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Slow tech: bridging computer Bridging

computer
ethics and business ethics ethics and
business ethics
Norberto Patrignani
Politecnico of Torino, Torino, Italy, and 775
Diane Whitehouse
The Castlegate Consultancy, Malton, UK Received 3 August 2015
Revised 3 August 2015
Accepted 11 August 2015
Abstract
Purpose – This discussion paper focuses on a notion of information and communication technology
(ICT) that is good, clean and fair that the authors call Slow Tech. The purpose of this paper is to
introduce the Slow Tech approach in order to explain how to create a suitable bridge between business
ethics and computer ethics.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper’s approach is discursive. It provides a viewpoint.
Its arguments are based in an examination of literature relevant to both business ethics and computer
ethics. Justification is produced for the use of Slow Tech approach. A number of potential future
research and application issues still to be investigated are also provided.
Findings – Slow Tech can be proposed, and used, as a bridging mechanism between companies’
strategies regarding computer ethics and business ethics. Three case studies illustrate the kind
of challenges that companies have to tackle when trying to implement Slow Tech in concrete
business context. Further study need to be undertaken to make progress on Slow Tech in applied,
corporate settings.
Practical implications – ICT companies need to look for innovative, new approaches to producing,
selling and recycling their services and products. A Slow Tech approach can provide such insights.
Social implications – Today’s challenges to the production and use of good, clean, and fair ICT, both
conceptual and concrete, can act as incentives for action: they can further applied research or
encourage social activism. Encouraging the study, and the application, of Slow Tech provides a first
step in the potential improvement of a society in which information technology is totally embedded.
Originality/value – The value of this paper in not only for academics and researchers, but also for
practitioners: especially for personnel working in ICT companies and for those involved with
designing, developing and applying codes of conduct at both European and globally.
Keywords IT policy, Case study, Business case, Global IT management
Paper type Viewpoint

1. Introduction
Around the world, both small businesses and large corporations are facing challenges in
acting responsibly when producing goods and services that serve society, the economy
and environment. In order to cope with these challenges, many companies are preparing
corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. Among examples of such companies are
those involved in the information and communication technology (ICT) market (called
here either ICT companies or ICT firms). These companies can be described as the main
providers of the technologies that are shaping society, and are likely both today and in
the future to have significant social and environmental impacts.
This discussion paper suggests that ICT firms should begin an in-depth
examination of their own businesses, and identify the ethical, environmental, and
social impacts that are the direct result of their own goods and services being on Information Technology & People
the market. Such an approach is important for ICT companies to evaluate the Vol. 28 No. 4, 2015
pp. 775-789
appropriateness of their CSR strategies. Customer profiles are starting to change: © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0959-3845
consumers who are sensitive and aware are beginning to ask for transparency and DOI 10.1108/ITP-08-2015-0191
ITP consistency from the producers whose products they buy. As a result, ICT firms
28,4 should ideally be among the first, lead set of companies to develop an applied form
of ethics – a computer ethics – that questions the various challenges created by
computers. The concept of Slow Tech can facilitate such a careful, ethical approach
among those ICT companies that want to design, develop, produce, and sell ICT that
is good, clean, and fair.
776 This paper therefore introduces Slow Tech as a concept: it describes its origins and
its relationship with Slow Food. It introduces a short overview of the roles of computer
ethics and business ethics. It outlines the current production approaches of ICT
companies, before presenting an argument that applying Slow Tech as an idea could
help companies to improve the coherence and consistency of their own stance on social
responsibility. The paper concludes by describing three cases that relate of specific
companies, and highlighting the challenges that are implicit in them beginning a new
Slow Tech way of thinking and acting. It also sets out some actions for next steps.
particularly in the fields of study and research.

