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Technology and Sustainable Development: The Promise and

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DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086

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 Technology and Sustainable
Development
Technological change is at the core of all major disruptions in human history, and
revolutions, wars, and general development are regularly connected to some sort of
technological change. However, not all development is beneficial. While technology has
fueled great innovations and rapid development, the notion of sustainable development
has gained prominence as we now experience serious social, economic, and environmental
challenges.
This book examines whether technology can be used to fix the very problems caused by
technology, as the various chapters examine different aspects related to how technology
has brought us where we are today (which some will say is the best place humanity’s been at
according to a range of metrics), and whether technology helps or hinders us in our efforts
to solve the challenges we currently face. The issues discussed cover the three sustainability
dimensions and include topics such as the materiality of AI, technology in education, AI
for gender equality, innovation and the digital divide, and how technology relates to power,
the political system, and capitalism. The chapters all build on the theoretical backdrop of
technological change, sustainable development, and the UN’s Sustainable Development
Goals are actively used throughout this book, both to examine how these goals capture or
overlook central elements of sustainable development, and also to facilitate and create a
common framework of engagement between the chapters.
This book provides a novel combination of traditional theories that are explored
through different case studies, providing the ground for a better understanding of how
and when technology can – and cannot – be the enabler of sustainable development.
It is thus an important resource for students of all disciplines, technologists, and those
developing and applying new technologies. It is also a valuable resource for politicians
and regulators attempting to harness the power of technology for good, while limiting its
negative potential.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been
made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives
(CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license. Funded by Østfold University College.

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Henrik Skaug Sætra is a political scientist with a broad and interdisciplinary background
and approach, mainly focusing on the political, ethical, and social implications of
technology. He focuses specifically on the sustainability-related impacts of AI and
has previously published a book and several articles on AI and the UN’s Sustainable
Development Goals.
 Technology and Sustainable
Development
The Promise and Pitfalls of Techno-Solutionism

Edited by
Henrik Skaug Sætra
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First published 2023
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The right of Henrik Skaug Sætra to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the
authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086
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Contents

List of Contributors, vii

Chapter 1   ◾   Introduction: The Promise and Pitfalls of

Techno-solutionism1
Henrik Skaug Sætra

Chapter 2   ◾   Key Concepts: Technology and Sustainable Development 11

Henrik Skaug Sætra

Chapter 3   ◾   Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Solutions: Placing the

Climate Emergency at the Center of AI Developments 23
Benedetta Brevini

Chapter 4   ◾   Sustainable Climate Engineering Innovation and the

Need for Accountability 35
Marianna Capasso and Steven Umbrello

Chapter 5   ◾   Shinigami Eyes and Social Media Labeling as a

Technology for Self-care 53
Henrik Skaug Sætra and Jo Ese

Chapter 6   ◾   Lessons to Be Learnt? Education, Techno-solutionism,

and Sustainable Development 71
Neil Selwyn

Chapter 7   ◾   Virtual Reality and Autism 85

Anders Dechsling and Anders Nordahl-Hansen

Chapter 8   ◾   The Technologically Sustained Digital Divide 97

Erlend Ingridsønn Nordrum

v
vi   ◾    Contents

Chapter 9   ◾   Spot on SDG 5: Addressing Gender (In-)equality Within

and With AI 109
Marisa Tschopp and Hanan Salam

Chapter 10   ◾   A Legal Sustainability Approach to Align the Order of

Rules and Actions in the Context of Digital Innovation 127
Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Hadassah Drukarch, and Marco Giraudo

Chapter 11   ◾   Governing Toward Sustainable Development: From a

Path-Dependent Transition to a Disruptive One 145
Lilja Mósesdóttir and Ivar Jonsson

Chapter 12   ◾   Capitalism, Sustainability, and Democracy 163

Harald Borgebund

Chapter 13   ◾   Nudging Policy or Crowding It Out? Green Nudges as

Ideational Technologies 175
Stuart Mills and Richard Whittle

Chapter 14   ◾   The Fallacy of Disruptive Technologies and the Primacy of

Politics: Sustainable Development Goals as an Example 189
Imad Antoine Ibrahim

Chapter 15   ◾   Technology and the Distribution of Power 203

Faridun Sattarov

Chapter 16   ◾   What Does Data Valuation Literature Tell Us About

Methods and Dimensions? Implications for City Data
Marketplaces215
Petter Kvalvik, Mary Sánchez-Gordón, and Ricardo Colomo-Palacios

Chapter 17   ◾   Techno-solutionism Facing Post-liberal Oligarchy 229

Ivar Jonsson and Lilja Mósesdóttir

Chapter 18   ◾   The Role of Technology in Alternatives to Growth-Based

Sustainable Development 249
Henrik Skaug Sætra

Chapter 19   ◾   Conclusion: The Promise and Pitfalls of Techno-solutionism

for Sustainable Development 265
Henrik Skaug Sætra

INDEX271
Contributors

Harald Borgebund, Østfold University College, Norway. Harald Borgebund holds a

PhD in political philosophy from the University of York (UK). His research and teaching
interests are liberal democracy, democratic theory, political communication, and the role
of capitalism and technology in contemporary society.

Benedetta Brevini, University of Sydney, Australia. Benedetta Brevini is Associate Professor

of Communication at the University of Sydney and Senior Visiting Fellow at the London
School of Economics. Her latest volumes are Carbon Capitalism and Communication:
Confronting Climate Crisis (2017) and Climate Change and the Media (2018). Is AI good for
the Planet (2021) is her newest work.

Marianna Capasso, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Italy. Marianna Capasso is

Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy. Her
main research interests are philosophy of technology, applied ethics, and political theory. In
particular, her research focuses on Neorepublicanism, Meaningful Human Control, Social
Dimensions of Responsibility with AI-driven systems, and Value Sensitive Design.

Ricardo Colomo-Palacios, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain. Ricardo Colomo-

Palacios is Full Professor at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain. Formerly, he worked
at Østfold University College, Norway, and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain.
His research interests include software governance, management information systems,
software project management, people in software projects, software and services process
improvement, and management information systems.

Anders Dechsling, Østfold University College, Norway. Anders Dechsling is researcher

working within special education and with a focus on projects related to neurodevelopmental
conditions and virtual reality. Additional research interests are in the domains of social
media, substance use disorders, dementia, stimulus control, and behavior analysis.

Hadassah Drukarch, Leiden University, the Netherlands. Hadassah Drukarch is currently

a student at the Advanced LL.M. in Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University
(NL). She also works as a paralegal at Considerati and is the founder and host of The Law of
Tech Podcast which revolves around the interaction between law and digital technologies.

vii
viii   ◾    Contributors

Jo Ese, Østfold University College, Norway. Jo Ese was a sociologist with a particular
interest in the cooperation between academia and society. He was interested in public
health partnerships between universities and local/regional governmental bodies on social
stratification and social sustainability. He also worked on the digitalization of working life,
organizations, and the public sphere.

Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Leiden University, the Netherlands. Dr. Fosch-Villaronga,

PhD, LLM, MA, is Assistant Professor and the Director of Research at the eLaw Center for
Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University (NL), where he investigates legal and
regulatory aspects of robot and AI technologies.

Marco Giraudo, University of Turin, Italy. Marco Giraudo is currently a postdoc researcher
at the University of Turin. He holds a master’s degree in Comparative Law and a PhD in
Law and Economics from the same university. His research focuses on the economics of
the legal foundations of markets. Law, uncertainty, and legal instability are the issues at the
core of his research agenda.

Imad Antoine Ibrahim, University of Twente, the Netherlands. Imad Antoine Ibrahim is
Assistant Research Professor at the College of Law, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar. He has been
working on global issues for the last decade. He is currently involved in several projects in
places such as Europe, MENA region, Central Asia, and China.

Ivar Jonsson, Østfold University College, Norway. Ivar Jonsson, D.Phil., is Professor of
Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Østfold University College, Norway. Previous affiliations
include the universities of Sussex, Iceland, Greenland, Akureyri, Bifröst, Gothenburg, and
Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. He has participated in international research
projects on Arctic societies, political economy, digitalization, and sustainable development.

Petter Kvalvik, Institute for Energy Technology, Norway. Petter Kvalvik is Head of
business development digitalization at Institute for Energy Technology and program
manager for My Digital City. He has a background in safety and security-critical systems,
strategic program and portfolio management, and applied computer science within data
ecosystems, and is passionate about the human-centered digitalization of society.

Stuart Mills, University of Leeds, Great Britain. Dr Stuart Mills is Lecturer (Assistant
Professor) in Department of Economics at the University of Leeds. His research focuses on
behavioral economics, digital economy, and political economy.

Lilja Mósesdóttir, Østfold University College, Norway. Lilja Mósesdóttir is Professor of

Business Administration at Østfold University College, Norway. Her previous affiliations
include University of Manchester, University of Iceland, and Luleå University of Technology,
Sweden. She has participated in European and Nordic research projects on gender and
employment, innovation in the digital age, and sustainable development.
 Contributors   ◾   ix

Anders Nordahl-Hansen, Østfold University College, Norway. Anders Nordahl-Hansen

is Professor of Special Education at Østfold University College, Institute of Education, ICT
and Learning, Norway. His research interests involve autism and neurodevelopmental
conditions. He is head of the research group DeveLeP and associate editor of the journals
Research in Developmental Disabilities and Frontiers in Digital health.

Erlend Ingridsønn Nordrum, Østfold University College, Norway. As a part of the

research initiative The Digital Society at Østfold University College, Erlend investigates
how digital technology affects the life chances of various groups. He is Doctoral Research
Fellow at Østfold University College and holds a master’s degree in Sociology from the
University of Oslo.

Hanan Salam, New York University Abu Dhabi, UAE. Hanan Salam is Assistant
Professor in Computer Science at New York University Abu Dhabi, where she is
directing the Social Machines & Robotics Lab. She is also the co-founder of Women in
AI, an international nonprofit whose mission is to close the gender gap in the field of AI.

Mary Sánchez-Gordón, Østfold University College, Norway. Mary Sánchez-Gordón

is Associate Professor at the Computer Science and Communication Department of the
Østfold University College, Norway. She holds a PhD degree in Computer Science from
the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. She has been working as Software Engineer, Project
Manager, and Software Engineering Consultant in several companies.

Faridun Sattarov, University of World Economy and Diplomacy, Uzbekistan. Faridun

Sattarov holds a PhD degree in Philosophy from the University of Twente and is Chair
of the Political Science Department of the University of World Economy and Diplomacy,
Uzbekistan. Previously, he worked as a researcher at the University of Twente, the University
of Liverpool, the Technological University of Eindhoven, and the UNESCO.

Neil Selwyn, Monash University, Australia. Neil Selwyn has been researching and writing
about digital education for the past 25 years. He is currently Distinguished Professor at
Monash University, Melbourne. Recent books include Should Robots Replace Teachers?
AI and the Future of Education (Polity, 2019) and the third edition of Education and
Technology: Key Issues & Debates (Bloomsbury, 2021).

Henrik Skaug Sætra, Østfold University College, Norway. Henrik Skaug Sætra is a political
scientist with a broad and interdisciplinary background and approach, mainly focusing on
the political, ethical, and social implications of technology. He focuses specifically on the
sustainability-related impacts of AI, and he has published AI for the Sustainable Development
Goals (CRC Press, 2022) and several articles on AI and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Marisa Tschopp, scip AG, Women in AI, Switzerland. Marisa Tschopp is a corporate
researcher at scip AG and associated researcher at IWM, where she conducts research about
x   ◾    Contributors

Artificial Intelligence from a psychological perspective, with a focus on ethical implications.

She is a frequent speaker at international events, including TEDx, and board member of
the nonprofit Women in AI.

Steven Umbrello, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. Steven Umbrello is a

postdoctoral research fellow at the Delft University of Technology. He is also Managing
Director at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. His research is on how to
design emerging and transformative technologies for human values.

