IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i7p3791-d777894.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Environmental Sustainability of Digital Technologies: Stakeholder Practices and Perspectives

Author

Listed:
  • Gabrielle Samuel

    (Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King’s College London, Bush House, Strand, London WC2B 4BG, UK)

  • Federica Lucivero

    (Ethox Centre and Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7LF, UK)

  • Lucas Somavilla

    (Responsible Technology Institute, Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3LN, UK)

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence and associated digital technologies (DTs) have environmental impacts. These include heavy carbon dioxide emissions linked to the energy consumption required to generate and process large amounts of data; extracting minerals for, and manufacturing of, technological components; and e-waste. These environmental impacts are receiving increasing policy and media attention through discourses of environmental sustainability. At the same time, ‘sustainability’ is a complex and nebulous term with a multiplicity of meanings and practices. This paper explores how experts working with DTs understand and utilise the concept of environmental sustainability in their practices. Our research question was how do stakeholders researching, governing or working on the environmental impacts of DTs, utilise environmental sustainability concepts? We applied a combination of bibliometric analysis and 24 interviews with key stakeholders from the digital technology sector. Findings show that, although stakeholders have broad conceptual understandings of the term sustainability and its relation to the environmental impacts of DTs, in practice, environmental sustainability tends to be associated with technology based and carboncentric approaches. While narrowing conceptual understandings of environmental sustainability was viewed to have a practical purpose, it hid broader sustainability concerns. We urge those in the field not to lose sight of the wider ‘ethos of sustainability’.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabrielle Samuel & Federica Lucivero & Lucas Somavilla, 2022. "The Environmental Sustainability of Digital Technologies: Stakeholder Practices and Perspectives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-14, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:7:p:3791-:d:777894
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/7/3791/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/7/3791/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fabio Zagonari, 2020. "Environmental sustainability is not worth pursuing unless it is achieved for ethical reasons," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 6(1), pages 1-8, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aimee van Wynsberghe & Tijs Vandemeulebroucke & Larissa Bolte & Jamila Nachid, 2022. "Special Issue “Towards the Sustainability of AI; Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Investigate the Hidden Costs of AI”," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-4, December.
    2. Dmitry A. Ruban, 2022. "Analytical Review of Conjugation of the Ethical Bases of Artificial Intelligence Implementation and Ecologization in Corporate Governance," Journal of Applied Economic Research, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Ural Federal University, vol. 21(2), pages 390-418.
    3. Youssef El Archi & Brahim Benbba & Kai Zhu & Zineb El Andaloussi & László Pataki & Lóránt Dénes Dávid, 2023. "Mapping the Nexus between Sustainability and Digitalization in Tourist Destinations: A Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-16, June.
    4. Xuwei Wang & Kaiwen Ji & Tongping Xie, 2023. "AI Carbon Footprint Management with Multi-Agent Participation: A Tripartite Evolutionary Game Analysis Based on a Case in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-23, June.
    5. P. V. Thayyib & Rajesh Mamilla & Mohsin Khan & Humaira Fatima & Mohd Asim & Imran Anwar & M. K. Shamsudheen & Mohd Asif Khan, 2023. "State-of-the-Art of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics Reviews in Five Different Domains: A Bibliometric Summary," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-38, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Etxano, Iker & Villalba-Eguiluz, Unai, 2021. "Twenty-five years of social multi-criteria evaluation (SMCE) in the search for sustainability: Analysis of case studies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    2. Valentina Rotondi & Luigino Bruni & Luca Crivelli & Stefano Mancuso & Paolo Santori, 2022. "In praise of the persona economica: listening to plants for a new economic paradigm," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-6, December.
    3. Fabio Zagonari, 2023. "Pope Francis vs. Patriarch Bartholomew to Achieve Global Environmental Sustainability: Theoretical Insights Supported by Empirical Results," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-19, September.
    4. Fabio Zagonari, 2024. "Sustainable business models and conflict indices for sustainable decision‐making: An application to decommissioning versus reusing offshore gas platforms," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 180-196, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:7:p:3791-:d:777894. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.