2. Slow tech, slow food and other slow forms of philosophy

The term Slow Tech have been around for more than a decade. Originally, Slow Tech
approaches were not specifically related to ICT. They emerged from two directions
(Hallnäs and Redström, 2001; Price, 2009): first, they were about the creation of periods
of reflection and mental rest (Hallnäs and Redström, 2001) and, second, they focused on
reliable engineering practices (Price, 2009).
Since 2010, however, the Slow Tech concept has been proposed as fitting
particularly well the ICT setting (Patrignani, 2010; Patrignani and Whitehouse, 2013;
Whitehouse and Patrignani, 2013). In this third approach, Slow Tech is not described as
being a technology that “goes slow”; rather, it is proposed as a form of twenty-first
century quest that can be pursued by companies in the ICT industry to achieve ICT
that is good, clean, and fair. Using this third approach, Slow Tech is intended to be an
enabling mechanism that can encourage companies to focus holistically and
innovatively on an approach to technology that covers the three aspirations of
goodness, cleanliness, and fairness. It is put forward as a concept that can encourage
ICT firms, policy makers, consumers, and society to reflect on the social and
environmental impacts of ICT (Patrignani and Whitehouse, 2014). Its core premise is to
articulate a good, clean, and fair approach that focuses on all stages of the ICT value
chain (the material sources, the hardware produced, efficient operation, and the end of
life of the equipment used).
These three main characteristics of Slow Tech – that the technology involved
should be good, clean, and fair – are terms inspired by the Slow Food movement
which originated in Italy (Petrini, 2007). The original, and continuing, philosophy of
this food-based movement is on the whole value chain of food: food must be good
(of good quality and healthy, e.g., in its re-discovery and use of old recipes), clean
(in its attention to environmental sustainability), and fair (in its focus on the rights of
farmers) (Petrini, 2007, 2011). When these ideas are transposed to the world of ICT,
they mean instead that good ICT is based around notions of human-centeredness,
user involvement, participatory design, enjoyment, aesthetics, and the creation of a
balance between work and home life. Clean ICT means taking into consideration
environmental impacts (from materials production, energy consumption to e-waste).
Fair ICT implies taking into account the conditions of workers throughout the entire
supply chain.
Other slow forms of philosophy Bridging
Even if Slow Food was originally based on a particular Italian school of thought, it is computer
possible to understand the values on which Slow Tech was founded in a much wider,
societal context. Purely as examples, the works of at least two twentieth century
ethics and
philosophers are pertinent to the ideas of Slow Tech. As background, work by both business ethics
Charles Taylor (1991) and Jacques Ellul (1954) is explored briefly here. The work of
other philosophers and ethicists and the relationship between Slow Tech and both 777
business and computer ethics are assessed in more detail in Section 3 of this paper.
First, contemporary users of ICT devices, in particular those who rush to acquire the
latest fashion in smart phones every 12 months or less, provide clear examples of
people who experience the malaise of modernity referred to by philosopher, Charles
Taylor, in his Massey Lecture (1991). Taylor argued that the modern concept of
self-fulfilment is based on a culture of narcissism. This culture is responsible for a
consumerist approach to life that is characterised by a loss of sense. According to
Taylor, to be maintained, the promise of self-fulfilment needs to be harmonised with
social commitment. Thus, Taylor focused on a number of problems implicit in
contemporary societies, especially the loss of meaning due to the abstract and mono-
dimensional vision of individual identity typical of liberalism. To give a meaning and
purpose to human lives, Taylor proposed instead to emphasise the importance of ties
with the community. Social relations are important in the context of community, and it
is community that can offer importance and meaning to ethical choices: thus, people
share together values about what is right and what is wrong. In this philosophical
context, a Slow Tech approach offers a way to give meaning to ICT development and
usage, by taking into account its impact on human beings, the environment, and the
fairness and justice of the supply chain. Indeed, although these ideas often pre-date
Taylor’s writings, and some community approaches to software design – particularly
in Scandinavia – are more than 20 years old (Ehn and Kyng, 1987), some echoes of his
thought can be perceived in recent ICT-related movements that focus on free software
and open hardware: thus, there should be no more individual do-it-yourself referred to
in Huang (2010) as DIY. Instead, activities should be undertaken based on the
philosophy of do-it-with-others. The co-working spaces of ICT makers described by
Huang (2010) are good examples of such a community approach.
Second, similarly, Slow Tech can also be associated with Jacques Ellul’s (1954)
reflections on the effects of technology on society. Ellul argued that technologies can
encourage human beings to concentrate overly on means (processes). If they do this,
they lose the sense of both the underlying goals and the purposes of their actions.
Ultimately, Ellul argued that, in this way, people lose their freedom. Instead, he
proposed the need to rediscover a sense of limits so as to achieve an authentic
repurposing of freedom: the ethics of non-puissance (Ellul, 1954, 2014).
Slow Tech as an approach focuses in a similar way to these two schools of thought
on the effects of ICT on society and asks people to explore the notion of human limits.