Richard Whittle, University College London, United Kingdom. Dr Whittle is a CAPE-

funded fellow in economic policy, hosted at the Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose
at UCL. He has a background in “critical behavioral public policy” and is Co-Investigator
and Co-director of the £7 million Yorkshire Policy Engagement and Research Network.
 Chapter 1

Introduction
The Promise and Pitfalls of
Techno-solutionism

Henrik Skaug Sætra

CONTENTS
1.1 Introduction 1
1.2 Techno-solutionism and Humanity’s Symbiotic Relationship With Technology 2
1.3 Sustainability and Technology 4
1.4 Who Is This Book for? 6
1.5 Structure of This Book 7
1.6 References 8

1.1 INTRODUCTION
Rarely does a day pass without us being reminded of the social, economic, and environmen-
tal challenges we now face. During 2 years of living with a pandemic that seemed to never
pass, a series of social and economic issues emerged. Businesses struggled with restrictions
and citizens’ cautiousness, while regulators struggled to balance economic and business
needs against uncertain – but serious – public health considerations. People also experi-
enced pandemic fatigue generated through the numerous minor respites followed by the
next and potentially more threatening Greek letter variety of the coronavirus. During this
period, the social ramifications of lockdown and restrictions became abundantly clear, and
so did the recognition that people were unevenly affected by the pandemic. In addition to
the effects on our local communities and states, the pandemic highlighted challenges related
to radical inequalities with regard to, for example, capacities for producing and procuring
vaccines, but also to use national resources to support and maintain citizens and businesses.
Simultaneously, we can no longer avoid being exposed to the reality of various environ-
mental challenges threatening to drastically alter the trajectory of our future as a species.
Climate change and the loss of biological diversity are two key issues, and while some are
concerned for the natural world because they consider it to be valuable in itself, others are
mainly concerned because these environmental changes are having major social and eco-
nomic repercussions – for humans.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-1 1
2   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

Meanwhile, all these challenges are continually being assessed and attempted tackled by
researchers, developers, and businesses. More often than not, technology is heralded as the
cure for our ills. In the face of COVID-19, for example, vast amounts of research were con-
ducted, and companies launched new AI- and Big Data-based solutions aimed at getting us
out of the predicament. Apps for tracking infections, Big Data analysis for pandemic con-
trol, and not least AI-based solutions aimed at diagnosing and understanding COVID-19
in a variety of ways. As the tidal wave of research and solutions waned, we found ourselves
with meager successes stemming from AI and Big Data (Chakravorti, 2022). The technol-
ogy that enables vaccines, however, stood out as a very effective technological remedy for
the most severe effects of the virus. But vaccines also amply demonstrate how technology
relates to inequality. While developed nations with high coverage contemplated a third
and fourth booster dose for their population, developing and least developed nations had
hardly gotten started. Inequity aside, the unrestricted spread of the virus in some regions
can also be a cause of ever-new strands of the virus which threaten to undermine the
efforts of the developed and developing nations alike. These are issues where technology
and sustainability interlink, and where we see that enabling universal, equitable, and fair
access to technology on a global scale is often the only way toward effectively facing chal-
lenges (United Nations, 2015).
Climate change is a particularly interesting example of how technology relates to efforts
to develop new modes of operation and new solutions which might allow us to escape the
direst consequences of humanity’s industrial activity. Some argue that the only true solu-
tion is to radically change our ways – consume less, produce less, and let go of the notion
of growth as we take the notion of limits seriously (Farley & Smith, 2020; Latouche, 2009).
Others, however, place their faith in green growth and human ingenuity (Jacobs, 2013). For
the latter group, technology is essential, as it allows for the development of new products
with reduced environmental impact, for finding substitutes for resources exploited beyond
repair, and not least for manipulating – and even fixing and restoring – our environment
(Cao, 2011). Geoengineering and technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS)
are illustrative examples of the search for technological solutions for mitigating and adapt-
ing to climate change (Stuart et al., 2020). By developing new technologies and solutions,
we can – or might – add to existing technologies to solve the challenges created by more
primitive technologies. The result being a socio-technical system in which the technical
elements are ever more complicated (Winner, 1977), and its effective operation is increas-
ingly important for the future prospects of humankind, our environment, and all other
species that happen to coinhabit this world of ours. This gives rise to questions regarding
humanity’s fundamental relationship with technology. Is it a curse, a cure, or even both
(Müller, 2016)?

1.2 TECHNO-SOLUTIONISM AND HUMANITY’S SYMBIOTIC

RELATIONSHIP WITH TECHNOLOGY
The subtitle of this book refers to techno-solutionism, which is in simple terms the idea that
we can and should use technology to solve the challenges we happen to face. It relates to the
notion that everything is a nail to a person with a hammer, as most problems can be fixed with
 Introduction   ◾   3

a more comprehensive application of technology for the most ardent techno-solutionists.

The notion of technological “fixes” is another way to describe this attitude (Drengson, 1984).
Morozov (2013) describes how solutionism entails a faith in technology, but also a tendency
to fundamentally change how we perceive and analyze social phenomena. The notion of
faith also suggests a tight link to a closely related term, namely, techno-optimism. While
techno-optimism most obviously points toward an openness to the possibility that technol-
ogy can provide a better world (Danaher, 2022), techno-solutionism is more comprehensive.
It also entails the step that we can, but need not, act on such optimism in the active pursuit of
an agenda in which we organize our societies in ways that make them amenable to the tech-
nological solutions we perceive. Exploring how technology changes both our approach to
and understanding of fundamental sustainability-related challenges is the central objective
of this book. Technology is not just a tool to be used instrumentally for human purposes, as
it has profound effects on how we think, the solutions and opportunities we perceive, and
even how we encounter and relate to each other (Müller, 2016).
A different concept related to the techno-solutionist approach, particularly as technol-
ogy relates to our relationship with the environment, is prometheanism (Müller, 2016),
which originates in the ancient Greek myth of the titan Prometheus. For example, Farley
and Smith (2020) argue that the belief that technology can ultimately replace natural eco-
system services suggests a promethean perspective, and the terms prometheanism and
techno-optimism are widely used in environmental ethics and environmentalism. Popular
targets of criticism by the prometheans are the skeptics that have been proven wrong, and
few are mentioned more often than Thomas Malthus. In 1798, he released An Essay on
the Principle of Population (Malthus, 1798), in which he argued that the earth’s limita-
tions would inevitably also limit the human population. Long after Malthus, the Club of
Rome released The Limits to Growth (Meadows et al., 1972), in which they similarly argued
that we were running into hard limits that would eventually limit human development.
Malthus was certainly proven wrong by technological developments in, for example, agri-
culture, and most now also seem to argue that technological development has revealed
clear limitations in the modeling which is the basis of The Limits to Growth.
Prometheus was a titan who stole fire from the Gods and gave it to the mortals, much to
Zeus’ and the other God’s frustration. This fire is usually interpreted as techne – rationality,
art, and knowledge – which is the cause of human development in terms of increased
technological power and capabilities for domesticating and harnessing the natural world
(Aeschylus, 2012; Müller, 2016). The price Prometheus paid for this theft was twofold: He
was bound and eternally tormented by an eagle eating his ever-regenerating liver, but he
was also left concerned with whether he improved or worsened the situation of the mortals.
The story is timeless, and the story of the garden of Eden and the tree of knowledge is an
early example, while there are countless more recent stories related to the challenges caused
by taking our technologies too far. One particularly famous example is Mary Shelley’s
(2012) Frankenstein, aptly subtitled “The Modern Prometheus”.
Techno-solutionism is often referred to as prometheanism because it entails a faith in
the notion that we can control and take charge of the world in which we live, and that
we have sufficient knowledge and technology to do this in a way that will improve our
4   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

situation. This book examines whether such an approach is well founded, and in particular
whether it can help us face and effectively solve the challenges related to environmental,
social, and economic sustainability.
Technological change is at the core of all major disruptions in human history, and revo-
lutions, wars, and general development are often connected to and explained by some sort
of technological change (Barley, 2020). When I say revolutions, I mainly refer to the indus-
trial kind, which are inextricably linked to the emergence of both new technologies and,
more importantly, socio-technical systems. By emphasizing the latter, I allude to a recur-
ring topic in the following chapters, namely that focusing on technologies in isolation will
rarely allow us to grasp the full potential or all of the pitfalls that accompany them.
Engineers, developers, and analysts of technology arguably tend to focus on how a par-
ticular technology can be used to achieve certain beneficial effects – how it allows us to
solve a specific challenge. However, developing and applying technology entails conse-
quences far beyond those intended by their progenitors, and any approach not factoring in
such consequences is referred to as an isolationist approach to technology and technologi-
cal change (Barley, 2020).
To really understand the implications of new technology, this book advocates for a
broader approach to the analysis of techno-solutionism – one that takes account of the
interdependence of different technologies and processes in what Barley (2020) refers to
as stacks, and also the indirect ripple effects technology has across different social, eco-
nomic, and environmental domains (Farley & Smith, 2020; Sætra, 2022b). The notion of
unintended effects is a well-known term for parts of what must be accounted for in such
an approach, but even more so is the notion that technologies are interlinked in complex
socio-technical systems (Winner, 1977). In such systems, changes in particular technolo-
gies entail changes in the system as a whole. Of crucial importance is the realization that
individuals and our societies are integral parts of these systems and thus are also affected
by and in a position to influence technological change (Morozov, 2013).

1.3 SUSTAINABILITY AND TECHNOLOGY

Technology is also linked to how humans interact, what sort of traits lead to success for both
individuals and groups, and what sort of political arrangements make sense. Technology
is arguably what has allowed humans to develop into what we are today (Müller, 2016); our
use of various primitive and advanced tools, constructing buildings as shelters, ways of
farming land, and medicines and science are crucial components of what make life as we
know it possible. Saying that all technology is bad is consequently close to absurd. However,
this book is premised on the idea that not all development is beneficial (Næss, 1999). While
technology has fueled great innovations and rapid development, the notion of sustainable
development has now gained prominence because we experience great social, economic,
and environmental challenges due to the very growth technology has enabled.
Sustainability is often equated with the notion of sustainable development, with its
mainstream definition originating with the UN report Our Common Future written by the
Brundtland commission (Brundtland et al., 1987). The commission emphasized how sus-
tainability encompasses more than just the environmental dimension, and that in order to
 Introduction   ◾   5

solve environmental challenges we must also focus on social challenges such as inequality
and poverty, and economic issues related to, for example, innovation and inclusive eco-
nomic growth.
As the evidence of environmental threats continues to amass, the use of the term sustain-
ability has proliferated and become close to ubiquitous (Farley & Smith, 2020). The need
to face these threats is perceived as increasingly obvious, and politicians and businesses
alike scramble to find the best path toward sustainable development. Everyone agrees that
we need to change our ways, and everyone agrees on ambitious targets for the future, with
a particular focus on the years 2030 and 2050 (Guterres, 2020; UNFCCC, 2022). But far
fewer agree on what actually needs to be done. And all the while, emissions are still rising,
biological diversity is reduced, and our oceans are filled with plastics; humanity faces a
number of health-related challenges we do not fully understand, but which we assume to
be associated with, for example, biological diversity, our use of chemicals, and the food we
eat (IPBES, 2022). In short, the world community’s ambitions are high, but we are arguably
not yet on a path to solving our problems.
These ambitions have been codified in a number of international frameworks, which
will be explored in more detail in the next chapter. The most important framework today
is arguably the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations, 2015), which
consist of 17 goals and 169 targets, which constitute the Agenda 2030. These goals relate to
social, economic, and environmental sustainability, and examples of goals are the elimina-
tion of poverty, improved health, ending discrimination, reducing inequality, decent work
and economic growth, and combatting climate change.
As the SDGs have become the lingua franca of political and corporate sustainability,
they will also be given extended attention throughout this book. Both because they are
widely used and consequently important in the public discourse and because we will argue
that reducing sustainability to the SDGs entails real dangers of not achieving the kinds of
changes really needed. First, the set of goals does not cover all important aspects related
to sustainability, and as such the framework must be complemented by other approaches
(Sætra, 2022b). Second, the goals themselves are interrelated and even partially contradic-
tory (Farley & Smith, 2020), and this necessitates a deeper analysis of the nature of such
contradictions and how to prioritize our goals. Third, the SDGs and even the original con-
cept of sustainable development are based on certain foundational assumptions that are
potentially deeply problematic. These relate to whether or not there are meaningful limits
to growth, and whether, for example, strong “green growth” might allow us to simultane-
ously achieve economic growth and improved environmental conditions (Jacobs, 2013).
Connected to this is the core assumption questioned in this book, namely that technology
can be used to solve and overcome all these challenges, which also makes technology an
integral component of green growth.
A key question asked by the contributors is whether technology can be used to fix the
very problems caused by technology, as the various chapters examine different aspects
related to how technology has brought us where we are today, and whether technology
helps or hinders us in our efforts to solve the challenges we currently face. We do take
seriously the fact that technological change has played a vital role in allowing us to, for
6   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

example, be more numerous, live longer, and be healthier. Some even say that we are at the
historical peak of humanity’s development, at least according to a large number of metrics
(Pinker, 2011). However, this book emphasizes that these successes are also accompanied
by a number of fundamental challenges related to social and environmental integrity.
The better part of this volume consists of cases where technology is used to overcome
sustainability-related challenges. The cases are different, and so are the theories used and
the technologies discussed. In unison, however, they provide the foundation for answering
the core question asked: Does technology provide us with the means to solve sustainable
development? As will become clear, the answer to this question is far more complicated
than it might at first appear to be. This is partly because we show that technology can be
both an enabler and inhibitor of sustainable development and the SDGs. However, it is also
because the notion of sustainability must be analyzed in some detail before an answer is
sought, and I thus support Farley and Smith (2020), who argue that mainstream under-
standings of sustainability are deeply flawed and in need of a corrective. This is partly
because of the numerous assumptions often encompassed in people’s use of the term, and
to strengthen the shaky theoretical foundations of sustainability as a concept this book will
at times return to a more fundamental question: What are the core values we seek to reach
through sustainable development and the use of technology? By returning to the technol-
ogy of philosophy of, for example, Winner (1977), combined with Næss’s (1999) deep eco-
logical critique of technology, this book provides a more nuanced conclusion on the proper
role of technology in reaching sustainable development.

1.4 WHO IS THIS BOOK FOR?

Anyone interested in both the general and more specific implications of technology should
find this book a valuable resource. It will allow engineers of all kinds, including developers
and computer scientists, to better account for the impacts of what they develop, which is
seen as increasingly important as various ethics of technology gain prominence (Dotan,
2021; Sætra & Danaher, 2022).
It will also be an important resource for managers and others involved in building
technology-related businesses. As sustainability is gaining traction in financial markets,
where it is often referred to as Environment, Social, Governance (ESG), investors, regulators,
and business partners are increasingly interested in learning about the sustainability-related
impacts of and on all businesses (Sætra, 2021, 2022a). Without a proper understanding of
how technology is related to sustainable development and the SDGs, reporting on manda-
tory and voluntary frameworks will be exceedingly difficult. It is already evident that poor
understanding of and reporting on such implications are punished in the market, and this
book can help generate a fundamental understanding of the key relationships between tech-
nology and sustainable development.
Another primary audience for this book is politicians and regulators. Controlling tech-
nology is notoriously difficult (Collingridge, 1980), and what is referred to as the pacing
problem describes how technology tends to outpace regulation and regulatory frame-
works (Downes, 2009), something that might easily lead to situations in which techno-
solutionism is allowed to shape our societies in ways unrooted in democratic processes
 Introduction   ◾   7

and democratic will. A fundamental understanding of how technology enables or prevents

sustainable development is essential for regulators to effectively shape technological devel-
opment in the interest of our societies and pre-empt undesirable consequences as much as
possible.
Penultimately, anyone working on promoting the UN’s SDGs, or sustainable development
in general, will find this book’s specific focus on this framework useful for understanding
both the potential and limitations of using technological fixes for sustainability-related
challenges. It will also challenge often unstated assumptions related to the desirability of
growth and the absence of hard limits to our societies’ – or economies’ – growth. Regardless
of what position the reader ends up taking, it will be based on a consideration of a varied
set of arguments and thus stronger.
Finally, students of any stripe, at all levels, will find something useful in this book.
Regardless of what discipline one studies, technology is of some relevance, and it is argu-
ably becoming increasingly important – or at least attracting more attention. Likewise,
tomorrow’s and today’s students will most certainly have to continue the quest for solu-
tions to the sustainability-related challenges generated through generations, and this will
require all students to have some knowledge of what sustainability is and how technology
relates to it.

