Sustainability in a Digital World

The concept of Sustainability has been widely discussed over the last decades, mainly with a focus on ecological sustainability. Looking at the origin of the sustainability concept some 300 years ago, this is not surprising. Over the last years, though, three ‘pillars’ or ‘circles’ of Sustainability have emerged (ecologic, economic and social) and they found their way even into the Annual Reports of companies, under the name of Triple-Bottom-Line Reporting. But the ecological aspect still outweighs the other two focus areas.

This contribution argues, that Social Sustainability will become at least as important as Ecological Sustainability in the future, and the reason for this is Digitalization of our world. We see new technologies every day and we are mostly fascinated, despite a partial lack of fully understanding the implications this might have for societies. Looking at the manifold positive impacts digitalization can have on businesses and people, it is sometimes overlooked what consequences it might have on how we live together and interact with each other. While ecological changes and challenges are visible, social changes and challenges are often less obvious and only show up much later.

We are moving towards a data driven economy, that is governed and managed increasingly by algorithms and having significant impacts on our jobs that are often threatened to be replaced by (ro-)bots. These three aspects—Data, Algorithms and Bots—are in the center of this contribution. It will discuss potential outcomes, show its impact on society and finally argues that the way to create Social Sustainability in a digital world comes through new ways of Trust. Trust to ideas, systems and people (Botsman, Currency of trust. http://​rachelbotsman.​com/​thinking/​. Accessed 22 Nov 2016, 2016). The ‘new’ digital world is based on trust like never before. And only with a strong focus of trust will we be able to create and sustain a society we want in a digital world.

Due to complex interaction of demographic, cultural and socio-economic circumstances, European societies have become more risk averse than before or than elsewhere in the world. This has been strengthened by a series of environmental and food safety crisis and by an increasing awareness of their effects on health. They have led to the introduction of significant health and environmental policy making powers of the European Union (previously European Economic Community). The policy making system of the European Union and the self-interest of its principal institutions have led to an ever increasing use of these powers of consumer, health and environment protection, to a shift from risk assessment to hazard and to pursuing regulatory trajectories without sufficient impact and feedback assessment. These systemic trends are migrating now to ever more policy areas. This is caused partly by a lack of inclusive strategy development within corporations.

The purpose of this chapter is to build on the tenets of service dominant (S-D) logic and interorganizational governance models to propose a conceptual framework for a digitalized ecosystem where various stakeholders co-create value. Sustainable governance models that will potentially emerge within the proposed ecosystem are also identified. We argue that the emergence of sustainable governance models will reduce frictions and costs associated with information collection and processing, management, energy use, manufacturing, and logistics. We expect that the increased network density due to digitalization will facilitate creating a shared culture among stakeholders. Strong network ties will enable different parties benefit from relational rents, stimulate innovation processes and improve adaptability to the ever changing business environment of the twenty-first century.

We are witnessing a rapid change in the way we work. Indeed, recent studies of the OECD point out that in the coming years, many jobs will disappear due to automation and digitalisation. At the same time, we also know that new forms of work and organisations will develop and that there will be an increasing demand for people who specifically have a high level of problem-solving and interpersonal skills. While organisations are changing and new challenges are arising from the digitalised economy, the role of leaders and coaches for teams and organisations will become increasingly important. This article puts emphasis on both the mindsets and skillsets needed by contemporary leaders to work for a company culture and a common understanding of how to sustainably and successfully manage their teams and organisations in the digital world.

Our interconnected world brings inestimable benefits, but also poses massive challenges. Innovation is increasing at a pace we never imagined just a few years ago, and business models are evolving to match this. The next global wave of technology innovations appeared—artificial intelligence co-opting the internet of things. In such a world it is crucial that Germany stays a safe place to do digital business, for the sake of citizens’ daily life, for the society and for democracy. Just as technology presents huge opportunities for us—it also poses threats. Trust in the internet, in infrastructure, in governments, in military actions in the cyberspace on which our future relies is essential to our economic and social welfare. The internet as a digital marketplace with a material culture offers foremost an insecure environment as long as governments and societies don’t manage to catch up with technological innovation.