3. Computer ethics and business ethics

The domains of computer ethics and business ethics developed in somewhat different
directions after the end of 1970s. Some commentators might argue that these two branches
of ethics share commonalities simply because they reflect different aspects of ethics. In their
parallel evolution since the 1970s, the ethical frameworks in these two domains of computer
ethics and business ethics share some similarities: they focus on stakeholder collaboration
and the co-shaping of technology and society by people themselves. This section of the
ITP paper examines the synergies between the two forms of applied ethics and proposes a
28,4 bridge between them. This bridge-building is aimed at resolving dilemmas that might exist
practically in certain companies when the corporations’ various business ethics and
computer ethics codes of conduct or codes of behaviour need not only to be read alongside
each other but also to be implemented concretely in practice.

778 Computer ethics

Since the 1930s, proposed by a number of philosophers and social scientists
(e.g. Mumford, 1934; Ellul, 1954, 2014), both a crisiticsm of technological determinism
and the suggestion of the need to reflect on the relationships between technology and
society, have emerged. In terms of the early development of computer ethics, Norbert
Wiener was the first scientist to reflect on the social and ethical impacts of computers,
with his recommendation to shift “from know how to know what” (Wiener, 1950).
His colleague, Joseph Weizenbaum, described the risks related to the use of
computers for military applications (Weizenbaum, 1976). Since the introduction of the
term, computer ethics (Maner, 1980), and its definition as a discipline (Moor, 1985),
there has been an evolution in this field of ethics. While computer ethics is a form of
applied ethics, it concentrates on the end-uses of ICT and the social and ethical
implications of this use. In its origins, it did not question the role either of ICT or of
ICT companies, although the actions of both lie at the very core of the information
technology development process.
The work of Deborah Johnson, in the 1980s, was fundamental to recognising the co-
shaping of society and ICT: “[…] technology is not just artifacts, but rather artifacts
embedded in social practices and infused with social meaning” ( Johnson, 1985, p. 16).
This new way of thinking about society and ICT in combination with each other
enabled ICT systems to be conceived as socio-technical systems, and the circumstances
in which technology and society shape each other to be emphasised. As a result,
members of society should have the opportunity to steer technology developments in
new and different directions: directions that are good for society.
Slow Tech is able to help further with this notion of co-shaping. It can create a
positive, potential enlargement and enhancement of the scope of computer ethics, by
encompassing the entire ICT value chain. Slow Tech offers the opportunity to cover the
development process of ICT, not only the use of the technology. Looking at ICT while
wearing a pair of Slow Tech “glasses” permits an overview that ranges from the
extraction and processing of raw materials, through ICT manufacturing processes and
applications, to the responsible renewal, recycling, and disposal of equipment and
waste. Whereas many consumers often do not care where computers come from or
where they are sent at the end of their lives, advocates of Slow Tech emphasise that it is
now time to include these multiple aspects of the value chain into the area of computer
ethics. Such a comprehensive approach would be especially applicable to the ICT
companies that are the main actors involved in ICT design, development,
manufacturing, and sale.

Business ethics
Business ethics is “[…] the applied ethics discipline that addresses the moral features of
commercial activity” (Marcoux, 2008). It provides answers to difficult questions about
the purpose of the corporations: how, and in whose interests, ought the corporations to
be governed?
 While business ethics was developed as a discipline only relatively recently, it Bridging
reflects the existence of an increasingly strong debate about the role of corporations in computer
society. On the one hand, shareholders’ theory argues that the purpose of the
corporation is very simple, it is to maximise profit for company’s shareholders
ethics and
(Friedman, 1970, pp. 32-33). On the other hand, stakeholders’ theory suggests that business ethics
businesses ought to be managed in such a way that they achieve a balance among the
interests of all stakeholders; the purpose of the corporation is as a joint service to its 779
stakeholders (Freeman, 1984).
Business schools – working along the same lines as Freeman’s (1984) ideas – are
now questioning the traditional vision of economy as a “cold” mechanism that is out of
human control. According to recent thinkers, economics must have a sound purpose: to
provide goods and services for human well-being (Nelson, 2006). The strength of the
concept of the maximisation of shareholder value may be even be lessening somewhat:
some corporate experts now argue that concentrating on maximising short-term results
is damaging to companies since it may push their managers towards irresponsible
behaviours (Stout, 2012). Maximising value over only the short term is no longer
emphasised as strongly as it used to be. By not simply looking at a short-term return on
investment, the optimisation of shareholder value can instead take place over a longer
period of time.