1.5 STRUCTURE OF THIS BOOK

In this book, the reader will find a wide array of approaches to the question of how technol-
ogy relates to sustainable development. To establish the basis on which to build, it begins
with an exploration of the key concepts and the theoretical backdrop required to answer
the core questions posed in this introduction. The UN’s SDGs are actively used throughout
this book, both to examine how these goals capture or overlook central elements of sus-
tainable development, and to facilitate and create a common framework for engagement
between the chapters. These goals are presented in Chapter 2 alongside other key concepts,
with a particular emphasis on sustainability, sustainable development, technology, and
technological change. Following this are chapters dealing with specific cases and examples
of how technology hinders or helps the achievement of various areas related to sustainable
development.
First, two chapters focusing on environmental sustainability follow. In Chapter 3,
Benedetta Brevini discusses artificial intelligence and artificial solutions – focusing on the
materiality of technology and how AI relates to the climate emergency. Marianna Capasso
and Steven Umbrello then discuss the potential and limitations of geoengineering and
technologies of planetary control in Chapter 4.
Next are five chapters dealing with social sustainability. In Chapter 5, I and Jo Ese discuss
how trans people are using social media filtering to create a less hostile online environment.
Then, Neil Selwyn establishes the key aspects to consider regarding the use of technology
in education in Chapter 6. Anders Dechsling and Anders Nordahl-Hansen’s Chapter 7
proceeds to focus on the specific case of how virtual reality technology is used in Autism
Spectrum Disorder interventions. Issues of inequality are discussed in both Chapters 6
and 7, and Erlend Ingridsønn Nordrum drills down on inequality and the digital divide
8   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

in Chapter 8. This is followed by Marisa Tschopp and Hanan Salam’s Chapter 9, which
focuses on SDG 5 and the question of gender inequality in – and within – AI.
Moving on to the economic, political, and legal aspects of technology and sustainable
development, Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Hadassah Drukarch, and Marco Giraudo present
a legal sustainability approach to digital innovation in Chapter 10. This is followed up in
Chapter 11, where Lilja Mosedottir and Ivar Jonsson explore issues of governance toward
sustainable development. Politics is also central as Harald Borgebund proceeds to analyze
the relationships between capitalism, sustainability, and democracy in Chapter 12. How
politics is effected is also the topic of Chapter 13, where Stuart Mills and Richard Whittle
deal with how nudges can be understood as ideational technologies – emphasizing green
nudges.
The importance of politics is also stressed by Imad Antoine Ibrahim in Chapter 14, as
he discusses what he refers to as the “fallacy of disruptive technologies”. Proceeding to
provide a possible answer to the question of why politics is seen as so important for under-
standing the potential of technology, Faridun Sattarov discusses how technology relates to
the distribution of power in Chapter 15. Knowledge is power, and one might consequently
argue that so is data. Proper governance of data is thus a vital issue, dealt with by Petter
Kvalvik, Sánchez-Gordón, and Ricardo Colomo-Palacios in Chapter 16.
The final part of this book moves into the domain of radical approaches to sustainable
development, starting with Ivar Jonsson and Lilja Mosedottir’s Chapter 17 on Techno-
solutionism facing post-liberal oligarcy. In Chapter 18, I discuss the role of technology in
the radical approach to a more sustainable future, drawing on the work of, amongst others,
Arne Næss.
In sum, this book provides a novel combination of traditional theories that are explored
through different case studies, providing the ground for a better understanding of how
and when technology can – and cannot – be the enabler of sustainable development. In
the concluding Chapter 19, the overall findings presented by the different contributors are
synthetized, with a particular focus on identifying the generally valid takeaways regarding
the positive potential for using technology to achieve sustainable development, but also the
pitfalls to avoid if such development is to be realized.

1.6 REFERENCES
Aeschylus. (2012). Prometheus bound (D. H. Roberts, Trans.). Hackett Publishing Company.
Barley, S. R. (2020). Work and technological change. Oxford University Press.
Brundtland, G. H., Khalid, M., Agnelli, S., Al-Athel, S., & Chidzero, B. (1987). Our Common Future:
Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. United Nations General
Assembly document A/42/427.
Cao, S. (2011). Impact of China’s large-scale ecological restoration program on the environment
and society in arid and semiarid areas of China: Achievements, problems, synthesis, and
applications. Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology, 41(4), 317–335.
Chakravorti, B. (2022, March 17). Why AI failed to live up to its potential during the pan-
demic. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2022/03/why-ai-failed-to-live-up-to-its-
potential-during-the-pandemic
Collingridge, D. (1980). The social control of technology. Frances Pinter.
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Danaher, J. (2022). Techno-optimism: An analysis, an evaluation and a modest defence. Philosophy &
Technology, 35(54). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-022-00550-2
Dotan, R. (2021). The proliferation of AI ethics principles: What’s next? https://montrealethics.ai/
the-proliferation-of-ai-ethics-principles-whats-next/
Downes, L. (2009). The laws of disruption: Harnessing the new forces that govern life and business in
the digital age. Basic Books.
Drengson, A. R. (1984). The sacred and the limits of the technological fix. Zygon, 19(3), 259–275.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9744.1984.tb00929.x
Farley, H. M., & Smith, Z. A. (2020). Sustainability: If it’s everything, is it nothing? Routledge.
Guterres, A. (2020, December 11). Carbon neutrality by 2050: The world’s most urgent mission.
www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/articles/2020-12-11/carbon-neutrality-2050-the-world’s-most-
urgent-mission
IPBES. (2022). Nexus assessment: Thematic assessment of the interlinkages among biodiversity,
water, food and health. https://ipbes.net/nexus
Jacobs, M. (2013). Green growth. In R. Falkner (Ed.), The handbook of global climate and environ-
ment policy (pp. 197–214). Wiley Blackwell.
Latouche, S. (2009). Farewell to growth. Polity.
Malthus, T. R. (1798). An essay on the principle of population. J. Johnson.
Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. H., Randers, J., & Behrens III, W. W. (1972). The limits to growth:
Report for the club of Rome’s project on the predicament of mankind. Universe Books.
Morozov, E. (2013). To save everything, click here: The folly of technological solutionism. Public Affairs.
Müller, C. J. (2016). Prometheanism: Technology, digital culture and human obsolescence. Rowman &
Littlefield.
Næss, A. (1999). Økologi, Samfunn, Livisstil. Bokklubben dagens bøker.
Pinker, S. (2011). The better angels of our nature: Why violence has declined. Viking.
Sætra, H. S. (2021). A framework for evaluating and disclosing the ESG related impacts of AI with
the SDGs. Sustainability, 13(15). https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158503
Sætra, H. S. (2022a). The AI ESG protocol: A tool for evaluating and disclosing impacts and risks of
AI and data capabilities, assets, and activities. Sustainable Development. https://onlinelibrary.
wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/sd.2438
Sætra, H. S. (2022b). AI for the sustainable development goals. CRC Press.
Sætra, H. S., & Danaher, J. (2022). To each technology its own ethics: The problem of ethical pro-
liferation. Philosophy & Technology, 35(93). https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/
s13347-022-00591-7.pdf?pdf=button)
Shelley, M. W. (2012). Frankenstein: Or, the modern Prometheus. Broadview Press.
Stuart, D., Gunderson, R., & Petersen, B. (2020). Carbon geoengineering and the metabolic rift:
Solution or social reproduction? Critical Sociology, 46(7–8), 1233–1249. https://doi.org/10.1177/
0896920520905074
UNFCCC. (2022). Paris agreement. https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/
the-paris-agreement
United Nations. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development.
Division for Sustainable Development Goals.
Winner, L. (1977). Autonomous technology: Technics-out-of-control as a theme in political thought.
MIT Press.
 Chapter 2

Key Concepts
Technology and Sustainable Development

Henrik Skaug Sætra

CONTENTS
2.1 Introduction 11
2.2 Technology and Technological Change 12
2.2.1 What is Technology? 12
2.2.2 Technological Change 13
2.2.3 The Materiality of Technology 14
2.2.4 Levels of Impacts – Micro, Meso, and Macro 16
2.3 Sustaining the Development of What and How? 17
2.4 Summary: Analyzing How Technology Relates to Sustainable Development 20
2.5 References 21

2.1 INTRODUCTION
Some concepts feel so familiar that a definition hardly seems necessary. Sustainability and
artificial intelligence (AI), for example, are ubiquitous terms that most of us hear and even
use daily. It might be tempting, then, to delve straight into the specifics of how technology
relates to, for example, inequality, environmental degradation, and political stability and
democracy. A central premise of this book, however, is that the key concepts discussed in
the introduction are deeply ambiguous and potentially problematic. A crucial first step is
consequently to explain how we use – and don’t use – concepts such as technology, soluti-
onism, and sustainable development – the concepts also referred to in the title of this book.
The goal of this chapter is, however, not to arrive at the one true meaning of the concepts
in use. It is rather to explore and discuss various mainstream understandings, and partly to
highlight which understandings are used throughout this book. Monism is not the goal, and in
the chapters that follow, the authors pick up on particular threads and concepts established in
this chapter, in order to further develop and analyze common understandings and definitions.
Sustainable development, in particular, will be subject to sustained scrutiny, and it is only in
the final chapters that we gather these conceptual threads to reach a more conclusive position
on how sustainability-related concepts should be understood in relation to technology.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-2 11
12   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

This chapter contains brief explanations of how we use the terms technology and tech-
nological change, which are central in the analyses in the following chapters. Also, key
concepts related to sustainability are detailed. Sustainability, sustainable development, and
the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) take the main stage, along with the vari-
ous explicit and implicit assumptions associated with these.

2.2 TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE

Technology is all around us, and while we all use and rely on technology every day, prop-
erly defining it is a challenging endeavor. The title mentions technology and sustainable
development in general, and the natural question, then, is: What do we mean by technol-
ogy? The introduction has already established that our approach to technology is broad
and what we refer to as holistic. Much recent research focuses on the most obvious recent
innovations in technology, such as AI, virtual and augmented reality, social robots, etc.
These are indeed encompassed by what we refer to as technology, but while some chapters
focus on such technologies, the overall approach of this book is to treat technology in a
more fundamental sense.

2.2.1 What is Technology?

Technology is a bastard child of uncertain parentage, the result of a twisted genealogy

cutting across multiple discourses. No scholarly discipline owns this term.
(Schatzberg, 2018)

The history of the philosophy of technology reveals how challenging it is to pin down
what it is and how best to study it (Coeckelbergh, 2020). A central approach in Western
thought has been an instrumental account of technology which sees technological
objects as neutral tools that can be used for either good or evil purposes (Müller, 2016;
Schatzberg, 2018). For example, guns can be used to repress or liberate, and AI can be
used to empower and assist people or to manipulate and exploit them. Such an account
shifts the entire focus to those who wield technology and neglects consideration of how
technology changes – often in very subtle ways – what people can do and how they can
do them. It entails mainly focusing on technology as instruments, such as various tools
and machines.
Others, such as Ellul (1964) in The Technological Society, consider technology to per-
meate everything, including how we organize human activity. He describes how technol-
ogy relates to mechanization and machines, but more importantly how these aspects of
technology are inextricably linked to human organization and human activity in gen-
eral. This approach is sometimes referred to as the cultural approach to technology, and
Lewis Mumford is another important representative of this approach (Schatzberg, 2018).
This book will not primarily focus on human organization, but we acknowledge that the
impacts of technology are much broader than what can be understood through an analysis
of mechanical technology alone.
 Key Concepts   ◾   13

Langdon Winner (1977) argues that Ellul’s broad understanding of the concept corre-
sponds well with the ubiquity of technology in modern society, and that it encompasses not
just what we make but also what we do. He does, however, agree that technology as a con-
cept is riddled with ambiguity and imprecision, which is obviously problematic in terms of
fostering some sort of common understanding of what the term entails. When a term has
come to mean just about anything, it runs the risk of becoming nothing. Winner (1977)
states that this has been the case for technology, while Farley and Smith (2020) argue that
the same is now true for sustainability.
One goal of this book is to ensure that the concepts used are defined to such a degree
that the reader will be able to understand what is referred to in the discussions of technol-
ogy and sustainable development, laying the grounds for what Arne Næss (2016) referred
to as reasonable debate. Such debates require that the participants define the terms they use
and ensure that all participants in the debate approximate a joint understanding in order
to avoid “skin-deep disagreements” (Næss, 2016).
Conceptual tidiness is important as the definition of technology is sometimes presented
as “a mess” (Schatzberg, 2018). The perspectives adopted in the coming chapters will vary
with regard to the choice of a specific or foundational approach to technology, as different
approaches enable us to highlight different implications of technology. This will, however,
subsequently require some effort to generate a complete picture of what is actually implied
by the different chapters, and this will entail taking it all back to a cultural understanding
of technology in Chapter 18 and the conclusion in Chapter 19. This enables us to explain
and analyze how technology will have specific beneficial effects – for example, on innova-
tion related to new energy sources – while simultaneously having consequences for how we
organize our societies and perceive both ourselves as individuals and as parts of a society.
The latter elements take us all the way to the constitutive aspect of technology and how it
shapes our perceptions of possibilities, ourselves, and others (Müller, 2016).

