Digital for Sustainability - In Need of a Disruptive Research Agenda

“Digital Transformation” is the buzz phrase of the day. Since the 1980s an explosive growth has happened in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and its become pervasive, bringing a perception of tremendous acceleration in technological innovation. There are also high expectations for the role of ICT in sustainable development. Concepts such as disruption, dematerialization and zero marginal costs contribute to the (up to now) false belief that becoming increasingly digital will lead to low resource consumption. However, research shows that the ICT sector itself is not environmentally friendly; it is the fastest growing contributor to emissions, it consumes large amounts of energy, water and critical resources, and produces equally vast amounts of harmful waste with minimal recycling.

To address the generic claim of ICT as contributing to a better and “green” world, there should be mutual recognition and cooperation between digital tech and sustainable development, especially to understand the significant effort needed to harness the power of ICT for human advancement. Digital technologies and sustainability have rarely been analysed together in a rigorous manner. The scientific literature about the nexus of these topics is, up to now worryingly thin, and in many aspects not yet addressing the right questions, much less the responses.

This issue demands a rigorous inquiry of issues at stake and the foundation of a research agenda that builds strong synergies aimed to act beyond current hyped assumptions.

Considering this, Innaxis would like to invite you to the “Digital for Sustainability – In Need of a Disruptive Research Agenda” workshop. This event will be organised during the World Resources Forum on Tuesday 24th October 2017 in Geneva.We are proud that next to Janez Potočnik, one of plenary speakers of WRF, Ladeja Godina Košir will participate in the workshop coorganised by Innaxis, Texwlia and Circular Change.

The goal of this workshop is to ignite a community of interested parties, who work on interdisciplinary research and action agendas, and to enable the alignment of digital technologies with the goals of sustainable development.

Speakers: Carlos Alvarez Pereira, Ladeja Godina Košir 
Workshop Organisers: Innaxis Research Institute and Texelia AG
Workshop Co-Organiser: Circular Change
Workshop Chairs: Soumaya El Kadiri (Texelia AG) and Joséphine von Mitschke-Collande (Innaxis Research Institute)

Date and time: Tuesday 24th October 2017, 16h30 – 18h30

For additional information and registration, please visit the WRF website.

In addition, any inputs and comments ahead of the workshop can be submitted to us directly, by emailing jvmc@innaxis.org.

Venue:
Centre International de Conferences (CICG)
Rue de Varembé 17
1211 Genève – Switzerland