4. CSR
Until relatively recently, business schools did not propose the joint investigation of
computer ethics and business ethics. Rather, discussion in the business domain was, in
the main, dedicated to company policy: this approach is called CSR. CSR can be seen as
a form of corporate self-regulation. It should not be associated with legal norms, even if
it is linked to regulation as “a built-in, self-regulating mechanism that ensures
compliance with prevailing legal and ethical standards and international norms”
(Wikipedia, 2014a). When CSR includes all the entities and individuals affected by a
corporation, it is perceived to be in line with stakeholder theory as developed by
Freeman (1984). It enables a more holistic picture of a business than does shareholder
theory described by Friedman (1970), by including in its concepts employees,
consumers, communities, and the environment. The proponents of CSR argue that the
approach also reinforces the strength of the business, by concentrating on profits that
are made over the long-term.
At least two policy bodies support a focus on CSR in the business environment. On
the one hand, the European Commission (2011) defines CSR as “the responsibility of
enterprises for their impacts on society”; this 2011 policy document also states that, to
fully meet their social responsibility, enterprises:
[…] should have in place a process to integrate social, environmental, ethical human rights
and consumer concerns into their business operations and core strategy in close collaboration
with their stakeholders (European Commission, 2011, p. 6).
On the other hand, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) proposes
an interesting framework, that is useful to companies willing to start to focus on CSR.
Globally, the work of the ISO offers a means of encouraging the CSR needed on the part
of ICT companies (ISO, 2010). The framework proposed by the ISO includes principles,
practices, and core subjects: the principles of social responsibility (accountability,
transparency, ethical behaviour, respect for stakeholder interests, respect for the rule of
law, respect for international norms, respect for human rights); fundamental practices
ITP of social responsibility (recognising social responsibility, stakeholder identification,
28,4 and engagement); and social responsibility core subjects (human rights, labour
practices, the environment, fair operating practices, consumer issues, community
involvement, and development) (ISO, 2010). While these guidelines are – by their very
character – voluntary, international and large-scale corporations are nevertheless
starting to use them as a basis for the design of their CSR strategies.
780
5. ICT companies and CSR
ICT companies are more and more important in contemporary society: they have a
major influence over the shaping and co-shaping of the digital world. Their impact,
thank to the internet and web, now has effects even at a global scale. Morally, this
means that they have a growing responsibility to society as a whole. Exploring, as a
first step, the direction that ICT companies are taking to bridge business ethics and
computer ethics, and to apply CSR approaches, is important. As a second step, explored
in section 6, it is crucial to examine the added value of taking a Slow Tech approach
when undertaking such a process.
As with any other type of business, ICT companies, should be aware of their own
business ethics. Given the specific sector in which they operate (i.e. ICT), they also need
to explore their own computer ethics. Taking such a dual stance on both business
ethics and computer ethics will facilitate an holistic approach to CSR on the part of ICT
businesses. If an ICT firm develops a coherent CSR strategy by using the triple bottom-
line approach of “profit, people, planet” (Spreckley, 1981; Elkington, 1997; ORSE, 2010),
then computers – or ICT in general – should be incorporated in a company’s analysis of
its own corporate behaviour.
The ICT market includes such products as hardware, software, networking devices,
ICT services, Web services, social networks, and e-commerce sites. The market is one of
the most important at the global scale: in 2013, its value was around 3,700 billion USD
and was still growing at about +4.2 per cent (Gartner, 2013). After several corporate
mergers, the few remaining international ICT firms are now global giants. Table I
shows the 2013 revenue of the largest ICT companies (Forbes, 2014), together with
references to their CSR strategies.
For these large ICT companies, their CSR strategy are becoming a critical success
factor for their performance and operation. For these business giants, the need to act
with consistency and transparency in terms of their corporate behaviour is beginning
to be more and more important vis-à-vis their investors and customers, and has a direct
impact on their financial results. The publicly available documentation of the largest
ICT companies (cited in Table I with documentation available as per mid-2014)
indicates that, for most of them, however, CSR relates simply to fairly generic activities
that affect their various (local) social concerns and the funding of charitable initiatives.
In fact, the companies report very few activities that have a direct impact on their
responsibilities in the ICT sector, i.e., activities that are responses to the social and
environmental challenges posed by their own ICT products and services.
Some of these ICT companies have developed their own codes of conduct. For
example, the Electronics Industry Code of Conduct, a non-profit corporation established
in 2009, states that it “was established to ensure worker safety and fairness,
environmental responsibility, and business efficiency” (EICC, 2012, p. 1). Few positive,
comparable results, in terms of company activity, can however be demonstrated due to
the lack of international standards, low level of commitment, and the absence of
verification and enforcement mechanisms (Martinuzzi et al., 2011).
Company Revenue ($bn) CSR public documentation
Bridging
computer
Samsung 208.9 Sustainability report (Samsung, 2013) ethics and
Apple 173.8 Supplier responsibility (Apple, 2013a); facilities (Apple, 2013b)
HP 112.1 HP 2014 Living progress report business ethics
IBM 99.8 Corporate responsibility report (IBM, 2013, 2014)
Microsoft 83.3 Citizenship report (Microsoft, 2013)
Sony 78.2 Annual report 2013 business and CSR review (Sony, 2013) 781
Amazon 74.5 Amazon Smile (Amazon, 2013)
Google 59.7 Who we are – corporate social responsibility (Google, 2013)
Intel 52.7 Corporate social responsibility report (Intel, 2013, 2014)
Cisco 47.9 Corporate social responsibility report (Cisco, 2013)
Oracle 37.9 Corporate citizenship report (Oracle, 2013)
SAP 22.3 SAP integrated report (SAP, 2013, 2014)
Facebook 7.9 No official CSR-related report or documentation could be located. A 2013
Wall Street Journal article announced that the CEO of Facebook was in the
process of co-organising a political advocacy group to address social issues
(Rusli, 2013). The lack of a CSR strategy is surprising since, by September Table I.
2012, Facebook managed a social network of more than one billion users Corporate social
(Fowler, 2012) responsibility reports
Source: List produced by the authors based on published revenue figures (Forbes, 2014); in 2014 – main
$bn is 1,000,000,000 USD ICT companies

