Ever since the Industrial Revolution, technology has played a crucial role in shaping our societies and economies. As such, the technological revolutions of the last centuries have brought us—at least most of us—an immense increase in welfare and wellbeing in terms of, for example, disposable income, healthcare, and education. At the same time, these technologies have also played a major role in climate change, the devastating loss of biodiversity and the concentration of wealth and power in a small number of nations, businesses, and individuals.
These global challenges demand a new Deep Transition; a fundamental overhaul of the structures that make up our society and economy. These structures have emerged with subsequent technological revolutions and give shape to what is called Industrial Modernity.
Today, we find ourselves in the middle of the Digital Revolution and one of the most important questions surrounding this revolution is whether it—like its predecessors—will lead to further environmental and social damage, or whether it can actually play a role in the new Deep Transition. In other words, can digital technology help us fix our problems and regenerate natural and social systems or will it just cause more and bigger problems?
We believe digital technology can indeed contribute to this kind of change, both directly and indirectly. The direct contribution lies in the potential of digital technology to make products and services more sustainable and to allow more people access to those products and services. The indirect contribution could result from digital technology leading to new ideas and norms and the enforcement of new regulations. Yet, all of this can only work once we have fixed the intrinsic problems of digital technology itself, and when we are willing to embrace much needed institutional innovation along with mere technological innovation.
Like the steam engine and electricity before it, digital technology has all the characteristics of a so-called general purpose technology (GPT). It is a core technology that enables many different applications, from computer games to industrial process management. Those applications of digital technology bring direct benefits to users, as they make things cheaper, more effective, and efficient. Another feature of a GPT is that it spawns innovation in other fields. Electricity, for instance, made it possible to precisely manufacture scientific instruments, which in turn enabled researchers to make new discoveries, such as electrochemistry.
In a similar fashion, digital technology is a powerful tool for science. Different types of sensors allow researchers to gather vast amounts of data. From the subatomic level to data from outer space and everything in between. All sorts of modelling techniques and artificial Intelligence can subsequently help them to make sense of that data, make it visible, and to run experiments with it. As a result, progress in science will accelerate and new findings will eventually trickle down to real-life applications that may benefit sustainability or social innovations.
The process from fundamental science to applications is far from straightforward and again, digital technology is of great importance. The use of computing power, fine-grained data, and AI can help to improve existing technologies and develop new ones. Consider, for instance, the modelling efforts to make wind turbines so much more efficient or the search for materials that can store energy for new generations of batteries. Those efforts could not have taken place at the current rate if it wasn’t for digital technology.
Existing technologies and consumer and business practices can also be made more sustainable with digital technology. Smart systems for temperature control can increase the energy efficiency of buildings and route planning algorithms can save fuel through more efficient logistics. Asset utilization can also be optimized, for instance, through as-a-service business models that have the potential to starkly reduce the number of cars, tools or other capital goods that are needed to fulfill our needs. Sharing or renting these through digital platforms can thus save costs and material needs. At the end of a product’s life, information about the product’s contents can help to recycle parts and, on a higher level of aggregation, data and intelligence can help to close material loops between different sectors.
Even though these direct contributions of digital technology to a greener and more equitable world are significant, they are only part of the solution. Much deeper and more fundamental change is needed as well. Technology can play a role in that process. That is, new technology can lead to new insights, inspire new ideas and enable new kinds of public policies that are necessary to make room for alternative consumer practices and new business models. To illustrate this point, the railways changed our notion of time and distance, space travel offered us a new perspective on the vulnerability of planet Earth and the contraceptive pill kick-started the sexual revolution. In other words, technology tends to play a role in revising the written and unwritten rules of society. Today, digital technology has the potential to inspire and enable new rules in favor of a more sustainable and just society.
