ICTs offer promising solutions for enhancing our capacity to predict and track environmental changes and develop appropriate management and adaptation strategies.
It is becoming increasingly clear that we are unlikely to avoid major environmental challenges resulting from unsustainable practices to date. The most prominent example, climate change, is already noticeably triggering changes in agriculture, the incidence of forest fires, flood and drought patterns, the movement of invasive species, and biodiversity, just to name a few.
Our best option in many cases will be to enhance our capacity to predict and track such changes, develop appropriate management and adaptation strategies, and plot a course toward better environmental management. The Internet and information and communication technologies (ICTs) are transformative technologies in that they put intelligence at the edges of networks, thereby maximizing users' capacity to create and adapt. Examples of such transformation include using ICTs to improve practices in agriculture and forestry; monitor air and water pollution; improve disaster warning and relief; improve the efficiency of the energy, transportation, and goods and services sectors; and harness social networking for transformative change. At the same time, the sustainability of these technologies must also be managed to avoid unintended consequences such as increased consumption and environmental damage from electronic waste.
The relationship among ICTs, innovation and the environment is often examined in terms of three distinct kinds of effects:[1]
First-order or direct effects, which arise from the design, production, distribution, maintenance and disposal of ICT goods and services by the ICT industry.
Second-order or indirect effects, which arise from the application and use of ICTs throughout the economy and society, in government and public institutions, and in the research and academic communities.
Third-order or systemic effects, which arise from changes in economic and social structures and behaviour enabled by the availability, accessibility, application and use of ICT goods and services.
ICT-enabled systemic effects could dramatically impact economic and social parameters such as the attitudes, expectations and behaviour of individuals as consumers, citizens and members of communities; the demand and supply of goods and services; organizational structures; production, distribution and service processes; and governance in the private and public sectors. From this perspective, the large-scale economic and social choices made by individuals, organizations and communities about how to use ICTs to change their structures and behaviours will play a potentially significant role in determining whether there is a successful global response to the challenge of achieving sustainable development.
Climate Change
ICTs, Adaptation to Climate Change, and Sustainable Development at the Edges (PDF - 437 KB)
ICTs, Innovation and the Challenge of Climate Change (PDF – 315 KB)
Environmental Sustainability
IISD has been chosen to serve on the Civil Society Advisory Council to the Information, Computer and Communications Policy programme of the OECD; IISD's role is to review and comment on OECD ICT and environment papers.
Presentation by Tony Vetter titled The Internet of Things: A killer app for global environmental sustainability? at the Internet Governance Forum, Hyderabad
Video (13 Min) - PowerPoint (PPT - 1.7 MB)
The "Internet of things" is the integration of the physical world and the Internet, an information space created by emerging applications that enable humans to monitor and interact with their environment. At the Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad, India, Tony Vetter discusses how "Internet of things" policy and architecture should be built on sustainable development objectives.
Presentation by Tony Vetter titled Mobile Applications for Environmental Sustainability (PPT - 1 MB), at the MobileActive08 conference, Johannesburg
Resource Wars and Information and Communication Technologies (PDF – 117 KB)
[1] The Forum for the Future proposed an analytic framework based on a distinction between the first‐, second‐ and third‐order effects of ICTs in The Impact of ICT on Sustainable Development, European Information Technology Observatory, 2002.