More specifically, the emerging sector of online stores has been scrutinised from an
ethical perspective, with controversial results: in 2013, Agag and Elbeltagi (2013)
claimed that “[…] ethical problems like security, privacy, reliability, non-deception and
corporate social responsibility on [sic] Internet are core issues that limit the growth of
online retailing”.
Due to the treatment and processing of their ICT services, goods and devices and
their specific accountability towards society and the planet, ICT companies, should
take a number of steps that move beyond the traditional CSR reporting typical of other
businesses. In addition, they should incorporate a computer ethics strategy in their CSR
activities. Besides its positive effects on society and the planet, encompassing such a
strategy will help the companies themselves in terms of their long-term performance,
growth, and profitability.

6. Slow tech as a bridge: good, clean and fair ICT

For ICT firms, Slow Tech can be seen as a tool for bridging the two fields of computer
ethics and business ethics. However, how precisely can Slow Tech (which is good,
clean, and fair ICT) help ICT companies in their definition of their triple bottom line on
profit, people, and planet (ORSE, 2010)? In Figure 1 provides an illustration of Slow
Tech as a bridge between computer ethics and the classic CSR triple bottom lines,
embedded in business ethics.
Whereas computer ethics concentrated traditionally only on the use of ICT,
Slow Tech – with its proactive computer ethics approach – widens that view to
explore the whole of the ICT value chain. Slow Tech and business ethics each
concentrates on a trio of concerns: Slow Tech focuses on the notions of good,
clean and fair, whereas business ethics is oriented to the bottom lines of profit, people,
and planet.
ITP Merging their views, good ICT can be related to the capacity to make a long-term
28,4 profit; clean ICT to consideration for the planet; and fair ICT to caring for the people
that work along all points of the ICT value chain. A short overview of each of the
notions of good ICT, clean ICT and fair ICT is explored next.

