Digitally-enabled products and technologies that will enhance data and information collection, processing and delivery and Internet connectivity, increasing products usability and capacity for service delivery.
Published in Chapter:
How can ICTs Contribute towards a More Sustainable Future?
Copyright: © 2015
|Pages: 14
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-8433-1.ch018
Abstract
Since antiquity technological innovations endanger environmental balance and there is major need to keep this balance in check. Any new technology generates more business activity, leading to increased resource extraction and waste and directly affecting natural ecosystems. Thus technological progress and economic growth are based on unsustainable practices. In the last few decades, information and communication technologies (ICT) accelerated globalized business activity by making the world smaller, more connected and smarter. ICT gradually transformed all aspects of human life including work, learning, and leisure; it has a global impact on business processes and practices, communication, logistics and transportation, finance, and commerce among other aspects. This resulted in wealth accumulation, resource depletion and social divide which have led to problems, directly and indirectly, such as scarcity of natural resources, global warming, climate change, population growth, and increasing youth unemployment. This chapter outlines some of the challenges of the new technologies and ICT practices. It proposes a practice-oriented framework for adoption of more sustainable ICT strategy in companies.