Systemic sustainability effects of contemporary digitalization: A scoping review and research agenda

Matthijs Mouthaan; Koen Frenken; Laura Piscicelli; Taneli Vaskelainen

doi:10.1016/j.futures.2023.103142

Systemic sustainability effects of contemporary digitalization: A scoping review and research agenda

Matthijs Mouthaan, Koen Frenken^*, Laura Piscicelli, Taneli Vaskelainen

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review

Abstract

Digital technology has been understood as a General Purpose Technology (GPT) given its systemic and pervasive nature, and heralded as key to sustainability transitions. We perform a scoping review of 112 contributions to critically appraise research on the sustainability effects of contemporary digitalization. We find that many studies adopt a rather reductionist, deterministic and optimistic lens on the (potential) sustainability effects of digital technologies, mostly neglecting the systemic effects inherent to GPTs. For a better understanding of systemic sustainability effects of contemporary digitalization, we advocate the use of exploratory designs and prospective methods, and a theoretical understanding of technologies as co-evolving with institutions and practices.

Original language	English
Article number	103142
Journal	Futures
Volume	149
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2023.103142
Publication status	Published - May 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Research Council of Norway under Grant number 295021 . The funding source had no involvement in the preparation or conduct of the research.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors

Keywords

Digitalization
Sustainability
General purpose technology (GPT)
ICT
Twin transition
Scoping review

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1-s2.0-S0016328723000460-mainFinal published version, 1.72 MBLicence: CC BY

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328723000460

Cite this

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abstract = "Digital technology has been understood as a General Purpose Technology (GPT) given its systemic and pervasive nature, and heralded as key to sustainability transitions. We perform a scoping review of 112 contributions to critically appraise research on the sustainability effects of contemporary digitalization. We find that many studies adopt a rather reductionist, deterministic and optimistic lens on the (potential) sustainability effects of digital technologies, mostly neglecting the systemic effects inherent to GPTs. For a better understanding of systemic sustainability effects of contemporary digitalization, we advocate the use of exploratory designs and prospective methods, and a theoretical understanding of technologies as co-evolving with institutions and practices.",

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Systemic sustainability effects of contemporary digitalization: A scoping review and research agenda

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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