Good ICT and profit

782 Good ICT can enable financial sustainability to be maintained through the
development of ICT that is human-centred. Core requirements for the ICT companies
at the design phase are: human-computer interaction, participatory design, and
design-for-all or design using an inclusive approach.
In order to make their products and services desirable, ICT firms need to invest
continually in innovation. In the ICT world, this implies an investment in knowledge-
workers: in these companies the work is based on knowledge intensity, human capital,
and investment in research and development (Martinuzzi et al., 2011). ICT companies
need to attract talent from many different locations around the globe, and for their
personnel to be members of collaborative networks that include universities and
research centres. In 2015, contemporary research agendas might include areas such as:
Big Data, Intelligent Systems and Decision Support Systems, Cloud Computing and
Internet of Things, Information and Knowledge Management, Organisational Models
and Information Systems, Mobility, and Human-Computer Interaction.

Clean ICT and planet

Especially for large ICT companies, creating a bridge between clean ICT and the planet
means undertaking an in-depth analysis of the impact of hardware, from its design to
its use and disposal.
The ICT sector can play a fundamental role in developing the domain of clean tech:
“any product or services that improves operational performance, productivity, or
efficiency while reducing cost, inputs, energy consumption, waste, or environmental
pollution” (Wikipedia, 2014b). Several international studies over the past several years
have investigated the enabling of the low carbon economy in the information age
(GeSI, 2015). When taken up by the ICT sector, the notion of clean ICT can assist the
survival of the planet in various ways, by:
• working to dematerialise the consumption of conventional fossils fuels and how
non-renewable materials can be minimised;
• focusing on proper communications campaigns and by supporting new lifestyles
and cultural changes in the long-term;

Computer Ethics Slow Tech Business Ethics

Use of ICT Good ICT Profit

Figure 1.
Slow tech as a Clean ICT People
bridge between
computer ethics and
business ethics Fair ICT Planet
 • developing devices that are recyclable-by-design, that have an extended lifetimeBridging
and are easy to repair; and computer
• investigating rebound effects. ethics and
There are, of course, a number of rebound effects that should be borne in mind. business ethics
The first of these is related to resource and energy consumption, green-house gas
production, and e-waste; the second relates to the impact of the continuing use of ICT, 783
de-materialisation, e-procurement, tele-work, transactions speeds, and transparency;
while the third effect is associated with the use of ICT by a large and growing number
of users, which has an impact on both their productivity and their well-being and
lifestyles (Yi and Thomas, 2007). Thus, the long-term sustainability of ICT requires
more dedicated research, since there is ultimately a risk that the positive and negative
effects of ICT may counterbalance each other: the speed of the development of ICT may
induce more material and energy consumption and the generation of more e-waste
(Hilty et al., 2006). Practical examples investigating these kind of implications have
been undertaken in the field of electronic notebooks replacement, with an emphasis on
the importance of production rather than use (Prakash et al., 2012).

Fair ICT and people

Fair ICT means that ICT firms need to create transparency in the supply chain with
regard to its employees’ working conditions and their human rights. ICT companies
need to ensure that human rights are respected, for example, in all the mining sites that
are the main sources of the materials – such as coltan and the rare-earths – used to
build their computer equipment, components, and devices (Vazquez-Figueroa, 2010).
The respect of human rights, health, and safety of working conditions in all of a
supplier’s manufacturing and assembly plants are mandatory.
Fair ICT companies should ideally not lock their users and developers into “silos” as
a result of the use of proprietary formats and application programming interfaces
(Madrigal, 2012, p. 1). The growth of the open data, open software, and open hardware
movements, with their openness and transparency of technology, are three examples of
Slow Tech fair ICT practices.
As an outcome of applying the Slow Tech approach, fair ICT companies will be able
to design a complete stakeholders’ network. The stakeholders covered will include not
only those that are easily visible when the firm’s products and services are released
onto the market, but also those involved in the extraction and processing of raw
materials, and in the manufacturing of the ICT products. Thus, key questions for all the
other stakeholders in the ICT value chain include where the technology itself originates
as well as its social and environmental costs. Being able to ask, and answer, these kinds
of questions openly and transparently will initiate an approach to an innovative ethical,
social and environmental ICT that is not only a fair ICT for the twenty-first century but
is also good and clean.