2.2.2 Technological Change

Technology is, however, never static, and the study of how technology relates to sustainable
development requires us to understand how technological change leads to changes in the
sustainability-related impacts of technology. We do so in line with the approach developed
by the organizational theorist and industrial sociologist Stephen R. Barley (2020).
A central aspect of his approach is to distinguish between substitutional and infrastruc-
tural technological change. When technological change mainly result in existing tasks
being performed more effectively, without changing the broader socio-technical context,
this is substitutional change (Barley, 2020). For example, robots that help nurses with a lim-
ited set of physically taxing tasks, such as lifting patients, could in theory be seen as mainly
substitutional, as it makes workers a bit more effective, without necessarily changing the
structure of work, institutions, educations, etc. (Sætra & Fosch-Villaronga, 2021).
However, technology will often also entail deeper changes, and these tend not to be
immediately obvious. If technology enables new forms of education provision, for exam-
ple, this could have a wide range of effects on aspects such as students’ need to relocate
14   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

for studies or not and the number, kind, and education of teachers and professors. This
might in turn change policies related to both employment and education, and influence
the viability of smaller communities, etc. When technology has these broader effects, this
is infrastructural change (Barley, 2020). Following the example of a robot in healthcare,
we can imagine a situation in which robots have more fully replaced human caretakers, as
described by, for example, Sharkey and Sharkey (2012), Coeckelbergh (2012), and Sparrow
(2016). If this leads to situations in which traditional healthcare workers become obsolete,
the nature of eldercare facilities radically changes, and our perceptions of what such facili-
ties are, and when the elderly should be in such facilities, the ground for infrastructural
change is prepared (Sætra & Fosch-Villaronga, 2021).
As a starting point, I posit that pure substitutional change is relatively rare and that most
technological change will inevitably involve wider societal effects. This makes technologi-
cal change a more serious matter than it would have been otherwise, because infrastruc-
tural change necessarily entails change in power relations and shifts in social structures.
Technology can, to a certain degree, be argued to empower workers and individuals in gen-
eral, but the effects on structural power and the broader distribution of power in society are
arguably more important as it carries the potential for more radical social changes (Sattarov,
2019). This links technological change directly to fundamental political processes and sus-
tainable development.
A classic example is how the introduction of snowmobiles changed the lives of Skolt
society in Skolt Lapland (Pelto, 1987). As a traditional reindeer herding community, the
snowmobile was initially seen quite simply as a tool for more effectively herding and gath-
ering reindeer. However, it ended up leading to fundamental changes in all aspects of
their society, including societal institutions, social relations, the economy, and the dis-
tribution of wealth and work. This occurred because the snowmobiles allowed for new
scales and modes of herding reindeer, and the full implications of this development were
hard to anticipate and understand. As noted by Collingridge (1980), it is often the case
that when technologies are new it is easy to regulate them, but exceedingly difficult to
foresee their consequences. On the other hand, mature technologies have known impli-
cations, but regulating or limiting them often seems close to impossible. This is known
as Collingridge’s dilemma. In the domain of sustainable development, to which we soon
turn, the notion of the precautionary principle relates quite directly to such challenges
(Brundtland et al., 1987).

2.2.3 The Materiality of Technology

Changes in social power structures and social organization are not the end of techno-
logical change, however. To understand the environmental implications of technology, we
must also recognize the material basis of technology (see Brevini (2021) and Chapter 3).
Whenever we discuss technologies in the form of physical devices and machines, they are
quite obviously tied to the material world, and this also applies to new and smart digital
technologies. Computer systems, for example, are composed of a wide range of materials,
and they consume power and consequently have direct environmental impacts (Brevini,
2021). In addition to this, the use and application of such machines will also have impacts
“downstream”, as they might both exacerbate and remediate, for example, climate change
 Key Concepts   ◾   15

and the loss of biological diversity. One way to account for such effects is through what
Barley (2020) refers to as embedded analysis of technology, which entails including pro-
cesses of extraction, refinement, components, subsystems, etc., in our analysis of techno-
logical change (Figure 2.1).
In order to make use of such an approach, each technology can be presented as a stack
of technology and materials (Barley, 2020), which show how all technologies link back to
basic material processes such as iron mining and petrochemical extraction (Figure 2.2).
Such analyses not only highlight the links between technology and materiality but also
allow us to consider how the technical and material bases of our object of analyses have

FOCAL APPLICATION
(Any of a variety of technologies)

PLATFORMS Interconnected subsystems that make an application usable or valuable in practice

Connected material and/or digital environments

SUBSYSTEMS A suite of components that execute a relatively focused function

COMPONENTS A collection of nonvolatile resources that allow a wide range of applications to function
Generic parts and/or system libraries

REFINEMENT Making discrete phenomena suitable for component construction

Processing facilities and/or operating system

EXTRACTION Converting natural phenomena into raw materials

Mining and harvesting equipment and/or drivers and sensors

FIGURE 2.1 Embedded analysis of technological change. (After Barley, 2020.)

FIGURE 2.2 Two different technology “stacks”. (After Barley, 2020.)

16 ◾ Technology and Sustainable Development

broad social implications. New technologies might, for example, change or create a depen-
dence on or new demand for materials that lead to shifts in entire industries. Once we
start to account for raw materials and whole value chains, issues related to how minerals
are mined and exploited, often in situations not particularly compatible with the goals of
Agenda 2030 and human rights, can more easily be factored in.

2.2.4 Levels of Impacts – Micro, Meso, and Macro

Finally, when analyzing the implications of technology, it is often useful to distinguish
between implications on the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels (Sætra, 2022). The micro-
level refers to individuals, and how, for example, a single reindeer herder’s situation was
affected by getting access to a snowmobile. The meso-level relate to groups of various
sizes, and implications at this level will often revolve around how different technologies are
not equally accessible or useful to all. For example, one group of reindeer herders might
have had more resources and an organizational and social structure that allowed them to
more quickly adopt the snowmobile in their operations than another group. This might
provide the resource-rich group key competitive advantages over the other. On the macro-
level, we consider higher social and political levels and the economy as a production system
(Jonsson, 2016). The macro-level could be national, regional, or global, depending on the
scope of the analysis. Here, for example, we might find that the snowmobile led to rapid eco-
nomic growth, new demand for educational offerings, shifts in the structure of businesses
and demand for goods, and the need for social innovation to deal with unemployment.
The distinction between the different levels will be particularly important for high-
lighting how technology will often have quite different effects on different levels (Sætra,
2021a). For example, Gellers and Gunkel (2022) use this framework of analysis to explore
how emerging technologies impact international human rights on the micro-, meso-, and
macro-levels. What might be good for certain individuals, for example, might lead to
increased inequalities between groups, while simultaneously producing beneficial effects
on the macro-level related to innovation and the scientific foundations required to reach
the SDGs. Distinguishing between the levels will then also allow us to account for how
effects on the meso-level might in turn impact both individuals and the macro-levels, as
shown in Figure 2.3.

FIGURE 2.3 Three levels of analysis. (Courtesy of Satra, 2021a.)

 Key Concepts   ◾   17

2.3 SUSTAINING THE DEVELOPMENT OF WHAT AND HOW?

The concept of sustainability might have an intuitive core – related to matching inputs with
outputs – and as long as we’re talking about an isolated resource it is relatively easy to eval-
uate whether a particular practice is sustainable or not for a given time period. In scientific
forestry, for example, the notion of sustained yield represents the idea that humans can, in
theory, use a particular resource forever if they do so in a specific way (Guha, 2014). When
Guha (2014) compares three varieties of environmentalism, scientific conservationism is
presented as an approach focused on using science and technology to control the excesses
of human activity. The other main approaches which he refers to as back-to-the-land and
the wilderness idea are far less concerned with figuring out how to engender effective and
lasting exploitation of natural resources, and focus instead on what might be lost with the
advent of technology and the industrial society (Guha, 2014).
One problem is that the term “sustainability” is now used by different people to describe
radically different approaches to the relationship between humans and the environment
and also the relations between humans. The title of this book refers to sustainable devel-
opment, and this allows us to narrow our focus slightly, as this connects more directly to
a set definition and historical framework for understanding what is inferred by the sus-
tainability component of the concept. Sustainable development is, as we will see, arguably
most easily aligned with the foundational approach referred to as scientific conservation-
ism than with the more radical approaches. However, the more radical approaches will
also get their time in the spotlight. This will particularly be the case when the notion of
growth-based sustainable development is critiqued in Chapters 17 and 18. However, many
chapters contain critiques of the underlying assumptions and mainstream understanding
of sustainable development and/or the SDGs.
Sustainable development is now inextricably linked to the work of the United Nation’s
Brundtland commission who published Our Common Future in 1987 (Brundtland et al.,
1987). Here, they argue that it entails:

[T]he ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of
the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs.

This definition indicates an instrumental approach to sustainability, as it implies that we

must restrain our activities to fulfil certain human needs. We do not restrain ourselves
because the environment, or animals, have value in themselves, but because humans need
both resources and biological diversity to thrive. Such an instrumental approach is quite
different from an approach based on recognizing the intrinsic value (Næss, 1999), and
perhaps even rights (Nolt, 2014), of nature. The definition provided above is not sufficient
to understand what lies in this concept, however, and the commission’s full report clearly
shows that while there are clear acknowledgments of certain limits to growth, growth is
seen as necessary for human development and thus desirable (Brundtland et al., 1987).
Sustainable development is consequently mainly about promoting human development
18 ◾ Technology and Sustainable Development

and is at times referred to as utilitarian in how it mainly focuses on the consequences for
human well-being (Farley & Smith, 2020).
However, to achieve human flourishing, our activity must be conducted within certain
limits. These limits are partly environmental, but they are also technological, social, and
political. This gives rise to the important distinction between environmental sustainability,
social sustainability, and economic sustainability as three core dimensions of sustainable
development (Brundtland et al., 1987). While the commission’s approach may be anthro-
pocentric and instrumental in how it sees nature as important because it fulfills human
needs, their work was nevertheless important for highlighting how these dimensions are
interrelated. The environment must be managed so that we maintain the potential for
human life and well-being, but this cannot occur without us also addressing social issues
related to poverty and equality, which again requires us to focus on economic issues related
to economic systems, mechanisms of distribution, innovation, etc. (Brundtland et al.,
1987). Sustainable development consequently requires a holistic approach to planning the
meeting of future human needs, and this implies that the analysis of sustainability-related
impacts requires the broad approach presented in Chapter 1.
While current understandings of sustainability tend to build on the notion of sustain-
able development, a goal-related approach to sustainable development has gained traction
over the past decades. The UN’s Millennium Development Goals were 8 goals introduced
in 2000 with a 15-year goal period (Sachs, 2012), and they were consequently succeeded
by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the end of this period, in 2015. The SDGs
were launched with the document Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustain-
able development (United Nations, 2015), and they are explicitly based on the UN defi-
nition of sustainable development discussed earlier. The 17 top-level goals are shown in
Figure 2.4.

FIGURE 2.4 The Sustainable Development Goals. (Courtesy of the United Nations, 2015.)
 Key Concepts   ◾   19

A number of these goals are covered directly in the following chapters, while some are
mainly indirectly treated through the exploration of how technology relates to the three
dimensions in which they can be categorized, until they are all discussed in the concluding
chapters. It must also be noted that the SDGs are in a sense somewhat broader than these
three dimensions (Sætra, 2022). The goals related to politics and partnerships (particularly
16 and 17) are perhaps most difficult to categorize, but they are here considered mainly as
part of the social dimension of sustainable development. Another way to categorize the
SDGs and the impact of technology is the concept of “five Ps” discussed in Agenda 2030.
These highlight the different areas where action is required to reach the goals, and they
are people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnership (United Nations, 2015). But in this
typology as well, the political goals are somewhat difficult to place, and they are arguably
relevant for all the Ps. The place of politics in the SDGs is consequently a topic worthy of
attention, which it will receive in this book. We might also note at the outset that while
democracy might be assumed to be central to the SDGs, the word is mentioned only once
in Agenda 2030, and not at all in the description of the goals and various targets (United
Nations, 2015). SDG 16 does, however, discuss representative and responsible institutions,
for example, and while this can be assumed to promote democracy, it need not be so.
While the focus of the 17 goals may seem quite obvious from the titles as shown in
Figure 2.4, it is important to note that the intent of the goals are often quite specific and
somewhat narrow. This is described both in the introduction to Agenda 2030 and more
directly in the numerous targets that make up each goal. Each goal has a number of targets,
and there are 169 in total. While the targets are relatively specific, the framework is also
built on the idea that the targets must be contextualized in order to make sense in different
settings. For example, SDG 2 titled “Zero hunger” is by the Norwegian government inter-
preted widely in order to highlight challenges related to obesity, unhealthy eating habits,
and malnutrition for the elderly (United Nations Association of Norway, 2022).
As becomes obvious from a quick glance at the goal headlines, the SDGs are both highly
ambitious and broad in scope (Pekmezovic, 2019). While some might argue that goals such
as “No poverty” are so ambitious that it becomes more discouraging than motivating, the
targets help operationalize and temper the first impression. Still, the SDGs are arguably
developed as stretch goals (Gabriel & Gauri, 2019), which imply that they are intentionally
ambitious in order to provide something to continue to strive for throughout the goal period.
A key aspect of both sustainable development and the SDGs is that with three dimen-
sions – and many goals – we must understand and explore the interlinkages between the
three dimensions and also between the different goals within one dimension (Sætra, 2022).
For example, economic growth could in general lead to increased resource use, emissions,
etc., and innovation will often benefit some more than others and could consequently lead
to increased inequality. Part of this is handled through how the SDGs, for example, qualify
economic growth and state that it must be sustainable and inclusive, and that innovations
and infrastructure should be accessible and affordable (United Nations, 2015). Despite this,
trade-offs will often have to be made, and another example is how combatting climate
change (SDG 13) might at times clash with the desire to preserve natural habitats and
biodiversity (SDG 15) and life in the water (SDG 14). In fact, Nerini et al. (2019) show how
20 ◾ Technology and Sustainable Development

FIGURE 2.5 The main analytical framework. (Inspired by Sætra, 2022.)

achieving SDG 13 might undermine 12 other SDGs. These interlinkages will be explored
in the chapters that follow, and a key point in this book is that we will not be able to under-
stand the potential for technology to promote or hinder sustainable development unless we
accept the importance of these interlinkages (Le Blanc, 2015; Nilsson et al., 2016).

