Keywords

1.1 Introduction

In recent years, the concept of sustainability has transcended its traditional environmental roots and extended into the digital realm. This chapter delves into the burgeoning domain of digital sustainability, tracing its evolution and providing comprehensive definitions. As the digital landscape continues to expand and evolve, understanding digital sustainability becomes imperative for ensuring responsible and resilient digital ecosystems.

The core ecological challenge of our era consists of three interlocking crises, namely energy, economic growth, and extinction (Kreps, 2018). While these challenges have been overlooked by corporations for a very long time, there has been a clear shift in recent decades. For almost thirty years, the awareness of the three ‘Ps’ (Profit, People, Planet) of the so-called Triple Bottom Line (TBL) model (Elkington & Rowlands, 1999; Savitz, 2013; Willard, 2012) has been reaching deeper and deeper into business consciousness. The main argument behind this model is essentially that organisations need to consider three distinct bottom-lines when evaluating their business performance. Firstly, of course, the bottom line of the profit and loss account. Secondly, the bottom line of a company's people account: a measure (and measuring this is not straightforward) of how socially responsible an organisation has been and is being throughout its operations. Corporate Social Responsibility and increasingly Corporate Data Responsibility are key elements of business practice for this people account. Finally, the third bottom line is the company's planet account: a measure of how environmentally responsible the organisation has been and is being. Thus, as Hart and Milstein (2003, p. 56) put it, “a sustainable enterprise is one that contributes to sustainable development by delivering simultaneously economic, social, and environmental benefits—the so-called triple bottom line”, or as Savitz (2013, p. v) put it, TBL “captures the essence of sustainability by measuring the impact of an organisation’s activities on the world; including both its profitability and shareholder values and its social, human and environmental capital”. For Hart and Milstein (2003), there are four principal drivers for such a route, namely (1) resource efficiency and pollution prevention, (2) Internet-connected coalitions of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), (3) distributed technologies and (4) social development and wealth creation on a massive scale.

To enter a sustainable development pathway in accordance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations, 2015), vast societal changes are required. Sachs et al. (2019) group such social changes into six main ‘transformations’: (1) education, gender and inequality; (2) health, well-being and demography; (3) energy decarbonisation and sustainable industry; (4) sustainable food, land, water and oceans; (5) sustainable cities and communities; and (6) digital revolution for sustainable development. This chapter, and this book more generally, aims to contribute to the discussion on the sixth of these transformations by exploring digital sustainability through the lenses of different perspectives and applications. The remainder of this chapter is structured as follows: Sect. 1.2 discusses the intersection between digital transformation and sustainability. Section 1.3 defines digital sustainability. Section 1.4 provides a summary of key themes in digital sustainability research and provides an overview of key terms and concepts related to digital sustainability that appear in this book and in the wider academy and industry discussion on this topic. Section 1.5 presents a summary of the topics discussed in the remaining chapters of this book. Finally, Sect. 1.6 presents some final remarks to conclude the chapter.

1.2 Tackling the Sustainability Challenge Through Digital Transformation

ICT and information systems (IS) are often presented as both a cause and a potential solution to the climate crisis. In fact, data centres and the wider communications sector are set to be responsible for 20% of the world’s electricity use in the coming years (Andrae, 2017). Moreover, it has been argued that “the vast majority of information systems research is motivated and positioned as being of value to corporate stakeholders, often paraphrased by authors in their research contributions as ‘managers’” (Davison, 2023, p. 1). Such a focus upon profit maximisation in IS discourse has been largely to the exclusion of social and environmental concerns. However, both IT and IS can play a critical role in supporting businesses to improve capabilities that deal with sustainability challenges (Hanelt et al., 2017). Korte et al. (2012) have pointed out that identifying and engaging all stakeholders in a sustainability focus in information systems management can be key to its success.