7. Case studies
Is it possible to achieve a bridge between business ethics and computer ethics? Are
there real-life companies able to move towards Slow Tech? This paper proposes three
cases: one historical and two related to existing companies. The first two are based in
Italy – thus providing a further link with the origins of the Slow Food and the Slow
Tech movements – the third one is based in the Netherlands.
ITP Olivetti
28,4 The historical case study is that of Olivetti, the company directed by one of the
twentieth century’s most important Italian industrialists and visionaries: Adriano
Olivetti (Ivrea, 1901-1960). Olivetti, the company, developed high-tech devices but also
focused on innovation, production, profit, solidarity, social responsibility, and beauty,
all inside the parameters of a single corporation. Some examples of the firm’s
784 developments include: in 1959, the first mainframe computer based on transistors, the
Olivetti ELEA 9003, designed by Ettore Sottsass, one of the most famous designers of
last century; in 1965, the first personal computer, the Olivetti P101, designed by the
architect Mario Bellini (The Wall Street Journal, 1965); and, in 1962, the Olivetti
Electronic Center building, located between Torino and Milano, designed by
Le Corbusier (Olivetti, 1959). Olivetti’s dedicated attention to people was demonstrated
by its construction of a real community around its factory, in which beauty and quality of
life were placed centre-stage. Olivetti was an ICT company that was capable of achieving
both good and fair products in the framework of a strong CSR strategy.

Loccioni
Loccioni is a small, contemporary, Italian company that has developed a strong CSR
strategy and maintains a deeply ethical approach to the design of its ICT products.
One example of the company’s products is APOTECAchemo, a robotic application
for hospitals that it created in 2010. This robotic arm system prepares the very precise
pharmaceutical dosages needed for cancer treatment. It produces careful, exact
weightings of all the pharmaceutical ingredients needed to treat severely ill patients,
and it manipulates those substances in a way that ensures a high level of safety for all
the people involved in the process:
[…] The manual preparation of cytotoxic drugs has a high possibility of dosage errors with
serious consequences for the patient and high professional risks for those who remain
exposed to carcinogens of cytotoxic drugs. Patients are protected by humancare high-tech
solutions that recognize the active ingredients […] The tracking system of all phases, based
on a barcode, allows a perfect integration between the department and the oncological
pharmacy service […] (Loccioni-Humancare, 2015).
APOTECAchemo was developed through the contribution and participation of nurses
and clinicians employed in several local hospitals in the east of Italy. Their medical
staff gathered together in a dedicated user forum. The product is now used in many
hospitals around the world. Thus, Loccioni is a solid example of an ICT company
whose participatory design, care for the environment, and strong sense of CSR means
that it always puts people at the centre of its strategies and activities.

Fairphone
Fairphone is a social enterprise, that was established in 2010 (in Amsterdam, the
Netherlands), with the goal of building a movement for fairer electronics, that started
from a smart phone called a Fairphone. The enterprise took on board a strong
transparency approach towards the phone’s supply chain in order to explain the
connections between people and products. It addressed the entire value-chain, from the
perspectives of mining, design, manufacturing, and life cycle. It adopted an ethical
approach to the ICT industry in all the life cycles phases:
• mining (using materials that support local economies in and minerals coming
from conflict-free countries);
 • design (emphasising longevity and repairability, so it is easy to open and repair Bridging
the most commonly broken parts of the phone; supplying open source repairing computer
guides; and designing elements based on open software principles);
ethics and
• manufacturing (by ensuring fair working conditions to workers in factories); business ethics
• life cycle (by maximising use, re-use and safe recycling); and
• social entrepreneurship (focusing on social values and transparency towards 785
consumers).
For company, Fairphone, has already sold more than 60,000 Fairphones and is
supported by 39 employees, of 20 different nationalities (Fairphone, 2015). Even if 100
per cent fairness, in term of the treatment of its employees is impossible, the adoption of
each of these principles is a step in the right direction. Like Loccioni, Fairphone,
provides a good contemporary example of a Slow Tech approach.