The concept of the sustainable use of technology does not come from a luddite point of view. It is not at all about halting progress in its tracks or ‘going offline’ but about making technology more human, rather than making humans function more like technology.

The underlying concepts, values and respective requirements for governance in digital ecosystems and socio-economic systems are considered. Sustainability in ecosystems is discussed as a central notion to illustrate the clash of concepts and to show patterns that connect or separate the digital and the sustainable worlds. Cities and the transition of cities into so-called smart cities exemplify the problem of sustainability and governance. The example of the city as a living lab illustrates the limits of digital control and sheds light on the need for a new generation of system controls that identify and mitigate the rifts, the fears and the unexpected in the process of integration and innovation in socio-economic systems. The study is based on complexity sciences such as cybernetics and on system theory and constructivism in the social sciences in order to embrace fully the problem of social behavior in digital systems.

Digitalizing is the main issue of this book. In this article, I would like to address the role of leaders and leadership in general how to deal with digitalizing and how to deal with big changes in general. We face many changes because of technological developments and hence, we face many changes in business models of companies, but in society as well.

More than 90% of consumers in Germany find the deployment of renewables important or very important, 93% of German citizens want more renewable energy. At the same time, only around 20% of consumers actually buy energy from renewable sources for their homes. Where does this 70% gap stem from? Is it just complacency on the side of consumers? Does the same apply to other product categories?

The authors of this article argue that consumers are willing to pay for sustainability when considering three aspects. First, products and services need to address the individual values of consumers, i.e. the ecological or societal benefit need to be personalized. Second, products and services need to seamlessly fit the individual lifestyles of consumers. And, third they need to be conveniently accessible.

The above requirements may sound familiar. However, they appear in new light when considering how the digital revolution is currently reframing the landscape for sustainable consumption and production. This is, digital services are enabling a very different direct consumer interaction, and the technology that enables these services not only becomes more sophisticated but also more affordable.

Businesses need to understand how to navigate this emerging digital landscape with a strategic sustainability angle. Those that manage will be rewarded by stakeholders, consumers, and shareholders alike. Stakeholders will demand more transparency on product level than before. Consumers—depending on who they are—will buy what is traceable, they will pay for what they personally regard as sustainable or ‘good’, or they will simply return to where they had a positive feeling when shopping. Shareholders will appreciate both better risk management, higher reputation and advanced marketing strategies in the core business.

This article puts arguments behind the above expectations and proposes how companies can realize the business case for sustainability in a digital economy. This proposition includes three aspects. We reckon that rethinking strategy with a strong human centered design, technology angle and a profound understanding of consumer lifestyles is key to making these business models thrive.

Digitalisation has entered almost every realm of our daily lives. The current debate on digitalisation has been dominated by the opportunities that technical innovations offer, while discussions about the sustainability impacts of digitalisation on the employment market and data security have also been picking up pace. However, sustainability issues with regard to the environmental impacts and resource consumption triggered by the ongoing digitalisation process have not received any substantial attention. This article highlights the direct impacts of digitalisation, especially on resource consumption and environmental categories. From the top-down perspective, increasing digitalisation is expected to lead to an increase in the overall electricity consumption of information and communication technologies (ICT), despite tremendous energy-efficiency gains at the level of individual end-products. Specifically, the electricity consumption of data centres and telecommunication networks—representing the main building blocks of a digitalisation strategy—is expected to increase enormously in Europe over the next few years. The electricity consumption of data centres in Europe is forecast to increase by almost 35% to 70 TWh in 2020, while that of telecommunication networks is set to rise 150% to 50 TWh in 2020 (reference case 2011). In the EU-27 countries, the share of ICT-related electricity consumption, in the use phase, is expected to increase from 7.7% in 2011 to 8.1% in 2020. From the bottom-up perspective, case studies on online vs. offline storage and e-books vs. print books show that the environmental impacts are dependent upon specific use phase conditions. No unequivocal advantages or disadvantages can be derived in terms of relevance to climate protection. In an extensive use scenario, online storage tends to be superior to an offline solution from an environmental point of view. Conversely, offline use is associated with lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than online storage in the case of heavy use. A similar trend was observed for the case study on e-books. If an e-book reader is used for very few books, then paper books are preferable from an environmental perspective. As an improvement option, the conclusion is that an e-book reader should be used by frequent readers. If possible, it should also be used for different purposes such as reading books, newspapers, journals and other documents, thus lowering the impact per functional unit. Furthermore, the life of the e-book reader should be prolonged as far as possible. The fundamental award principles for eco-labels—such as the Blue Angel—already exist for data centres as well as for the ICT devices that are relevant here. The criteria set out in these fundamental award principles already address the crucial influencing parameters that are relevant for digital services (data centres) as well as alternatives (ICT products, such as PCs, smartphones and e-book readers). This article recommends the development of an appropriate political framework for the digitalisation strategy to ensure that requirements for sustainable development (goals) are taken into consideration. The multi-level perspective (MLP), as briefly discussed in this article, could be used to develop this framework.