The response in respect of the climate crisis from research on digital technologies has, to date, been twofold: (1) attempts to address the carbon footprint of ICT themselves, sometimes referred to as ‘Green IT’ (e.g., Bose & Luo, 2011; Butler, 2011; Desautels & Berthon, 2011; Elliot, 2011; Watson et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2011), and (2) research towards the design and promotion of applications of technology and systems (Elliot & Webster, 2017) to “reduce the adverse environmental impacts of business activities” (Nishant et al., 2017, p. 543) sometimes referred to as Green IS (Chow & Chen, 2009; Cooper & Molla, 2017; Gholami et al., 2016; Hedman & Henningsson, 2016; Loeser et al., 2017; Malhotra et al., 2013; Melville, 2010).

More recently, IS scholarship has turned also to other aspects of sustainability, including smart cities (Ismagilova et al., 2019), the circular economy (Zeiss et al., 2021), the high energy consumption of blockchain (Hughes et al., 2019), IS for the promotion of ecologically responsible behaviours (Corbett, 2013; Loock et al., 2013) and, last but not least, the importance of responding to the United Nations SDGs in the IS discipline (Corbett & Mellouli, 2017; Pan & Zhang, 2020; Watson et al., 2021). For Lawler (2012), however, for an organisation to truly embark on the sustainability journey, they should practice and integrate sustainability in all of their operations, which implies that sustainability is integrated into the very fabric of an organisation and everything that proceeds out of it. This is a key realisation for sustainability transformation.

An emerging strand of the academic literature spanning across multiple disciplines focuses on the interplay between digital transformation and sustainability and refers to this combination as ‘digital sustainability’ (George & Schillebeeckx, 2021; Pan & Zhang, 2020; Stuermer et al., 2017). Digital transformation can be defined as “a process that aims to improve an entity by triggering significant changes to its properties through combinations of information, computing, communication, and connectivity technologies” (Vial, 2021, p. 118). As such, it describes a firm-wide change which affects the way an organisation does business and impacts its value creation processes (Gölzer & Fritzsche, 2017; Verhoef et al., 2021). Traditionally, most of the interest in digital transformation has been driven by its potential to deliver financial benefits to the organisation through increases in sales or productivity, business model innovations, and novel ways to connect with customers and other stakeholders, among others (Downes and Matt et al., 2015; Nunes, 2013). Matt et al. (2015), for instance, present ‘financial aspects’ as one of the four essential dimensions of digital transformation strategies. More recently though, researchers have called for more attention to the non-financial benefits of digital transformation to include not only direct organisational non-monetary benefits but also societal and environmental benefits of these transformation initiatives (see, for example, von Kutzschenbach & Daub, 2020; Zimmer & Järveläinen, 2022). In addition to this, a growing number of studies discuss digital transformation and sustainability transformation as synergistic rather than competing phenomena within organisations (George & Schillebeeckx, 2021; George et al., 2021; Mair & Gegenhuber, 2021; Pan & Zhang, 2020; Zimmer & Järveläinen, 2022).

1.3 What is Digital Sustainability?

Bencsik et al., (2023, p. 3) refer to digital sustainability as “a nascent research strand with several blind spots”. As it often happens in emerging research streams, one of such blind spots is represented by the lack of a unique shared definition of key concepts; digital sustainability is no exception. In fact, a number of definitions of digital sustainability have been proposed in various academic disciplines, from entrepreneurship (e.g., George et al., 2021) to marketing (e.g., Bencsik et al., 2023), information systems (e.g., Kotlarsky et al., 2023; Pan et al., 2022), and management (e.g., Falcke et al., 2024). Industry participants (e.g., Deloitte, 2023; KPMG, 2024) and international organisations (e.g., United Nations, 2024) have not shied away from this growing discussion either and have contributed to the growing debate on what digital sustainability means and the value it may potentially deliver for different stakeholders.

In the simplest way, digital sustainability can be defined as the convergence of digital transformation and sustainability transformation (also referred to as ‘Twin Transformation’ in Chapter 3 of this book) (Kotlarsky et al., 2023; Pan et al., 2022; United Nations, 2024). However, this definition does not communicate the whole breath of digital sustainability activities and their potential impacts and implications. Sparviero and Ragnedda (2021) argue that to better conceptualise digital sustainability it is important to understand where the concept of sustainability came from. While ‘digital’ sustainability has been under the spotlight in recent years, it is the result of an “on-going international interaction between new social movements, academia, politics and business” (Huber, 2000, p. 270) engaged in the so-called Rio process which has brought sustainability to the attention of industry participants, academic researchers, and the overall society more generally (Tulloch & Neilson, 2014). With this perspective in mind, digital sustainability builds on the same key values of sustainability (Sparviero, 2021; Sparviero & Ragnedda, 2021), namely:

  • Equality: respect for equal rights of all without distinction for race, sex, language or religion, but also equality of opportunities for both present and future generations so they should all have access to the necessary resources to fulfil their needs (United Nations General Assembly, 2015).

