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Dec 2025
Denmark sits on one of the world’s strongest foundations for data-driven climate policy. Yet much of this potential remains unused. cBrain’s approach to digital case management shows how activating environmental data can accelerate the green transition, reduce administrative burdens, and deliver real environmental impact right now.
In a public sector under pressure to deliver faster, smarter, and greener services, the ability to turn data into action is becoming decisive. Denmark stands uniquely prepared for this shift. With decades of investment in high-quality registers and shared digital infrastructure, the country has the digital raw material needed to make data a strategic engine for the green transition.
But potential is not the same as progress.
For Morten Østergaard, Vice President of GovTech and Climate Solutions at cBrain, the question is no longer whether the necessary data exists, it is whether public institutions can activate it in ways that create real-world impact.
“The opportunities are enormous,” he says, “but today we are only scratching the surface.”
cBrain’s work with digital case management, automation, and data integration demonstrates what happens when environmental data, public registers, and AI-assisted processes are combined: administrative efficiency rises, climate measures accelerate, and citizens receive faster, better service.
A large part of Denmark’s strength lies in its register tradition and the registry’s ability to collect, structure, and maintain authoritative public data. This allows government agencies to work with reliable information from BBR (Building and Dwelling Register), CPR, environmental datasets, and geospatial systems that, in other countries, would be fragmented or unavailable.
Yet despite this advantage, Østergaard sees significant unrealised potential.
He points to environmental administration as a clear example. Municipalities, regions, and the state have long collaborated through Danmarks Miljøportal, creating a shared platform for data relevant to everything from biodiversity to land use. This enables new forms of automation:
“When a landowner applies for forestation support, they can simply draw on a digital map. The system automatically calculates the plantable area, removes lakes, buildings, and existing forest, and determines CO2 and nitrogen effects. It even checks conflicts with protected zones or drinking water interests.”
This is not just convenience, it is climate impact. Faster case handling means faster environmental improvements. But Østergaard is blunt: Denmark is far from fully exploiting these possibilities.
The clearest illustration of cBrain’s approach comes from the The Danish Energy Agency’s support scheme for heat pumps.
“Previously, processing applications took around six months. By shifting from manual checks to automated register lookups, performed the moment a citizen logs in with MitID, we enabled instant pre-qualification. If the data shows eligibility, the system can automatically issue the approval letter,” Østergaard explains.
And the result?
“We went from six months of casework to six minutes. In the second round, 67 per cent of all cases were fully automated,” he concludes.
Speed is not just a bureaucratic metric. It has climate consequences. When approvals come immediately, citizens replace oil burners faster. If the wait is long, many never complete the transition. Digital acceleration thus becomes emissions reduction.
Østergaard stresses that automation does not erode quality: it preserves resources for the complex cases, those that should receive human attention.
Despite the maturity of Danish data infrastructure, many green initiatives still struggle. Østergaard identifies two main barriers:
Public data is often available in principle, but not in practice. Without APIs, standards, and investment in data interfaces, the potential remains locked away.
While privacy concerns are crucial in sectors like health, environmental data is largely public and “unproblematic,” making it ideal for reuse. Yet misconceptions still hold institutions back.
“There is almost no downside to using environmental data. It is public, and all interests are served by better use,” as Østergaard puts it.
With major staff reductions, many agencies try to “do more with less”, leaving no room for innovation.
“The danger is that reduced staffing pressures organisations to just keep up, instead of improving processes,” Østergaard says.
The result is a paradox: Denmark has some of the world’s best public data but often lacks the organisational bandwidth to activate it.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in environmental administration. Environmental impact assessments are data-rich processes, yet the volume of historical reports makes them a persistent bottleneck.
Here, Østergaard sees a transformative role for AI:
“AI can plough through hundreds of reports instantly and identify relevant precedents. They can show which mitigation measures worked in similar projects, or which risks were decisive.”
The aim is not to replace human judgment but to improve where caseworkers focus their attention. Instead of long iterative rounds of clarifying questions, authorities could pinpoint the real issues from the start, resulting in better quality, faster processing, clearer decisions and ultimately earlier environmental benefits.
This is not speculative. cBrain is already testing such approaches with public partners and research institutions. One of cBrain’s most innovative contributions is its approach to automated reporting. Instead of creating reports as separate tasks, reporting becomes a by-product of the administrative workflow itself.
A clear example is again found in forestation projects:
“When the caseworker approves or adjusts a project, we feed the updated information directly back into Mars, the national Multi Area Registration System. The public can then see status changes instantly.”
In a world where climate action must be documented and auditable, this approach upgrades reporting from a chore to an asset.
The digital transformation has a need for speed. Traditionally, governments commission big IT systems that tend to silo the data that they produce. This means the projects have a long implementation time and a limited capacity for the purpose they were designed for.
“To speed up the digital transition, the government needs to demand faster implementation and open data standards. This is possible through the use of standardised platforms designed for interoperability,” says Østergaard.
For Østergaard, the biggest risk is the idea that one central system should “do everything.”
“Instead, the most important thing is to make data accessible with open standards and let as many actors as possible use it.”
It is also what allows cBrain, as a private company, to complement rather than replace the public domain.
And here open infrastructure is the catalyst. Just as digital resilience has become central to European strategic autonomy, the ability to activate environmental data will shape Europe’s capacity to meet climate goals.
cBrain’s approach illustrates that the technologies needed for faster and smarter green administration already exist. What remains is the commitment to scale them.
As Østergaard concludes:
“We need to design digital processes so that data and reporting flow automatically. That is how we get both better administration and better climate results.”
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