First the Megatrend of Digitization is connected with the target function of sustainability. Looking at the role of businesses to find sustainability in a digital world, the outstanding method of operation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises is introduced. Second, views into a sustainable future in the fields of Employment and Workplace, Environment and Energy, Government and Security as well as New Business Models, envision options for Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises in the manifold dimensions of sustainability. Third reflections on embedded sustainability, resilience and cooperative innovation bridge some parts of the current science to practice gap.

The project ECORADAR with participation from over 80 German enterprises and institutions was part of the fona funding focus ‘Integrated Sustainable Protection—Instruments for Sustainable Business Management’ set by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The primary task of the portal’s construction consists of the creation of an Sustainable Management Community. The purpose of the summary is to show the structure and elements of the ecoradar-community. Both, the creation of a “culture of trust” among the participating enterprises and the strategy of a successful integration of the joint project partners are of specific interest. Ecoradar (www.​ecoradar.​de, currently: https://​oekoradar.​uni-hohenheim.​de/) is the name for an new innovative Internet portal that sets out to use the simplest and most persuasive means to motivate sustainable management in those organizations which have so far taken little or no interest in this aspect. Ecoradar is based on the experience of the project oekoradar.de, made 15 year before in 2001.

The primary task of the portal’s construction consists of the creation of a Sustainable Management Community. The purpose of the article is to show the structure and elements of the ecoradar-community. Both the creation of a “culture of trust” among the participating enterprises and the strategy of a successful integration of the joint project partners are of specific interest. The content models are presented and the article is examining the ability of the ecoradar-community to develop, share and use the available knowledge by using the tools of knowledge-management. The new ecoradar-modell is concentrated in the field of energy management and climate protection instruments. Finally, the authors describe the technology that is used to create the portal (Kreeb et al. Organizational communication and sustainable development—ICTs for mobility, IGI Global, Hershey, 2009).

This article describes the relationship between digitalization and sustainability, taking mobility as an example. We distinguish five innovation paths with regard to the digitalization of mobility. Together, these innovations are expected to deliver massive gains in efficiency and traffic safety. But as well as opportunities, there are also risks. Following this introduction and a definition of terms (Sect. 2), we outline the innovation paths along which digitalization can proceed in the area of transportation (Sect. 3) and the risks that are involved (Sect. 4). Finally, we summarize our findings and draw some conclusions (Sect. 5).

The increase of renewable energy and decentralized power production introduced new flexibility of energy supply while generating a significant increase in power price volatility in the market place. The product “Hitachi Energy Trading Optimizer (HETO)” as a Cloud based IT solution using artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, permits utilities and large industrial clients to optimize their profit & loss (P&L) through an optimization of their respective sourcing and marketing strategies with regard to electricity and its related commodities on today’s commodity markets.

At the core of the solution is an IoT Platform that uses machine learning concepts to continuously enhance the marketing—and sourcing activities with respect to the different commodity markets. The first version of “HETO 1.0” optimizes a short term portfolio comprising both the supply and the demand side. Up till now the tradable markets include calendar day trading and any other product that has a shorter delivery horizon i.e. auctions and continuous trading. In addition, most of the different reserve power markets are being considered. By steering the assets according to market conditions, cost reduction, profit increase and stabilization of power grids can be achieved.