2.4 SUMMARY: ANALYZING HOW TECHNOLOGY

RELATES TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
With a more comprehensive understanding of technology at hand, the following chapters
will go into more detail on what sort of technology is referred to when we consider the
promise and pitfalls of techno-solutionism. Techno-solutionism, and techno-optimism,
might very well be appropriate approaches to take, but it is important to understand that
we refer to these terms as indicating a foundational belief in the potential for technology
in general to contribute to good outcomes. Some chapters will focus on relatively isolated
technologies and phenomena, and this will in turn be taken into account in the subsequent
chapters and analyses to complete the picture.
Regarding good outcomes, this will here be linked to the notion of sustainable develop-
ment. However, as should have become clear through this chapter, this is not an unprob-
lematic term. Even more challenging are the SDGs, and while a basic understanding of
what these concepts entail, and how they relate to each other, the real work of critically
assessing how technology relates to these goals and what sort of assumptions are embed-
ded in the goals starts now.
In a broad sense, the framework in Figure 2.5 shows the overall approach presented in
this chapter, which is used in varying degrees in the chapters that follow. It shows how
technology relates to the broader socio-technical system which in turn indirectly gener-
ates sustainability-related effects related to the SDGs and different levels of analysis (Sætra,
2021a). Technology is also shown to potentially have different effects on the micro-, meso-,
and macro-levels (Sætra & Fosch-Villaronga, 2021). Finally, impacts on one SDG entail
ripple effects on other SDGs that will also have to be considered (Sætra, 2021b).
 Key Concepts   ◾   21

2.5 REFERENCES
Barley, S. R. (2020). Work and technological change. Oxford University Press.
Brevini, B. (2021). Is AI good for the planet? Polity.
Brundtland, G. H., Khalid, M., Agnelli, S., Al-Athel, S., & Chidzero, B. (1987). Our Common Future:
Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. United Nations General
Assembly document A/42/427.
Coeckelbergh, M. (2012). “How I learned to love the robot”: Capabilities, information technologies,
and elderly care. In The capability approach, technology and design (pp. 77–86). Springer.
Coeckelbergh, M. (2020). Introduction to philosophy of technology. Oxford University Press.
Collingridge, D. (1980). The social control of technology. Frances Pinter.
Ellul, J. (1964). The technological society. Vintage Books.
Farley, H. M., & Smith, Z. A. (2020). Sustainability: If it’s everything, is it nothing? Routledge.
Gabriel, I., & Gauri, V. (2019). Towards a new global narrative for the sustainable development goals.
in J. Walker, A. Pekmezovic, & G. Walker (Eds.), Sustainable development goals: Harnessing busi-
ness to achieve the SDGs through finance, technology, and law reform. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Gellers, J. C., & Gunkel, D. J. (2022). Artificial intelligence and international human rights law: Implications
for humans and technology in the 21st century and beyond. In A. Zwitter & O. J. Gstrein (Eds.),
Handbook on the politics and governance of big data and artificial intelligence. Cheltenham.
Guha, R. (2014). Environmentalism: A global history. Penguin UK.
Jonsson, I. (2016). The political economy of innovation and entrepreneurship: From theories to prac-
tice. Routledge.
Le Blanc, D. (2015). Towards integration at last? The sustainable development goals as a network of
targets. Sustainable Development, 23(3), 176–187.
Müller, C. J. (2016). Prometheanism: Technology, digital culture and human obsolescence. Rowman &
Littlefield.
Næss, A. (1999). Økologi, Samfunn, Livisstil. Bokklubben dagens bøker.
Næss, A. (2016). En del elementære logiske emner. Universitetsforlaget.
Nerini, F. F., Sovacool, B., Hughes, N., Cozzi, L., Cosgrave, E., Howells, M., . . . Milligan, B. (2019).
Connecting climate action with other Sustainable Development Goals. Nature Sustainability,
2(8), 674–680.
Nilsson, M., Griggs, D., & Visbeck, M. (2016). Policy: Map the interactions between Sustainable
Development Goals. Nature, 534(7607), 320–322.
Nolt, J. (2014). Environmental ethics for the long term: An introduction. Routledge.
Pekmezovic, A. (2019). The UN and goal setting: From the MDGs to the SDGs. In J. Walker, A.
Pekmezovic, & G. Walker (Eds.), Sustainable development goals: Harnessing business to
achieve the SDGs through finance, technology, and law reform. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Pelto, P. J. (1987). The snowmobile revolution: Technology and social change in the Arctic. Waveland Pr Inc.
Sachs, J. D. (2012). From millennium development goals to sustainable development goals. The
Lancet, 379(9832), 2206–2211. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60685-0
Sætra, H. S. (2021a). AI in context and the sustainable development goals: Factoring in the
unsustainability of the sociotechnical system. Sustainability, 13(4). https://doi.org/10.3390/
su13041738
Sætra, H. S. (2021b). A framework for evaluating and disclosing the ESG related impacts of AI with
the SDGs. Sustainability, 13(15). https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158503
Sætra, H. S. (2022). AI for the sustainable development goals. CRC Press.
Sætra, H. S., & Fosch-Villaronga, E. (2021). Healthcare digitalisation and the changing nature of work
and society. Healthcare, 9(8), 1007. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9081007
Sattarov, F. (2019). Power and technology: A philosophical and ethical analysis. Rowman & Littlefield.
Schatzberg, E. (2018). Technology: Critical history of a concept. University of Chicago Press.
Sharkey, N., & Sharkey, A. (2012). The eldercare factory. Gerontology, 58(3), 282–288.
22   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

Sparrow, R. (2016). Robots in aged care: A dystopian future? AI & Society, 31(4), 445–454.
United Nations. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development.
Division for Sustainable Development Goals.
United Nations Association of Norway. (2022, February 17). Utrydde sult. www.fn.no/om-fn/
fns-baerekraftsmaal/utrydde-sult
Winner, L. (1977). Autonomous technology: Technics-out-of-control as a theme in political thought.
MIT Press.
 Chapter 3

Artificial Intelligence,
Artificial Solutions
Placing the Climate Emergency at
the Center of AI Developments

Benedetta Brevini

CONTENTS
3.1 Introduction 23
3.2 Pandemic, Climate Crisis, and Energy Consumption 25
3.3 Understanding Artificial Intelligence and its Environmental Toll 25
3.4 The Potentials of Artificial Intelligence: AI for the Climate 26
3.5 Techno-solutionism, Tech Optimism, and Ecomodernism 27
3.6 Inequality and Exploitation: Understanding the Environmental Costs
of AI as Communication Technologies 28
3.7 Placing the Climate Emergency at the Center of Scholarship 30
3.8 References 31

3.1 INTRODUCTION
The COVID-19 global pandemic has caused the worst economic contraction since the Great
Depression. It has underscored the need to rethink what type of economy and society we
want to build as we face the worsening climate emergency. Europe is leading the way in
developing strategies for a Green Recovery. Technological innovations and digital services
are at the core of recovery with the potential to create millions of jobs and boost econo-
mies devastated by the pandemic. The European Commission proposed a major recovery
plan for Europe on May 26, 2020, approved by the European Council on July 21, 2020.
Alongside the recovery package, EU leaders agreed on a €1,074.3 billion long-term EU bud-
get for 2021–2027. Among others, the budget will support investment in the digital and
green transitions and resilience.
The newly published Communication by the European Commission titled “Strategic
Foresight Report 2022” on “Twinning the green and digital transition in the new geopolitical

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-3 23
24 ◾ Technology and Sustainable Development

context”, published on June 29, stresses once again the crucial role of the “twin transition”,
green and digital, both at the top of the EU’s political agenda. What is crucial about this
Communication (European Commission, 2022) is that for the first time, the European
Commission is explicit about the fact that digital technologies will also bring additional
environmental burdens to them.
In particular, it explains

Unless digital technologies are made more energy-efficient, their widespread use
will increase energy consumption. Information and communications technology
(ICT) are responsible for 5–9% of global electricity use and around 3% of green-
house gas emissions. . . . However, studies show that ICT power consumption will
continue to grow, driven by increasing use and production of consumer devices,
demand from networks, data centres, and crypto assets.
(European Commission, 2022, p. 2)

It further acknowledges that “further tensions will emerge in relation to electronic

waste and environmental footprints of digital technologies” (ibid., p. 3).
However, despite growing attention to the environmental costs of ICT systems, Artificial
Intelligence (AI) gets principally heralded as the key technology to solve contemporary
challenges, including the environmental crisis, which is one of the goals of sustainable
development. As explained in the introduction to this book, sustainability comprehends
much more than the environmental challenges we are facing, as every environmental con-
cern is a social, economic, and political concern.
Unfortunately, debates on Green Recovery plans and AI developments continue to
avoid a crucial question: How green is Artificial Intelligence? And, considering that the
most important international framework to achieve sustainability is enshrined in the UN’s
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations, 2015; Sætra, 2022), is AI enabling
or hindering SDGs specifically related to sustainable environmental development?
This chapter builds on the agenda of inquiry established in the collection Carbon
Capitalism and Communication (Brevini & Murdock, 2017; Murdock & Brevini, 2019)
in which communication systems are approached as assemblages of material devices and
infrastructures, capable of depleting scarce resources in their manufacturing, usage, and
disposal. It will also build on the volume Is AI good for the Planet? (Brevini, 2021) where
AI applications were investigated as technologies, machines, and infrastructures that
demand excessive amounts of energy to compute, analyze, and categorize; they use lim-
ited resources in their production, consumption, and disposal, potentially exacerbating
problems of waste and pollution. After reflecting on a definition of AI that considers its
materiality (Brevini, 2021) away from mainstream hypes, this chapter explores the multi-
faceted ways in which AI is impacting the climate emergency, thus impacting sustainable
environmental development (and specifically, for example, SDG 13 (climate action), SDG
14 (life below water), SDG 15 (life on land).
It concludes by offering a set of solutions to limit the direct challenges that AI poses to
SDGs.
 Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Solutions   ◾   25

3.2 PANDEMIC, CLIMATE CRISIS, AND ENERGY CONSUMPTION

The pandemic has hastened our reliance on technology and the massive acceleration of
the adoption of AI, Big Data, cloud computing, and video technologies. We eat, socialize,
work, study, exercise online, and plug in the cloud. New research from Milkround (2021)
in the United Kingdom reveals that video conferencing has surpassed e-mail as the most
widely used form of business communication during the lockdown.
So, we are reliant on communication systems as never before, while the planet is facing
the biggest crisis ever faced. We now know that unless emissions fall by 7.6% each year
between 2020 and 2030, the world will miss the opportunity to get on track toward the
1.5°C goal. We also know that we are currently on a trajectory for a temperature rise of over
3°C ​​ (United Nations Environment Programme, 2019). Yet, for almost 2 years we have been
constantly bombarded by media reports that the pandemic has been incredibly good for
the climate crisis, reducing climate emissions, taming transport, flights, and movements
(Gössling & Humpe, 2020, p. 2).
On the contrary, even despite the lockdowns of 2020, greenhouse gas emissions have
remained stubbornly high. Daily global carbon dioxide emissions fell by as much as 17% in
early April 2020. But, as the world’s economy started to recover, emissions rebounded; and
the UN showed that 2020 only saw a 4–7% decline in carbon dioxide relative to 2019 (UN
News, 2020). While transportation and industrial activity declined from January 2020,
electricity consumption remained constant, which partly explains the minimal drop in
emissions (IEA, 2020). How, you may ask? According to the World Energy Outlook 2019,
globally 64% of the global electricity energy mix comes from fossil fuels (coal 38%, gas
23%, oil 3% (IEA, 2019)). Since fossil fuels are the largest source of greenhouse gas emis-
sions, without fundamental shifts to renewable resources in the global energy production
we shall not be able to prevent incalculable loss of life.
The book Carbon Capitalism and Communication has focused specifically on develop-
ing a type of communication scholarship that focuses on the materiality of communication
systems: Communication systems run on machines and infrastructures that deplete scarce
resources in their production, consumption, and disposal, thus increasing the amounts
of energy in their use, and exacerbating problems the climate crisis (Brevini & Murdock,
2017). Researchers Lotfi Belkhir and Ahmed Elmeligi estimate that the tech industry’s car-
bon footprint could increase to 14% by 2040, “accounting for more than half of the current
relative contribution of the whole transportation sector” (Belkhir & Elmeligi, 2018, p. 448).
Data centers will make up 45% of this footprint (up from 33% in 2010) and network infra-
structure 24% (ibid., p. 457).

3.3 UNDERSTANDING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

AND ITS ENVIRONMENTAL TOLL
While more information is being collected on the environmental toll of data centers, little
is being discussed about the impact of communication technologies, specifically Artificial
Intelligence (AI). If we are to understand AI as an emerging communication technology,
one deeply reliant on data to power its machine learning capabilities, more research needs
26   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

to be done to understand what resources will be needed, as well as the ensuing environ-
mental costs and damages, to operate it.
In mainstream debates, AI has been defined as the ability of machines to mimic and
perform human cognitive functions. These include reasoning, learning, problem-solving,
decision-making, and even the attempt to match elements of human behavior such as
creativity.
In recent scholarship within communication studies, for example, within Human–
Machine Communication (HMC), an emerging area of communication research defined
AI as the study of the “creation of meaning among humans and machines” (Guzman &
Lewis, 2019, p. 71). Others instead focused on refinement and theory related to people’s
interactions with technologies such as agents and robots (Spence, 2019).
In Is AI Good for the Planet (Brevini, 2021, p. 40), I argued that definition adopted by the
latest White Paper on Artificial Intelligence issued by the European Commission serves as
a good starting point to regain an understanding of the materiality of AI highlighting the
connection between AI, data, and algorithms: “AI is a collection of technologies that com-
bine data, algorithms and computing power. Advances in computing and the increasing
availability of data are therefore key drivers of the current upsurge of AI” (ibid.).
Embracing the tradition of critical political economy of communication, in which com-
munication systems are approached as assemblages of material devices and infrastructures
(Brevini & Murdock, 2017), AI then can be better understood as technologies, machines,
and infrastructures that demand amounts of energy to compute, analyze, and categorize.
As a consequence, these communication technologies use scarce resources in their produc-
tion, consumption, and disposal, exacerbating problems of waste and pollution.