  • Harmony: the optimal end-state of a balanced and a collaborative process leading to better quality of life for everybody and to a common sense of shared responsibility (United Nations General Assembly, 2015).

  • Self-determination: a sense of empowerment and of being in control of one’s environment that not only characterises responsible citizens that are keen to participate in the protection of such an environment, but it also applies to social communities and countries that promote the respect for territorial integrity and political independence (Tsosie, 2009; World Commission of Environment & Development, 1987).

In this context, digital sustainability may be defined as a set of values that “are the same values as sustainability, so that, if applied to the creation and adoption of new digital technologies, they contribute to a sustainable future” (Sparviero & Ragnedda, 2021, p. 221). This definition of digital sustainability, however, fails to highlight the three typical perspectives of sustainability, namely:

  • Environmental sustainability: it mostly focuses on decreasing consumption of natural resources and engaging in practices aimed at improving the long-term health of the planet (Melville, 2010). Environmentally sustainable activities mostly aim to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and prioritise the use of renewable resources to sustain all forms of life (Ekins, 2011; Melville, 2010).

  • Economic sustainability: it relates to approaches that foster enduring economic prosperity while safeguarding natural resources and enhancing societal well-being (Anand & Sen, 2000; Foy, 1990; Spangenberg, 2005).

  • Social sustainability: it involves nurturing robust societal advancements by fostering the growth of civil communities and fulfilling the present needs of society without jeopardising the well-being of future generations (Vallance et al., 2011). The main objective of social sustainability is to promote compatibility amidst cultural and social diversity while elevating individuals’ standards of living and responsibly addressing the societal implications of business activities (UN Global Compact, 2024).

An alternative definition that somewhat overcomes such a limitation has been proposed by George et al., (2021, p. 1000) who define digital sustainability as “organisational activities that seek to advance the sustainable development goals through creative deployment of technologies that create, use, transmit, or source electronic data”. As this definition points to the ‘deployment’ of digital technologies for advancing sustainable development, it mostly speaks to the concept of ‘Green IS’ or, to put it in different words, to sustainability by digital. As such, it essentially ignores the overall discussion around the sustainability of digital technologies which mostly focuses on the ‘development’ of more sustainable digital technologies (also referred to as ‘Green IT’). More recently, Kotlarsky et al. (2023, p. 938) have defined digital sustainability as “the development and deployment of digital resources and artifacts toward improving the environment, society, and economic welfare”.

This definition, although quite simple and concise, overcomes the outstanding limitations of other definitions that were proposed in the past however does not fully acknowledge the importance of sustainability across the lifecycle of the digital resources and artefacts. In some cases, shutting down or decommissioning digital artefacts and resources may be the most sustainable outcome. Furthermore, it does not underscore the need for adaptability in such solutions. Consequently, we propose an extension of this definition which we adopt as the main definition of digital sustainability in this chapter and, more generally, in this book:

Digital sustainability refers to the design, development, configuration, deployment, and decommissioning of digital resources and artifacts toward improving the environment, and economic welfare.

1.4 Key Trends, Themes and Concepts in Digital Sustainability

Based on our discussion on the definitions of digital sustainability, it clearly emerges that this field of research is evolving rapidly and attracts significant attention from academia and industry alike. Interestingly, even though digital sustainability represents a relatively recent research area, it builds on concepts, values and theories that have already been developed in more established areas of the academic literature such as Green IS and Green IT (Kotlarsky et al., 2023). These provide digital sustainability researchers with robust theoretical and methodological foundations and will likely accelerate the development of this stream of research.