The product targets in particular the 860 local and regional utilities (Stadtwerke) and about 180 large industrial clients together with other IPP (Independent Power Producers) and IPM (Independent Power marketers) that have a significant need for energy or have own power generation capacity themselves.

These customer segments represent generation capacities of 32,800 MW conventional and 85,000 MW renewable power.

The product is designed in such a way that it can be used in all liberalized energy markets, as it can be tailored to the respective market design paramount in any particular country. This platform also serves as a nucleus to offer other products and services in the environment of smart cities/smart infrastructure.

Banking products become more complex in last 20–25 year. Banks created high profits by managing this complexity with their high-end technology. After expansion of smart-phones and fast mobile internet connection banks are no longer deciding for the infrastructure to serve. Now it is the customer using the latest technology and demanding more personalize fast and almost free services from financial intuitions. Fin-Techs which are using the digital platform to give the customers a more personalized and cheaper service at least in one field of customers financial needs. And their tactic is being definitely better than the banks in solving the hustles of the customers one field. Banks and financial institutions must find a way to survive and support the society in future. Targeting unbanked and underbanked, supporting sharing economy and using the big data would be the main part of their strategy in future.

Despite societal and regulatory challenges banks have recognised the importance of digital developments and are working intensively on potential solutions and strategies. Many (digital) innovations can primarily be experienced at the client front-end. There is, however, much more to this topic.

The purpose of this article is to give insight into the fast development of free education offered on the internet. It specifically takes a look at the question of how free education and the use of Massive open online courses (MOOCs) worldwide can contribute to the goals of Agenda 21 of the United Nations in the context of “Education for Sustainable Development”. The free online courses are reaching large numbers of people worldwide, and especially people from non OECD countries with comparably less access to education are likely to report tangible benefits for education and career. First research results of this rather recent development claim that the use of free education provided on the internet does help to change the educational landscape and make a substantial contribution to the normative concept of ESD.

The post 2015 agenda on sustainable development has emphasized the role of science, technology and innovation in promoting sustainable development (Chandran et al., Tech Monitor 14–19, 2015; Dosi and Freeman, in Dosi et al. (eds), Laboratory of economics and management (LEM), Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa 1988; Fagerberg et al., in Hall and Rosenberg (eds), Handbook of the economics of innovation, North Holland, 2010). The chapter examines Turk Telekom’s “Life is Simpler with Internet” initiative, which is an inclusive business activity that has contributed to both company’s sustainable market development and also to sustainable development goals in the Turkish context. By targeting to bridge the digital divide that persists in Turkey, the initiative depicts how Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is capable of reducing particular types of market separations between consumers and producers at the BOP, and thus facilitating market development at BOP (Tarafdar and Singh, Proceedings of SIG GlobDev 4th annual workshop, Shanghai, 2011). Considering the fruitful outcomes of this project, and business and social impact that could be created through the proliferation of ICT in BOP markets, the authors recommend companies to employ long-term, iterative efforts of awareness creation, knowledge and skill development and technology appropriation to reap the desired benefits.

The financial and social upheavals which occur in the last two decades, along with establishing and continuing development of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) discipline, didn’t skip the academic field. Hence, in this chapter we will present a case study of implementing CSR as a day to day approach in the School of Business Administration (SBA) at the College of Management Academic Studies (COMAS), in Rishon LetZion, Israel. Learning hubs and mentors are a few examples of the main results of this observed change. Change is almost always accompanied with challenges such as the ones we have encountered—Financial, sustainability etc. Furthermore, in Israel there is also a unique legal basis for considering stakeholders. The change in that matter was expressed in 2000 when for the first time the Israeli law anchored the companies’ liability to take into consideration the interests of their employees, creditors, and the public in general.

Digitalization is the buzzword of our time. Industrie 4.0 will revolution the way we produce, we work, we cooperate. Therefore we need to redefine our understanding of sustainability. Corporate Social Responsibility has to recognize digitalization as a fundamental holistic driver of global business. We have to develop new values and different measurements to reflect appropriate the upcoming virtual age.