3.4 THE POTENTIALS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: AI FOR THE CLIMATE

Artificial Intelligence – so we are told – is helping to solve some of the world’s biggest
challenges, from treating chronic diseases and reducing fatality rates in traffic accidents to
fighting Climate Change and anticipating cybersecurity threats (Brevini, 2020, p. 2).
Hence, it’s not surprising that it also promises to tackle the most urgent emergency:
The Climate Crisis that the earth is facing. A famous report titled Harnessing Artificial
Intelligence for the Earth, published in January 2018 by the World Economic Forum, reiter-
ated that the solution to the world’s most pressing environmental challenges is to employ
technological innovations and more specifically AI (World Economic Forum, 2018).
“We have a unique opportunity to harness this Fourth Industrial Revolution, and the
societal shifts it triggers, to help address environmental issues and redesign how we man-
age our shared global environment” (World Economic Forum, 2018, p. 3). “The intelli-
gence and productivity gains that AI will deliver can unlock new solutions to society’s
most pressing environmental challenges: climate change, biodiversity, ocean health, water
management, air pollution, and resilience, among others” (ibid., 19).
Beyond these glorified claims, AI applications that enhance environmental manage-
ment are growing at a rapid rate and there are increasing numbers of scientists commit-
ted to employ AI tools to forecast adverse effects of future climate change (Rolnick et al.,
2022; Donti, 2020). For example, Treeswift, a spin-off from Penn Engineering, provides an
 Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Solutions   ◾   27

AI-powered forest-monitoring system that uses autonomous drones and machine learn-
ing to capture data, images, and inventory in order to map forest biomass. Treeswift can
provide carbon capture data, deforestation monitoring, growth forecasting, and support
forest management with targeted applications across preservation, the timber industry,
and wildfire control (Lopez, 2020) all in principle aligned with SDGs 13 and 15. AI is also
predicted to assist in the integration and spread of renewable energy through ductile price
mechanisms and efficient energy storage and load operation (SDG 13). By enhancing the
productivity of the agriculture industry, AI is said to play a key role in resource manage-
ment, to minimize the environmental impact of farming, and to increase global resilience
to extreme climate through various applications focused on data, on informed decision-
making, and on augmented responses to changes in supply and demand (Mann, 2021).
This will be supported in part by the budding field of climate informatics, in which AI and
deep learning networks are leveraged to revolutionize our understanding of weather and
climate change. AI is also progressively applied in water management (SDG 15). For exam-
ple, in analyzing the conditions of a mountainous watershed in Northern China, AI meth-
ods identified climatological–hydrological relationships and projected future temperature,
precipitation, and streamflow along with annual hydrological responses to these variables
(Zhu et al., 2019). Other relevant applications are explored by Umbrello and Capasso in
Chapter 4 of this book.

3.5 TECHNO-SOLUTIONISM, TECH OPTIMISM, AND ECOMODERNISM

Technology has long been considered a fix-all solution to the inequalities of capitalism.
As the introduction to this chapter has succinctly explained, Techno-solutionism can be
easily connected to the concept of Techno-optimism (Danaher, 2022, p. 1), with its clear
view “that technology, when combined with human passion and ingenuity, is the key to
unlocking a better world”. As Mosco eloquently argued, “one generation after another has
renewed the belief that, whatever was said about earlier technologies, the latest one will ful-
fil a radical and revolutionary promise” (Mosco, 2004, p. 8). Embedded in this neoliberal,
techno-determinist discourse is a belief digital technology can disrupt inequalities and
power asymmetries, without the need to challenge the status quo.
Linked to this concept, but specifically addressing the environmental problem is the
credo of Ecomodernism (Asafu-Adjaye et al., 2015). Against those who place the unequal
capitalist power relations at the center of the climate emergency (Brevini & Murdock, 2017;
Foster, 2002), the Ecomodernist Manifesto (Asafu-Adjaye et al., 2015) cites technology as
our answer to the ecological crisis, evading the need to confront the inherent environmen-
tal destructiveness of capitalism.
Authored by a group of sustainability figures from the Breakthrough Institute, An
Ecomodernist Manifesto argues that “meaningful climate mitigation is fundamentally a
technological challenge” (Asafu-Adjaye et al., 2015). For Ecomodernists, limitless eco-
nomic growth is not disputed but encouraged.
Ecomodernism is also being adopted in leftist circles (Isenhour, 2016), among scholars
who claim “the idea that the answer to Climate Change is consuming less energy – that a
shift to renewables will necessarily mean a downsizing in life – feels wrong” (Bastani, 2017).
28   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

For Bastani, a proponent of Fully automated green communism (ibid.), “rather than con-
suming less energy, developments in wind and solar (and within just a few decades) should
mean distributed energy of such abundance that we won’t know what to do with it” (ibid.).
Despite its discussions around limiting greenhouse gas emissions, the International
Kyoto Protocol also did little to dissuade an Ecomodernist agenda, instead encouraging
environmental advocates in the United States (see Al Gore’s presidential campaign) to
push for technological improvement in energy efficiency as a way of averting environmen-
tal disaster (Foster, 2001, 2002).
This view, which we similarly find in cybertarian Silicon Valley circles, turns into a
powerful apology for the status quo and is embraced by the same corporate giants that
traditionally opposed action on Climate Change. Unfortunately, “a fundamental faith in
growth” and a “foundational techno-optimism” (Sætra, 2022, p. 103, see also Chapter 18)
are also very engrained in the framework of SDGs.

3.6 INEQUALITY AND EXPLOITATION: UNDERSTANDING

THE ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS OF AI AS
COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES
After re-establishing the focus on the material basis of Artificial Intelligence, completely
overlooked in green recovery debates and SD frameworks, I want to focus specifically on
the multiple environmental costs of AI.
The starting point of every discussion should be an analysis of global supply chains of
Artificial Intelligence, starting with the extractivism and neglect of social and environ-
mental justice that AI currently require to produce, transport, train, and dispose (Brevini,
2021), certainly at odds with SDG 12 (responsible consumption), SDG 13 (climate action),
SDG 15 (life on land), SDG 7 (clean energy) but also with more generic sustainability goals
like with SDG 12 (responsible consumption).
In order to produce the material devices needed for AI to run, we need to start exploring
its planetary costs by considering the extraction of rare metals and mineral sources that
are needed happens following logics of colonialism.
In her work on digital developments with humanitarian structures, Mirca Madianou
(2019) has developed the notion of “technocolonialism” in order to analyze how “the con-
vergence of digital developments with humanitarian structures and market forces reinvig-
orate and rework colonial legacies” (2019, p. 2). The same “tenacity of colonial genealogies
and inequalities” (Madianou, 2020, p. 1) characterize the global supply chains of Artificial
Intelligence, as the extractive nature of technocolonialism resides in the minerals that need
to be mined to make the hardware for AI applications. So, for example, the demand for
mineral resources is growing exponentially, because of the AI uptake, thus compromis-
ing several SDGs (13, 15, 12 to list a few). The European Communication has stressed,
for example, that of lithium in the EU, mainly in batteries, which is projected to raise by
3500% by 2050 (European Commission, 2022). This of course stresses the contradictions
highlighted by authors such as Sætra (2022) and in Chapter 18 of this book between the
drive to “growth” and preservations of land and see SDGs 14–15.
 Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Solutions   ◾   29

Moving to the second phase of the global supply chain, the production of AI model also
shows high environmental costs, thus challenging SDGs.
A study published in 2019 by the College of Information and Computer Sciences at
University of Massachusetts Amherst (Strubell et al., 2019) quantifies the energy con-
sumed by running artificial intelligence programs. In the case examined by the study, a
common AI training model in Linguistics can emit more than 284 tons of carbon dioxide
equivalent. This is comparable to five times the lifetime emissions of the average American
car. It is also comparable to roughly 100 return flights from London to NYC (Brevini, 2021,
p. 68). Meanwhile, the converged communication systems upon which AI relies generate a
plethora of environmental problems of their own, most notably energy consumption and
emissions, material toxicity, and electronic waste (Brevini & Murdock, 2017). According to
the International Energy Agency, if the energy demand continues to accelerate at the cur-
rent pace, the residential electricity needed to power electronics will rise to 30% of global
consumption by 2022 and 45% by 2030 (Maxwell, 2015).
Artificial Intelligence relies on data to work. At present, cloud computing eats up energy
at a rate somewhere between the national consumption of Japan and that of India (Brevini,
2021; Murdock & Brevini, 2019). Today, data centers’ energy usage averages 200 terawatt
hours (TWh) each year (Jones, 2018; IEA, 2017) more than the national energy consump-
tion of some countries, including Iran. Moreover, the information and communications
technology (ICT) sector that includes mobile phone networks, digital devices, and televi-
sion amounts to 2% of global emissions (Jones, 2018). Greenhouse gas emissions from the
Information and Communication Industry (ICT) could grow from roughly 1–1.6% in 2007
to exceed 14% worldwide by 2040, accounting for more than half of the current relative
contribution of the whole transportation sector, thus raising serious challenges to SDG 7
and SDG 13, for example.
Moreover, data centers require large, continuous supplies of water for their cooling sys-
tems, raising serious policy issues in places like the United States and Australia where years
of drought have ravaged communities (Mosco, 2017), again compromising SDG 15. As the
website of Google’s Deepmind website explains (Evans & Gao, 2016),

One of the primary sources of energy use in the data centre environment is cool-
ing . . . . Our data centres – which contain servers powering Google Search, Gmail,
YouTube, etc. – also generate a lot of heat that must be removed to keep the serv-
ers running. This cooling is typically accomplished via large industrial equipment
such as pumps, chillers and cooling towers.

According to Deepmind, the solution to this problem is of course Machine Learning,

which is also extremely energy consuming and generative of carbon emissions.
At the end of the global supply chain, we should also consider the problem of disposal
of the devices employed in AI.
When communication machines are discarded, they become electronic waste or e-waste,
saddling local municipalities with the challenge of safe disposal. This task is so burdensome
30   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

that it is frequently offshored, and many countries with developing economies have become
digital dumping grounds for more privileged nations (Brevini & Murdock, 2017).
Finally, while promising to solve the climate emergency, AI companies are market-
ing their offers and services to coal, oil, and gas companies, thus compromising efforts to
reduce the emissions and divest from fossil fuels. A new report on the future of AI in oil
and gas market published by Zion Market Research (Zion Market Research, 2019) found
that the sector of AI in oil and gas is expected to reach around USD 4.01 billion glob-
ally by 2025 from 1.75 billion in 2018. AI companies around the world are pushing their
capabilities to the oil and gas sectors to increase their efficiencies, optimize their opera-
tions, and increase productivity: In other words, they are selling their services to increase
the pace and productivity of excavation and drilling. Exxon Mobil, for example, signed a
partnership in February this year with Microsoft to deploy AI programs, while oil and gas
exploration in the fragile ecosystem of Brazil has seen recent employment of AI technology
by state oil giant Petrobras; similarly, European oil major Royal Dutch Shell has signed a
partnership with AI company C3 (Joppa & Herweijer, 2018).

3.7 PLACING THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY AT

THE CENTER OF SCHOLARSHIP
New developments of Artificial Intelligence place escalating demands on energy, water,
and resources in their production, transportation, and use, reinforce a culture of hyper-
consumerism, and add to the accumulating amounts of waste and pollution already gener-
ated by accelerating rates of digital obsolescence and disposal (see Brevini, 2021; Gabrys,
2013). Instead of embracing new developments in Communication technologies and AI
as a new utopia that will fix the world and capitalism problems, we should start quanti-
fying and considering the environmental costs and damages of the current acceleration
of algorithm-powered data communication that can too easily compromise SDGs (Sætra,
2021; Sætra, 2022).
We need to ask who should own and control the essential infrastructures that power
data communication and Artificial Intelligence and make sure to place the climate emer-
gency at the center of the debate on sustainable development. How can we shape the future
of Artificial intelligence to be one of collective well-being and minimized climate impact?
Progress is being made at global fora and national levels as international agree-
ments, legislative frameworks, position papers and guidelines are being drawn up by the
European Union and Council of Europe, and UNESCO is in the midst of developing a
Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence.
Despite this, however, it seems that global discussions the climate emergency – for
example, in the context of UN COP – are yet to connect environmental with AI policy
discussions, and more research is needed to ascertain the environmental damage caused
by Artificial Intelligence.
As this chapter showed, if we consider the material basis of AI and look at its techno-
colonialist character, we should consider all its environmental costs. They start with min-
eral extractions, water, energy, and natural resources necessary for hardware and machine
production (generating huge challenges to SDGs 6, 7, 13, 14, and 15); it then generates
 Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Solutions   ◾   31

additional resource depletion for distribution, transportation, and post-consumption of

material technology (challenging SDGs 7, 13, 14, and 15) to end with major e-waste dis-
posal needs (SDGs 6, 7, 13, 14 and 15). Added to this is the major environmental cost of
data extraction, computing, and analysis (SDGs 7 and 13).
We know many corporations now audit the production conditions of sub-contractors’
factories, but there is still an urgent need to demand accountability for those who own
clouds and data centers. One crucial intervention could be government-mandated Green
Certification for server farms and centers to achieve zero emissions. Given AI’s increasing
computing capabilities, the disclosure of its carbon footprint could be a first step in the
right direction. This could take the form of a Tech Carbon Footprint Label, which would
provide information about the raw materials used, the carbon costs involved, and what
recycling options are available, resulting in stronger public awareness about the implica-
tions of adopting a piece of smart technology.
Making transparent the energy used to produce, transport, assemble, and deliver the
technology we use daily would enable policymakers to make more informed decisions and
to the public to make more informed choices. Added to this could be policy intervention
which requests manufacturers to lengthen the lifespan of smart devices and provide spare
parts to replace faulty components.
Global policymaking should encourage educational programs to enhance green tech
literacy and raise awareness of the costs of hyperconsumerism, as well as the importance of
responsible energy consumption as crucially linked to SDGs 3 and 4.
In line with SDG 4, green tech literacy programs should also entail interventions to ban
production of products that are too data demanding and deplete too much energy.
As Artificial Intelligence, like all technologies, is always, in “a full sense social”
(Williams, 1981, p. 227), the choice to develop the kind of “green AI” that can enhance
environmental sustainable goals rests on us. Unfortunately, the current development of
AI does not display the kind of environmental ethos that is needed to address the climate
emergency we are facing.