8. Conclusions, challenges, and next steps

This paper argues that Slow Tech can provide a means of looking at ICT in a more
holistic manner, by taking into account the extent to which the creation and sale of ICT
products and services can be characterised as good, clean and fair. It indicates how a
bridge can be built between good ICT and profit, clean ICT and planet, and fair ICT and
people. The Slow Tech approach provides a specific business opportunity for the
computer industry, particularly for ICT companies. The main challenge for ICT firms,
when they examine and test their business ethics in the context of their CSR strategy, is
to develop an appropriate set of computer ethics. Slow Tech can thus provide a tool for
developing a more robust and comprehensive business ethics framework for the ICT
industry. It can enable firms to construct a computer ethics strategy, which examines
the end-uses of computers while simultaneously questioning the technology itself.
Ultimately it shows that profit can still be made when companies begin, or continue, to
act in a generally sustainable, but also financially sustainable way.

Challenges
Of course there are many challenges implicit in building this bridge between business
and computer ethics. First, Slow Tech mean thinking more holistically, more
aesthetically, more sustainably, more democratically in an organisational sense, and
ultimately less opportunistically, less egotistically, and with less short-termism. These
conceptual shifts may prove to be exacting regardless of how long an ICT company has
been in business but perhaps specifically for some of the more recently established ICT
corporations. Second, in practical terms, the impacts of the 2008 world-wide economic
crisis could shorten the long-term view of many ICT companies. It could remove their
motivation to maintain a sound approach to business ethics based on a solid
understanding of computer ethics. Third, some corporations may be unwilling to
stretch themselves to go beyond the purely legal. How can corporations extend their
efforts in a positive and constructive manner, in terms of commitments to society and
the planet, beyond simply the legal requirements? One way is that companies may
come to realise that the pressures under which they are placed by different
stakeholders will surely grow: whether those stakeholders are users, computer
professionals, managers or owners, or policy makers. All of these categories of
stakeholders could attempt to steer markets in more appropriately moral directions,
encouraging demands for more corporate and industrial transparency. Fourth, if all the
ITP major ICT firms were to use a Slow Tech approach, they might simply, some observer
28,4 would argue, avoid losing market share. Someone critics may argue that the market
requires only cheap products, and that consumers are not yet ready to pay more, in
particular, for clean ICT: cheap products are a business opportunity only if they
increase the market. One of the most recent, global-scale, and extensive surveys
demonstrates the contrary (Nielsen, 2014). Consumers’ sensibilities are changing. From
786 2011 to 2014, the percentage of users ready to pay more for products manufactured by
companies with a committed CSR strategy grew from 45 to 55 per cent.

Next steps
This discussion paper is merely the launching of a challenge in relation to the
potential growth of a Slow Tech approach on the part of contemporary ICT companies.
Further research steps are clearly needed in relation to Slow Tech. For example, how
companies respond to the questions posed in this paper: What kinds of internal
processes are needed inside ICT companies? How can firms interpret and address the
three spheres of goodness, cleanliness, and fairness? How can they interact with the full
range of stakeholders whom their products and services affect – from design to
manufacturing, and from sale to use to disposal or re-use – more closely and
intensively? Today’s challenges to the production and use of good, clean, and fair
ICT, both conceptual and concrete, can of course act as incentives for action: they
can further applied research or encourage social activism. Encouraging the study, and
the application, of Slow Tech is a first step in this direction for the potential
improvement of a society in which information technology is totally embedded. The
approach can be of particular use for ecologically minded people who produce and use
information technology.

Acknowledgements
This paper has been produced independently without any external source of funding.
The authors wish to acknowledge both the opinions of the original reviewers of this
paper when it was developed for presentation at the International Federation for
Information Processing's Human Choice and Computers 11 (HCC11) conference held in
Turku, Finland in July/August 2014, and attendees at the relevant workhsop at which it
was presented. They would also like to thank for their insightful commentary: the two
anonymous reviewers who criticised the draft paper at the origins of this article, the
editors of this special issue of ITP, and Marc Griffith of the Castlegate Consultancy.

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Corresponding author
Dr Norberto Patrignani can be contacted at: [email protected]

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