Most of the literature on sustainability generally and, more specifically, on digital sustainability focuses on environmental sustainability and climate change (Kotlarsky et al., 2023; Pan et al., 2022). This is somewhat unsurprising given the sustainability discussion at an international level was primarily established in response to growing concerns about the state of health of our planet and the detrimental long-term impacts of irresponsible use of natural resources (Sparviero & Ragnedda, 2021). Kuntsman and Rattle (2019) present a systematic review of the existing literature on digital sustainability and climate change and classify studies across four categories based on how digital and sustainability were conceptualised: (1) digital as a tool of sustainable innovation; (2) digital as a facilitator of change in people’s behaviour through education; (3) digital as a facilitator of change in people’s consumption patterns; and (4) digital as a material object. Articles framing digital as a facilitator of change account for the majority of the studies, followed by studies in on e-waste (digital as a material object) and studies picturing digital as a tool of sustainable innovation. More interestingly though, the authors highlight that a bias towards the positive outcomes of digital is commonly present across all categories. The authors refer to this phenomenon as ‘digital solutionism’ and call for “a systematic account of global and local material damages of devices, platforms and data systems adopted into sustainability research and practice […]” and “[…] a reconceptualization and denaturalisation of the digital itself as a default solution” (Kuntsman & Rattle, 2019, p. 579). Overall, this suggests that, even though environmental sustainability has attracted most of the research effort so far, significant research opportunities still exist in this area particularly in relation to the potential environmental impact of the transition from old to new technologies, and development and large-scale deployment of energy-demanding digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, blockchain and quantum computing.

Moving beyond the narrow view of environmental sustainability to include the economic and social perspectives of sustainability, Guandalini (2022) summarises existing literature across four key themes, namely (1) digitalisation strategies for sustainability purposes, (2) applicability of digital sustainability to specific industries or sectors (e.g., smart agriculture, industry 4.0, etc.), (3) applicability of digital sustainability to different types of organisations (e.g., public vs private sector, large vs small to medium enterprises, etc.) and stakeholders (e.g., communities, consumers, etc.), and (4) sustainability through specific digital technologies or functionalities (e.g., big data, digital twins, Internet of Things, etc.). Despite the relatively large number of studies considered in this review (given the emerging nature of this literature), several research gaps still remain. In this context, potential avenues for future research may include, for example, the implementation of multidisciplinary approaches looking at the implementation of digital sustainability from both a technical (e.g., computer science) and non/less technical domain (e.g., management, organisational behaviour, etc.) (Guandalini, 2022), the investigation of organisational strategies for digital sustainability that may provide more transferable findings across different sectors and contexts (Falcke et al., 2024), cross-country comparisons of digital sustainability practices and outcomes in different empirical contexts (Delgosha et al., 2021), the mapping of value capturing strategies and business model blueprints for digital sustainability (Bencsik et al., 2023), and the design of performance measurement frameworks for digital sustainability initiatives that take into account various business and societal stakeholders (Kotlarsky et al., 2023). Finally, some key terms and concepts in the digital sustainability that appear in this book and in the wider digital sustainability discussion are presented in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Key terms and concepts in digital sustainability
Full size table

1.5 Perspectives on Digital Sustainability

The other six chapters of this book offer varied viewpoints and valuable insights that contribute to our comprehension and interpretation of digital sustainability. They illustrate that, despite considerable intellectual endeavours in conceptualising digital sustainability, we are still at an early stage of theoretical development and empirical research. More importantly, they emphasise the necessity for actionable outcomes that can inform and guide practical applications and support both organisational and individual decision-making. They are presented as follows.

Chapters 2 and 3 are dedicated to sustainability of digital technologies and the interplay between digital transformation and the sustainability challenges that organisations face in the current market environment. More specifically, Chapter 2 discusses the evolution of Green IT and how organisations have embedded this concept into their activities along the entire value chain in response to growing environmental concerns associated with ICT. The chapter then highlights the environmental challenges posed by emerging technologies such as AI and blockchain, and the growing emphasis on circular economy principles (repair, reuse and refurbish). Overall, the authors suggest that the growing interest in these emerging issues may be interpreted as a renewed focus on mitigating the negative impacts of ICT within Sustainable ICT.