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 Chapter 4

Sustainable Climate
Engineering Innovation and
the Need for Accountability
Marianna Capasso and Steven Umbrello

CONTENTS
4.1 Introduction 35
4.2 Climate Engineering 36
4.2.1 Carbon Capture, Usage, and Storage (CCUS) 38
4.3 A Site for Politics 39
4.4 Revisiting Accountability 40
4.5 Accountable and Sustainable Climate Engineering 42
4.6 Conclusions 45
4.7 References 47

4.1 INTRODUCTION
Although still highly controversial, the idea that we can use technology to radically alter
our environment to mitigate the challenges we now face is becoming an ever more dis-
cussed approach. The potential for cloud brightening, solar radiation management, and
carbon capture technologies, among others, have been debated for a long time. Still, it was
not long ago that research on such topics was largely suppressed. Much of this historical
aversion to this research can be primarily laid at the feet of the idea being that there is a
moral hazard involved in even exploring the potential for fixing our problems, not through
a radical change in individual behavior, consumption, and the systems of production but
through improving the symptoms. Moral hazard arguments are ubiquitous in the pub-
lic debate and the academic literature on climate engineering, seeing it as a “techno-fix”
compromise instead of addressing systemic and broader moral and institutional reforms
(Wagner & Zizzamia, 2021). However, we are now seeing increasing acceptance of such
technologies, and carbon capture and storage, in particular, is relatively close to main-
stream. Many promoters of climate engineering argue that it is necessary to counteract
climate change, with the need to serve the moral imperative of mitigation and provide

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-4 35
36   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

adaptation for vulnerable people across the globe (Horton & Keith, 2016). However, schol-
ars recently recognized that these arguments often lack an in-depth analysis informed by
moral and political theory since they neglect the power dynamics inherent in climate engi-
neering research and implementation (Gardiner & McKinnon, 2020; Hourdequin, 2021;
Smith, 2018).
This chapter highlights how both climate engineering innovation and SDGs framework
should be seen not as policy-neutral and objective sites, but as sites for politics, sites for
ongoing debate and deliberation on their normative ends and governance. Our aim is to
show how a more nuanced, multidimensional definition of accountability is needed in
order to permit responsible innovation of climate technologies that align with the ideal
of sustainable development. This chapter is divided as follows. First, it starts by describ-
ing what climate engineering is and uses one particular form, carbon capture, usage, and
storage (CCUS), as a use case. Second, it explores how the synergy between the responsible
deployment of climate engineering innovation and the achievement of the SDGs targets
should unpack the socio-political significance of both frameworks, since they are both
depending on political preferences and social acceptability, and on how normative jus-
tifications and decisions about innovation and sustainable strategies and constraints are
managed, taken, and communicated.
Then, this chapter concentrates on what accountability is, how it has been tradition-
ally understood in the literature, and why a more expansive and polysemic definition of
accountability is required if climate engineering technologies like CCUS are actually to
support sustainable development. Specifically, this chapter discusses possible strategies to
theorize and implement accountable and sustainable frameworks for climate engineer-
ing innovation, starting from the creation of shared standards to matters of responsibility
among social actors and of answerability, which requires that conduct and information
are reported, explained, and reasonably justified in the context of these climate models.
Finally, the conclusions recap the main arguments sustained in this chapter and explore
their connection to the key topics of the volume.

4.2 CLIMATE ENGINEERING
Climate Engineering technologies are a class or family of technologies proposed to ame-
liorate or mitigate climate change’s causes and/or effects on both local and global scales.
Although the term has been appropriated in the past as a theoretical application to ter-
raforming another planet, like Mars (e.g., see Jakosky & Edwards, 2018), to be habitable,
in this context, we are referring to the technology family that aims to act on the Earth’s
climate system to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases or, more radically by transform-
ing physical and/or chemical biosphere mechanisms to achieve direct climate control
(Buchinger et al., 2022).
There are various member technologies of this technology family, including but not
limited to carbon capture, usage, and storage (CCUS) and solar radiation management
(SRM). The former refers to technologies that can remove existing CO2 from the atmo-
sphere, which, consequently, can feasibly ameliorate existing emissions, thus impacting
 Sustainable Climate Engineering Innovation   ◾   37

temperature regulation (Bui et al., 2018; Hanssen et al., 2020). SRM, on the other hand, are
technologies that are designed to transform how the biosphere interacts with solar radia-
tion (Ming et al., 2014). One of the ways that this has been proposed to function on the
global scale is by creating a dense cloud of particles in the stratosphere, which are designed
to reflect part of the solar radiation, thus reducing global temperatures. However, there are
more local approaches to SRM, such as employing heat reflection systems to protect and
restore snow or glaciers (Applegate & Keller, 2015). The time-to-market of this technology
family is considered “Short to medium for small and regional scale deployment, medium
to long term for large-scale and global deployment, and most advanced applications”
(Buchinger et al., 2022, p. 38). Given the relative urgency underlying the development of
this technology family, as well as the high research and industrial relevance, it merits con-
sidering the various ethical concerns that emerge when considering CCUS and SRM, such
as those concerning who will be impacted both directly and indirectly by them, who can
or will have access to these technologies, who will decide how and where these systems will
be implemented, as well as the various concerns surrounding the value of sustainability.
Naturally, there are various arguments in favor and against the design, deployment, and
use of these climate engineering technologies (Brooks et al., 2022). For example, those in
favor often levy arguments that since global climate warming is anthropogenic, it is like-
wise humans’ moral imperative to take action to ameliorate such change. Likewise, argu-
ments are made concerning our collective responsibility to future generations and their
well-being, as well as the argument of delaying the inevitable consequence of warming,
which is made for both CCUS and SRM (Stilgoe, 2016). In the latter case, proponents argue
that SRM techniques would help deflect some proportion of the warming effect until atmo-
spheric emissions are effectively reduced. At the same time, CCUS would feasibly permit
more short-term warming, namely emissions which would then be ameliorated with later
CCUS techniques.
However, some arguments against these technologies are usually political in their ori-
entation, arguing that many of these approaches require crossing national and geospatial
boundaries, thus implicating notions of the sovereignty of those countries wishing to use/
not use such technologies (Proelss & Güssow, 2011). Similarly, given that the effects of such
technologies across time are neither immediate nor certain, this questions whether and
how we can intervene in a complex system like the climate with positive effects. In the
event of adverse effects, can we have a reasonable certainty of the ability to reverse such
impacts (Raza et al., 2019)? The findings of a review on geoengineering carried out by the
UK Royal Society in 2009 revealed major uncertainties and potential risks concerning
effectiveness, social, and environmental impacts of geoengineering projects (Royal Society,
2009). At the beginning of 2022, a coalition of scientists and governance scholars launched
an initiative calling for a ban on research and deployment of SRM, claiming that the cur-
rent global governance system is unfit to maintain a fair political control of it (Biermann
et al., 2022). These are some of the arguments discussed within the discourse on climate
engineering technologies like SRM and carbon capture, usage, and storage. The following
subsection will take up CCUS as the case we will be looking at for this chapter.
38   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

4.2.1 Carbon Capture, Usage, and Storage (CCUS)

Spurred primarily by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s (UNECE’s)
objective of achieving net-zero emissions, carbon capture, usage, and storage (CCUS) sys-
tems have been proposed and sustained as one of the most conceptually effective ways of
achieving this goal of removing large volumes of CO2 from the atmosphere. CCUS sys-
tems are understood as technologies that capture CO2 emissions from power generation
sources that use fossil fuels and industrial processes for storage deep underground or re-
use (Figure 4.1). This re-use is often for producing synthetic materials such as other fuels,
chemicals, building materials, etc.
There are two general routes for CCUS: carbon usage and carbon storage. Concerning
the latter, carbon is removed directly from either the air or facilities and industrial pro-
cesses, stored in the compressed form, and then transported to sequestration areas to be
stored permanently underground in geological formations like saline, oil, and gas reser-
voirs (Metz et al., 2005). Concerning carbon usage, the captured and compressed carbon
is re-used in other processes such as being pumped into greenhouses to make them more
efficient, in the synthesis of materials, chemicals, and fuels, as well as in essential commer-
cial products like carbonated soft drinks (Ho et al., 2019; Psarras et al., 2017). Using cap-
tured carbon as fuels and in other industrial and manufacturing processes increases net
efficiency while simultaneously reducing net waste, thus contributing to the infrastructure
underlying the circular economy (Budzianowski, 2017). Still, sequestration could feasibly
permit augmented usage of existing emission sources, given the ability to directly capture
emissions from the atmosphere and these emission facilities (Tcvetkov et al., 2019).
Still, there are some barriers to both carbon capture and storage and carbon capture
and usage. Concerning storage, many projects are currently in operation on a global scale;
however, the technical equipment necessary for this process to be undertaken is excep-
tionally costly and serves as an obstacle for many sources of emissions, particularly in the
Global South (Rubin & Zhai, 2012; Román, 2011). This goes hand in hand with other barri-
ers, such as the lack of technical expertise necessary to run and maintain such systems and
uncertain return on investment (Roussanaly et al., 2021). Unlike the more commercialized

FIGURE 4.1 Carbon capture, use, and storage schema.

 Sustainable Climate Engineering Innovation   ◾   39

storage technologies, carbon utilization technologies are more novel. Likewise, to ensure
that both the ecological and economic boons are achieved, thus ensuring long-term and
ubiquitous adaptability of carbon utilization technologies, what is required is low-carbon
hydrogen and vast volumes of renewable energy, all at affordable costs (Yu et al., 2021;
Brändle et al., 2021).

4.3 A SITE FOR POLITICS

CCUS has entered the discourse on climate models to counteract or delay climate change.
However, its long-term consequences are still unknown, as are its impacts as a broader
paradigm shift that is different from adaptation and mitigation measures. Technologies
such as CCUS have been said to be morally problematic “techno-fix” compromises to cli-
mate change, in the sense that they alone are inadequate solutions that address merely the
setting of behaviors and not how behavioral failures come into being, that is, the failure
of people to behave in an appropriate and climate-friendly way, and the underlying social,
political, and economic dynamics (Scott, 2012; Borgmann, 2012). Moreover, CCUS is con-
sidered by many unjust and incompatible with the ideal of sustainable development, since
they would have several detrimental effects, including the displacement and marginaliza-
tion of local communities, the undermining of food rights and land rights, and, finally, the
infringement of biosphere and natural ecosystems’ integrity, leading to the creation of new
vast-scale infrastructures and industries that can reproduce the emissions problem instead
of ameliorating it (Schneider, 2019). For example, an SDG that is potentially impacted by
CCUS is the SDG 6 on clean water, since such technologies can create significant land and
water trade-offs, and adverse impacts on local water quality (IPCC, 2022, Chaps. 6, 12).
Also, the SDG 7 on affordable and clean energy can be impacted due to the high energy
demand of some of CCUS methods (IPCC, 2022, Chap. 12).
Widespread claims suggest that technologies like CCUS are intrinsically troubling: they
are often embedded in undemocratic systems of innovation and knowledge that disre-
gard the underlying causes and patterns of climate change and increase the dependence
of developing countries and vulnerable groups while strengthening the power and control
of developed countries and technocratic, corporate elites (Gardiner & McKinnon, 2020).
In particular, in the range of potential injustices raised from climate engineering tech-
nologies, the most debated one is the exacerbation of power asymmetries and the fact that
those tech-mediated climate models can generate profound and global relations of domi-
nation (Smith, 2018, 2021). Narratives or claims on climate engineering proposals might
be portrayed as objective, unbiased, and policy-neutral; hence, they might de-politicize the
climate change discourse, obscuring the political motivations behind their reasoning and
legitimizing structures of power that perpetuate oppression and exploitation (Sikka, 2021;
O’Lear et al., 2021).
However, even if the climate engineering literature tends to recognize equity concerns,
often, no normative political dimension is adopted for evaluating the monitoring and
control mechanisms for the assessment, development, and policy dimensions surround-
ing those technologies (McLaren, 2018). The governance frameworks and democratic pro-
cesses needed to develop and sustain technologies such as CCUS responsibly remain largely
40   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

neglected by policymakers and the academic research community at large (Bellamy et al.,
2021). Similarly, scholars have noted how Responsible Research and Innovation activi-
ties often remain separate and self-referential, without appropriate processes for citizens’
engagement (Stahl et al., 2021), by failing to be a “site for politics”, that is, a site for ongoing
debate and deliberation about the normative ends of innovation and its governance (Owen
et al., 2021).
Also in the sustainable development literature, it is widely accepted that the achieve-
ment of the SDGs depends on democratic and effective governance mechanisms, to the
point that governance has been considered the “fourth pillar of sustainable development”
(Kanie et al., 2014, p. 6). Nonetheless, there is no consensus or clear conceptualization
on the theoretical foundation of governance for sustainable development and its different
aspects (Glass & Newig, 2019). Moreover, empirical studies have found how policies for
the achievement of SDGs paradoxically obscure the trade-offs and political assumptions
upon which sustainable development rests, leading to a situation of “anti-politics” that
does not account for a space where incoherencies from dominant private, market-based
organizations can be discussed and contested (Yunita et al., 2022). Detractors of SDGs
have conceived this set of normative principles as a political framework or ideology that
can compromise public decision-making mechanisms and privilege commercial interests,
leading to unjust and exclusionary policies instead of promoting just structural change
(Weber, 2017).
Therefore, a critical political question arises, asking to whom, by whom, and to what
ends the sustainable development trajectories should be designed and deployed. At the
same time, the central question for CCUS technologies is no longer whether but how, to
what extent, by whom, and to whom they should be pursued (Bellamy & Geden, 2019).
This means that the choice of CCUS technologies will depend on the evolution of political
preferences and social acceptability, and on how sustainability constraints are managed by
governments (IPCC, 2022, Chap. 12, p. 62).
Rather than being a purely technical matter, climate engineering innovation processes
are political in the sense that they are strictly entangled with the same broader socio-
political contexts and power structures in which are embedded (on the normative political
dimensions of technologies see the recent Coeckelbergh, 2022; Waelen, 2022). Moreover,
those processes cannot avoid confronting the theoretical underpinnings of sustainable
development. Synergies between the responsible deployment of such climate models and
the achievement of SDGs targets should unpack the political rationale in the transforma-
tive potential of the UN 2030 Agenda, and should encompass governance methods for
inclusion and empowerment.

