments and regulators should define rules for access to specific data, mandate participation and drive adoption. Similarly, industry initiatives can define rules for specific industry benefit and act as catalysts to adoption. Common policies and open standards must create mandates for machine-readable data, data access processes, access control and mechanisms for enforcement that unlock data flow.
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<a href="https://ib1.org/icebreaker-principles/"><img loading="lazy" src="https://ib1.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IB-Principles-supporter-badge.png" alt="Icebreaker Principles badge" width="200" height="194" srcset="https://ib1.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IB-Principles-supporter-badge-768x743.png 768w, https://ib1.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IB-Principles-supporter-badge-830x803.png 830w, https://ib1.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/IB-Principles-supporter-badge-45x45.png 45w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></a>How does this relate to IB1’s mission?
These principles can apply to all data infrastructures.
At IB1 we prioritise data sharing that helps to deliver net zero.
Net Zero = ‘net zero impact’ on our biosphere
We help enable assurable data sharing, across commercial, industrial and financial sectors, that addresses private sector needs and the public good. Our work focuses on areas that accelerate interoperability to have the greatest impact on our climate and environment (e.g. we need all finance to be net zero, not only a sub-category such as ‘green finance’).
Since climate spans both the financial economy and the real economy, by creating cohesion of standards between sectors we can help people implement open climate and net zero data standards for intra-sector, cross-sector and cross-border data sharing. Data about our impact needs to be accessible, reusable and digital.
Based on the Icebreaker Principles, we unlock trusted data discovery across Energy, Water, Transport, Built World, and Finance.
You can learn more about our mission here https://ib1.org/mission/
Our definition if Net Zero is https://ib1.org/net-zero/