This introductory chapter provides definitions of sustainability, sustainable development, decoupling, and related terms; gives an overview of existing interdisciplinary research fields related to ICT for Sustainability, including Environmental Informatics, Computational Sustainability, Sustainable HCI, and Green ICT; introduces a conceptual framework to structure the effects of ICT on sustainability; and provides an overview of this book.

/pdf/ict-for-sustainability-an-emerging-research-field-2dutae3xr2.pdf

ICT for Sustainability: An Emerging Research Field

This paper addresses a problem that has so far been neglected by scholars investigating the ethics of Big Data and policy makers: that is the ethical implications of Big Data initiatives' environmental impact. Building on literature in environmental studies, cultural studies and Science and Technology Studies, the article draws attention to the physical presence of data, the material configuration of digital service, and the space occupied by data. It then explains how this material and situated character of data raises questions concerning the ethics of the increasingly fashionable Big Data discourses. It argues that attention should be paid to (1) the vocabulary currently used when discussing the governance of data initiatives; (2) the internal tension between current data initiatives and environmental policies; (3) issues of fair distribution. The article explains how taking into account these aspects would allow for a more responsible behaviour in the context of data storage and production.

/pdf/big-data-big-waste-a-reflection-on-the-environmental-2fr4gpdkqn.pdf

Big Data, Big Waste? A Reflection on the Environmental Sustainability of Big Data Initiatives.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of information and communication technology (ICT) for promoting environmental sustainability in a changing society. Isolated studies exist, but few take a holistic view. Derived from a Marxian tradition, the authors propose Ecological World Systems Theory (WST) as a holistic framework to assess the environmental impact of ICT. The theory is adapted responding to theoretical critiques of absence of change, namely state-centrism and structuralism. Design/methodology/approach – Theoretical study. Empirical examples derived from already published literature. Findings – Ecological WST focuses on the unequal distribution of environmental degradation, sees technological development as a zero-sum game rather than cornucopia and holds that technology is often seen as a fetish in today ' s society. The findings are that popular discourses on ICT and sustainability are since the 1990s becoming increasingly cornucopian, while conditions in the ICT value chain...

ICT and environmental sustainability in a changing society

Sources of variation in life cycle assessments of smartphones and tablet computers

Improving energy efficiency has become a major research area not just for commercial data centers but also for high performance computing (HPC) data centers. While many approaches for reducing the energy consumption in data centers and HPC sites have been proposed and implemented, as of today, many research teams focused on improving the energy efficiency of data centers are working independently from others. The main reason being that there is no underlying framework that would allow them to relate their work to achievements made elsewhere. Also, without some frame of correlation, the produced results are either not easily applicable beyond their origin or it is not clear if, when, where, and for whom else they are actually useful. This paper introduces the "4 Pillar Framework for Energy Efficient HPC Data Centers" which can be used by HPC center managers to wholistically evaluate their site, find specific focus areas, classify current research activities, and identify areas for further improvement and research. The 4 pillars are: 1. Building Infrastructure; 2. HPC Hardware; 3. HPC System Software; and 4. HPC Applications. While most HPC centers already implement optimizations within each of the pillars, optimization efforts crossing the pillar boundaries are still rare. The 4 Pillar Framework, however, specifically encourages such cross-pillar optimization efforts. Besides introducing the framework itself, this paper shows its applicability by mapping current research activities in the field of energy efficient HPC conducted at Leibniz Supercomputing Centre of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities to the framework as reference.

/pdf/the-4-pillar-framework-for-energy-efficient-hpc-data-centers-20fiw3dbt8.pdf

The 4 Pillar Framework for energy efficient HPC data centers

Our world is getting smarter: smart homes, smart cities, smart grids, smart vehicles and logistics, cloud computing, crowdsourcing. Many smart solutions are today designed in a “Green IT” context and proposed with the intention to contribute to environmental or social sustainability. Such claims include, for example, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, saving energy, finding the most sustainable alternative in a decision situation, optimising a process with regard to sustainability criteria, or enabling participation and reducing poverty. However, it is difficult to determine whether the potential net benefit of the smart solution will materialize under real-world conditions, in particular when considering the dynamics of markets, possible rebound effects and other systemic effects. "Smarter" does not necessarily imply "more sustainable". The First International Conference of Information and Communication Technologies for Sustainability (ICT4S), held in Zurich on February 14-16, 2013, gathered more than 200 researchers and decision makers from 50 countries to exchange their insights about an effective contribution of ICT to sustainable development. The papers presented at the conference are contained in this volume. These contributions show the multi-facetted relationship between Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and issues of sustainability. First, although creating virtual worlds, these technologies are physically dependent on the supply of energy and scarce materials. How can we reduce the ecological footprint of ICT? (Sustainability in ICT) Second, ICTs are enabling technologies with the potential to increase the energy and material efficiency of production and consumption patterns and processes. Essentially depending on the socio-economic framework, they can support the decoupling of value crea¬tion from resource use instead of accelerating resource-intensive processes (Sustainability by ICT). Third, the computational models we can design and implement with the aid of ICT contribute to our understanding of complex systems. These models and the applications based on them support the creation and assessment of potential solutions to urgent problems, among them climate change (Sustainability Research by ICT). The following cross-cutting issues have been repeatedly addressed in the contributions to the ICT4S 2013 conference, thus defining the outline of a research agenda in the emerging field of ICT for Sustainability: 1. The power of software: How can we use the power of software to reduce hardware energy consumption? 2. Scarce materials used in ICT hardware: How can we reduce hardware obsolescence and close material cycles? 3. Smart energy use in buildings: How can we manage the energy used in buildings smarter and thereby reduce this largest fraction of our total energy consumption? 4. Sustainable behaviours and lifestyles: How can ICT be used to support users in making choices that contribute to sustainable development? The presentations and discussions of the conference are also available as podcasts and visual protocols via the website http://www.ict4s.org.

ICT4S 2013: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Sustainability, ETH Zurich, February 14-16, 2013

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Göran Andersson

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

ICT4S 2013: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies for Sustainability, ETH Zurich, February 14-16, 2013