Chapter 3 introduces the concept of ‘Twin Transformation’, a combination of digital and sustainability transformation that enables organisations to leverage the strengths of digital technologies to reach sustainability objectives and vice versa. The authors put particular emphasis on the use of AI to foster twin transformation initiatives thanks to its ability to leverage ever-increasing data flows to deal with complex and multi-faceted challenges which are typical of sustainability. The chapter concludes with the presentation of a framework for AI-enabled Twin Transformation and a call for more studies at the intersection of AI-enabled systems, information systems for environmental sustainability (Green IS and Green IT) and digital transformation to provide more theoretical and practical insights on how to best harness the potential of both digital transformation and sustainability transformation.

The second part of this book focuses on four of the eight priority areas for sustainability identified in the European Green Deal (European Commission, 2019), namely energy (Chapter 4), sustainable mobility (Chapter 5), sustainable food (Chapter 6) and the circular economy (Chapter 7).Footnote 1 Chapter 4 discusses the role of digital transformation in enhancing efficiency, sustainability and resilience in power generation, transmission and consumption. More specifically, the chapter focusses on how deep learning and reinforcement learning can be used to enable smart grids and better manage the production, storage and usage of electricity from renewable sources, and to protect the energy infrastructure for malicious cyberattacks. The author argues that, if implemented correctly, these technologies can act as catalysts for the transition to smarter, more efficient, resilient and sustainable energy systems.

Chapter 5 is dedicated to the implementation of sustainable practices in the urban environment, whether in cities or towns. The chapter discusses four key research themes relating to digital sustainability in smart cities and towns, namely smart transportation systems, building energy optimisation, smart waste management and environmental monitoring. As such, it encompasses a wide range of the European Green Deal’s priority areas. The authors conclude highlighting that the road leading to the realisation of smart cities and towns is not without challenges. These can only be overcome implementing an inclusive, long-term and multi-stakeholder collaborative approach which will provide us with the opportunity to create a more digital, sustainable and liveable future for generations to come.

Chapter 6 is dedicated to implementation of digital sustainability within food systems. More specifically, this chapter focusses on smart farming technologies and discusses how these technologies can lead to the development of more sustainable farming practices and to more resilient food systems. The authors provide an overview of the main barriers and drivers to the realisation of sustainable digital agriculture and discusses international visions of future food systems as proposed by international agencies such as the United Nations (UN), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, and European Union (EU).

Finally, Chapter 7 discusses the principles of the circular economy and of sustainable product management (SPM). The authors focus on the application of four key technologies (AI, analytics, the Internet of Things and blockchain) for SPM and on how they can be applied in the context of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Product Service Systems. Finally, the authors present the use of digital product passports in an SPM context using electric vehicle batteries as an exemplar use case.

1.6 Conclusion

Digitalisation creates unique opportunities for organisations to prosper but it also poses significant threats to how they transact and interact; climate change is a significant threat to society. To survive, organisations and society need to balance both a digital and sustainability transformation. Extant literature clearly differentiates between research on the environmental impact of digital technologies and the potential of digital technologies to contribute to reducing the adverse impact of business and societal activities on the environment. These should not be viewed as mutually exclusive activities but rather as interrelated and inter-dependent, a twin transformation that mutually motivates and accelerates the other. Notwithstanding this, digital sustainability is a relatively new term in scholarly literature whose definition remains nascent. In this chapter, we discuss current conceptualisations of digital sustainability and define it as the design, development, configuration, deployment and decommissioning of digital resources and artefacts towards improving the environment and economic welfare. The remainder of the book presents snapshots of research on key themes in digital sustainability both on Green IT and Green IS, separately and together.

The transition to a society that builds on both digitalisation and sustainability provides us with substantial opportunities and significant challenges. We face the challenge of transitioning to an ‘information society’ permeated by digital technologies without not only compromising environmental values but actively contributing to the reversal of the adverse effects of climate change. Yet despite the potential of digital technologies and the existential threat of climate change, our progress is retarded by a lack of awareness, access, adoption and use of digital technologies to achieve sustainable outcomes. Accelerating digital sustainability requires addressing these issues in a coordinated and integrated way. Reframing and refocusing enterprise strategies to accelerate climate action and sustainability through better designed and purposeful digital technologies is a good start.