Pathways from research to sustainable development: Insights from ten research projects in sustainability and resilience

Drawing on collective experience from ten collaborative research projects focused on the Global South, we identify three major challenges that impede the translation of research on sustainability and resilience into better-informed choices by individuals and policy-makers that in turn can support transformation to a sustainable future. The three challenges comprise: (i) converting knowledge produced during research projects into successful knowledge application; (ii) scaling up knowledge in time when research projects are short-term and potential impacts are long-term; and (iii) scaling up knowledge across space, from local research sites to larger-scale or even global impact. Some potential pathways for funding agencies to overcome these challenges include providing targeted prolonged funding for dissemination and outreach, and facilitating collaboration and coordination across different sites, research teams, and partner organizations. By systematically documenting these challenges, we hope to pave the way for further innovations in the research cycle.

Establishing the planetary boundaries framework in the sustainability reporting of ICT companies - A proposal for proxy indicators

The Planetary Boundaries framework provides a holistic view of Earth's resilience by defining boundaries of a safe operating space for humanity and measurable control variables that describe the state of the Earth-system processes. Humanity is altering these processes, which has resulted in the transgression of several Planetary Boundaries. Researchers have downscaled the Planetary Boundaries framework onto smaller settings, yet its implementation on a company scale is rare and even more so when considering corporate sustainability reporting. In an attempt to assist ICT companies in identifying their negative impact on the Earth-system processes, this paper explores how the Planetary Boundaries framework can be integrated to complement current Information and Communication Technology (ICT) corporate sustainability indicators. The purpose is to define reportable company-scale proxy indicators (hereinafter 'proxies') based on the Planetary Boundary control variables, to assist companies in monitoring how impacts related to the Earth-system processes change over time. Based on data collected through an extensive literature review and interviews, sixteen reportable proxies are defined. The applicability of these proxies is also tested using one ICT company as a test case. The test case concludes that the current reporting practices of the studied ICT company are sufficient for two of the proxies but require minor or major refinements for the remaining ones. The deliverables of this study can assist in establishing corporate policies and aid companies to measure and follow up on the environmental impacts associated with the Planetary Boundaries framework over time. Moreover, this study does not address the downscaling of the safe operating space associated with the different boundaries, since defining such spaces for a specific company is not possible at this point. Therefore, applying the suggested proxies would not determine whether a company is operating within a fair and reasonable share of the safe operating space but rather indicate how its impacts develop over time.

Digital sufficiency: conceptual considerations for ICTs on a finite planet

ICT hold significant potential to increase resource and energy efficiencies and contribute to a circular economy. Yet unresolved is whether the aggregated net effect of ICT overall mitigates or aggravates environmental burdens. While the savings potentials have been explored, drivers that prevent these and possible counter measures have not been researched thoroughly. The concept digital sufficiency constitutes a basis to understand how ICT can become part of the essential environmental transformation. Digital sufficiency consists of four dimensions, each suggesting a set of strategies and policy proposals: (a) hardware sufficiency, which aims for fewer devices needing to be produced and their absolute energy demand being kept to the lowest level possible to perform the desired tasks; (b) software sufficiency, which covers ensuring that data traffic and hardware utilization during application are kept as low as possible; (c) user sufficiency, which strives for users applying digital devices frugally and using ICT in a way that promotes sustainable lifestyles; and (d) economic sufficiency, which aspires to digitalization supporting a transition to an economy characterized not by economic growth as the primary goal but by sufficient production and consumption within planetary boundaries. The policies for hardware and software sufficiency are relatively easily conceivable and executable. Policies for user and economic sufficiency are politically more difficult to implement and relate strongly to policies for environmental transformation in general. This article argues for comprehensive policies for digital sufficiency, which are indispensible if ICT are to play a beneficial role in overall environmental transformation.