First of all, digital data sheds light on the very problems we’re dealing with today. The greenhouse effect could only be discovered with the help of global weather data, sensors to measure concentrations of greenhouse gases and computer models. Data about poverty and its health effects and equal opportunity, for instance, are key to understanding the causes and effects of inequality. Second, on the individual level, this gained “intelligence” can help us to better understand the impact of our own behavior and change it accordingly, by enabling us to compare the emission levels of travelling by train, car or airplane, for example, or by showing the environmental and societal impact of certain types of food or pieces of clothing. In this sense, data “has a will of its own” as it forces us to act on information we did not know before, and might not like knowing.
These new insights, ideas and norms brought by digital technology will eventually result in actual regulations. Technology could, once again, play a big role in executing and enforcing such regulations. Real-time measurements could, for instance, help limit emissions to regulated levels. More fundamentally, insight into the value chain of consumer goods enables governments to introduce fine-grained taxes based on emissions, pollution, or social harm. These “externalities” are not paid for by the producer or consumer but distributed across society at large. As such, data-driven taxation could contribute to an economy in which consumers pay the true cost of a product, a kind of digital Pigouvian tax. Controversial as it may be, personal carbon allowances for consumers could be enforced by means of dedicated applications that track their behavior and make sure people don’t consume more than they are allowed to.
The examples above show the potential of technology in fighting climate change and inequality, but what can we really expect from digital technology? After all, tech has some problems of its own and its contribution to society is thus ambivalent at best. Two problems are central here.
First, the environmental footprint of digital technology is significant and continues to grow as more users start using more and higher-quality services. At face value, the virtualization of all sorts of practices—such as streaming music instead of using plastic CDs and online calls instead of travelling to face-to-face meetings—may be beneficial for the environment. Yet, the question remains whether the net effect is indeed positive. Most virtual practices are cheap and readily available and usage is thus bound to grow further, resulting in increased energy use and growing demand for critical natural resources. There’s no doubt the energy efficiency of data centers will improve, but this will not necessarily make up for increasing use.
Second, the current workings of the digital economy favor large technology companies that enjoy enormous scale and network effects based on their position in the market and the (user) data they have collected over the years. This means that we, as individual citizens and societies at large, have become rather dependent on their technology and goodwill. Yet, it is hard to imagine that their technology could benefit our common future rather than merely serving their own interests. We could thus argue that we have to break the power of big tech first, before technology can actually have a positive impact on other societal systems. Breaking their power may require public action in the form of antitrust regulation—to break up companies into smaller entities—and policies to regain power over our own data. It could, however, also be the result of users switching to new kinds of service providers that are intrinsically “better” for themselves and society at large.
Indeed, a new generation of internet protocols, such as blockchain and smart contracts, may result in a radical decentral alternative to current business models. If adopted on a large scale, these could allow individual users and (small and medium-sized) businesses to develop and operate their own platforms and services, and, in doing so, help them maintain control over their own data and keep profits for themselves. If neither the regulatory nor this technological route leads to “fixing the internet”, it is hard to imagine how technology could ever help us fix ourselves.
In view of the above, digital technology has the potential to help us save ourselves. Yet, this crucially depends on our collective willingness to use and design technology in such a way that it actually contributes to society as a whole. This means that we must take a radically different approach to this technological revolution than we took to such revolutions in the past. Instead of gearing innovation primarily towards economic growth, we have to place societal interests at the center.
Also, there is no such thing as a purely technological fix to our problems. Along with technological innovation, we will have to engage with institutional innovation to develop a new set of rules for our society and our economy. As noted, these rules cannot be dictated by the current logic of digital technology. This would only lead to further concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a few and exponential use of natural resources. Instead, these rules ought to guide us towards a circular and equitable society. This is what we refer to as the process of digital regeneration that should help us break radically with the logic of Industrial Modernity. If we fail to meet these requirements, change will be either limited to a superficial form of ecological modernization or – arguably worse – an acceleration economy along the lines of Industrial Modernity.
The process of digital regeneration can only succeed if we gear innovation towards societal needs instead of focusing on economic growth alone and if a combination of technological and institutional innovation leads to a new set of rules that enforce a more sustainable and just economy and society.