4.4 REVISITING ACCOUNTABILITY
Among the few scholarly studies on SDGs politics, a recent thesis that has been advanced
is that sustainable development goal setting and fulfillment are particularly adapted to
study long-term political decisions, interactions, and structures and are in urgent need of
political normative frameworks that scrutinize normative qualities of governance such as
legitimacy, responsibility, and accountability (Bexell & Jönsson, 2021). Leaving aside the
 Sustainable Climate Engineering Innovation   ◾   41

questions of legitimacy and responsibility, these studies define accountability as the “ret-
rospective mirror of political responsibility” and connect it to monitoring and sanction-
ing mechanisms: social actors that deal with sustainable development should be liable for
how they exercise power and how they make strategic socio-political choices about goals
(Bexell & Jönsson, 2017, pp. 17–18, 2021, p. 3).
Also, in the philosophy of technology literature, accountability has been identified as
a form of retrospective, backward-looking (van de Poel, 2011) or passive (Pesch, 2015)
responsibility, namely as a form of ex-post scrutiny that requires justification for a state
of affairs and constitutes the basis for blameworthiness. Only in these last few years have
some scholars recognized that accountability also has a preventive and anticipatory role
since it engages with a relation between an actor and a forum, in which conducts are
exposed, justified, and debated in a back-and-forth exchange (Verdiesen et al., 2021, based
on Bovens, 2007; Bovens et al., 2014; Santoni de Sio & Mecacci, 2021).
This definition is more aligned with debates on accountability in normative political
theory, where accountability has been the object of various discussions but usually refers
to the self-determination of citizens that keep/hold their representatives accountable and
responsive (Palumbo & Bellamy, 2010). In political studies, responsiveness has been iden-
tified as a “potential readiness to respond” (Pitkin, 1967, p. 233) to citizens with whom
ultimate responsibility for the actions and decisions should rest (Urbinati & Warren, 2008).
However, citizens need “meaningful” forms of participation, understood as opportunities
for real influence in the polity (Pateman, 1970, pp. 70–71). This generates a whole range of
problems, as responsiveness might be at odds with political equality and influence in civic
life, especially when economic standing or socio-political resources and powers might
make some individuals or groups more likely to voice concerns and influence policy strat-
egies and outcomes (Papadopoulos & Warin, 2007). Thus, the establishment of meaningful
forms of accountability and responsiveness implies not only the likelihood of substantive
forms of representation but also, more importantly, a contribution to equality in policy
outcomes and long-term fair distribution of public goods (Grimes & Esaiasson, 2014).
Therefore, accountability is not merely retrospective and connected to sanctioning mea-
sures but involves an ex-ante account of governance that involves mutual deliberation on
public goods, the creation of shared standards, and monitoring and scrutiny mechanisms.
As a normative concept, it consists of the respect of various dimensions in the accountabil-
ity relation: to whom (accountees); by whom (accounters); for what and by which shared
standards this relation is assessed; answerability, that is, through what process and in which
modalities conduct and information are reported, explained, and reasonably justified and
accountees informed; and enforceability, that is, what effects or consequences arise when
someone is held accountable and violates the conditions necessary for a meaningful rela-
tionship with the accountees (on the multidimensional nature of accountability see also
Mashaw, 2006; Buchanan & Keohane, 2006, p. 426; Callies, 2018; Villalona, 2021, p. 19).
Accountability has been explored to some extent in the UN 2030 Agenda, with an explicit
reference to “effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels” in SDG #16.1 The
UN 2030 Agenda envisages a follow-up and review framework to promote accountability
to citizens and leaves this task to the institution of the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF)
42   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

and to voluntary national review systems, which may have multiple different modalities in
their national policy choices for SDGs implementation (United Nations, 2015, para 72–91;
Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen et al., 2018, p. 1380-ff). In SDGs literature, accountability is depicted
as an indispensable factor. Still, surprisingly there is no clear understanding of its nature
and how it can facilitate the strategy design for SDGs implementation at the national level
and social value creation (Abhayawansa et al., 2021). The most significant challenges to
accountability in the Global SDG Accountability Report are the lack of institutional coor-
dination across governments and the low public awareness of SDGs among citizens and
stakeholders (Villalona, 2021, pp. 29–33, 36). Thus, the definition of accountable relations
is not clear and settled in the SDGs literature. In the following pages, this discourse on the
polysemic nature of accountability provides some interesting theoretical implications for
the question of sustainable development and climate engineering innovation.

4.5 ACCOUNTABLE AND SUSTAINABLE CLIMATE ENGINEERING

Scholars involved in the normative discussion on climate engineering tend to focus on
institutional legitimacy as a criterion to guide responsible climate engineering and cli-
mate engineering experiments (Callies, 2018; Bellamy et al., 2017). However, accountability
might be an equally relevant normative criterion that both the sustainable development
framework and climate engineering innovation should confront. Indeed, accountability
as a criterion might provide a guide for complex processes by which parameters for sus-
tainable development come to be defined, as well as an approach to responsibly conduct-
ing climate engineering innovation. SDGs have been considered a starting point for the
development of criteria for climate engineering (Stelzer, 2020). However, as mentioned,
even if intended to provide an inclusive approach to societal stakeholders, the SDGs frame-
work still needs approximation and reflection on how to realize this global effort. Hence,
the polysemic nature of accountability above delineated and its articulations in multiple
dimensions might form a basis for philosophical reflection on how to responsibly imple-
ment climate engineering innovation, in modalities that also align with the ideal of sus-
tainable development.
First, the dimensions of accountability require identifying accounteers and accoun-
tees, the need for shared standards upon which conduct and relations are assessed, and,
consequently, a dimension of enforceability in scenarios of violations. Naturally, these
shared standards could take the form of international law, given the global impacts of
climate engineering technologies. No global roles, obligations, or rights exist concerning
these technologies. However, existing ancillary international and regional frameworks
do provide the foundations for such international treaties to be formed. Human rights
law,​State responsibility,​Environmental law,​Climate change law, S​ pace law,​and Maritime
law p​ rovide starts for how law between nations governing international geographies can
be approached concerning climate engineering technology innovation and deployment.
Taking human rights law as an example, we can already see how framing the multidimen-
sional understanding of accountability for climate engineering can take place. Procedural
rights, for example, would implicate the need for citizens to have access to information,
participate in public affairs, and, of course, have access to legal remedies. Substantive
 Sustainable Climate Engineering Innovation   ◾   43

rights provide the grounding on which such procedural rights take place concerning cli-
mate engineering, particularly an individual’s right to life, healthy environment, health,
food, and water.​More abstractly, however, there are also rights concerning the scientific
research into climate engineering innovation, in particular, the freedom to conduct said
research, the right to benefit from scientific progress, and, of course, the related moral and
material interests derived from such research. Although there are no current international
statutes delineating this concerning climate engineering, projects are undergoing aiming
at providing shared standards for both the design of these technologies and their eventual
implementation.2
However, some scholars argue that just formal or informal governance of climate
engineering is impossible, since it would require novel international organizations with
unprecedented enforcement powers (Biermann et al., 2022). Others have emphasized how,
even if global climate change mitigation is recognized as a global public good (i.e., the
benefits of which are available to everyone and nobody can be excluded) requiring aggre-
gate efforts, the cooperation of some or most nations in this case may fail because it is
vulnerable to cases of free riding and relies on unbalanced premises, since countries with
the largest number of poor people tend to be those who have contributed least to the prob-
lem of climate change and to be less prone to be involved in a carbon-free development
path (Barrett, 2007). Still, this does not mean that what restrains climate engineering from
being an object of political governance and accountability in the context of climate change
mitigation should be ignored. Instead, this point and the related issues deserve further
attention, also to avoid ungoverned spaces, or situations of “de facto governance” on the
part of industrialized, developed countries and private sector lobbies, in ways that do not
involve the consideration of other countries or vulnerable groups (Gupta & Möller, 2019;
Biermann & Möller, 2019).
An ideally “just” governance should be aware of the interlinkages between different
dimensions (institutional, socio-technical, technical) in climate engineering innovation,
and promote separate regulatory strategies and adaptive and progressive approaches
toward risk allocation, in ways that are not unilateral and recognize common but dif-
ferentiated responsibilities among social actors, who have different capabilities to adapt,
different institutions, and different incentives to promote climate-friendly policies in the
collective action problem of climate change (Barrett, 2008, 2014).
To avoid the spread of narratives on climate engineering proposals that pretend to be
policy-neutral and objective, a societal reflection that evaluates what is “sustainable” in
possible guiding governance principles should be put forward. For example, in the sus-
tainable development literature, many have criticized the increasing “countability” as a
guiding principle for sustainable proposals, which relies on quantitative indicators of out-
comes that are depicted as value-neutral (Bexell & Jönsson, 2017, 2021). The same has been
done in the climate engineering literature, where many have claimed how poorly might
be a “portfolio” approach in the context of technologies like CCUS since rather than fos-
ter a coherent vision, it just adds and combines CCUS as an option within idealized and
coordinated scenarios or portfolios, and so it does not consider the competing relations
and trade-offs with other resources (land, energy, water) and with policy and institutional
44   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

layers (Sovacool et al., 2022). Thus, in policy decisions regarding climate engineering, the
implementation and justification of decisions should go beyond a mere quantitative assess-
ment of risks and sustainable indicators and instead involve better-informed investigations
dealing with the various normative uncertainties related to those climate proposals (see,
e.g., Taebi et al., 2020). For example, an empirical study has recently demonstrated how a
slow, robust, and bottom-up governance intervention for novel carbon-removal options
might positively impact other dimensions, such as mitigating social backlash and improv-
ing technical and environmental design (Sovacool et al., 2022).
Regarding the modalities for implementing and monitoring shared standards or gov-
ernance principles, one solution might be the promotion of forms of meaningful hori-
zontal accountability, which works in contexts where there are no clear hierarchies but
peer relations with various stakeholders (Schillemans, 2008). This kind of accountability
might be the most decisive in the SDGs context, where different national and voluntary
accountability mechanisms for implementation present competing powers, such as audit
institutions, courts, and parliaments (Breuer & Leininger, 2021). Although the SDGs are
not legally binding, national governments are expected to improve their governmental and
intergovernmental mobilization efforts and develop specific indicators for climate engi-
neering options. However, even if the inclusion of CCUS into mitigation portfolios has
received an increasing consideration, few countries are pursuing a reliable implementation
of carbon dioxide removal strategies into long-term national mitigation portfolios so far
(IPCC, 2022, Chap. 12, pp. 39, 62).
At the international level, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) and its Paris Agreement (PA) do not explicitly mention climate engineering
technologies. Still, PA procedural mechanisms and nationally determined contributions
might provide a basis for future deliberations on climate engineering proposals, promot-
ing collective cooperation and transparency (Craik & Burns, 2019). The latest report from
the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that the
governance of carbon dioxide removal methods can draw on a “political commitment” to
formal integration into existing climate policy frameworks, and that a crucial governance
challenge would be to establish reliable systems for monitoring, reporting, and verifica-
tion (MRV) of the carbon flow and mitigation outcomes (IPCC, 2022, Chap. 12, p. 6). The
report also affirms that the SDGs framework serves as a “template” to evaluate the long-
term implications of mitigation on sustainable development and vice versa (IPCC, 2022,
Technical Summary, p. 133). In this sense, the IPCC report suggests that coordinated and
cross-sectoral policies integrating mitigation with SDGs on other sectoral policy actions
(health, nutrition, equity, and biodiversity) should be adopted to alleviate or avoid many
trade-offs of carbon dioxide removal methods (IPCC, 2022, Chap. 12). The creation and
maintenance of shared standards on technologies like CCUS would thus require interac-
tion and integration of different actions in the context of the SDGs to enable just transition
pathways3 and accountable infrastructures. As stated in the volume’s introductory chapter,
trade-offs between SDGs may emerge, and one crucial aspect of the governance of tech-
nologies is to acknowledge the interlinkages between different dimensions of sustainable
development (Sætra, 2022).
 Sustainable Climate Engineering Innovation   ◾   45

Finally, the answerability dimension requires the practice of holding accounters as

appropriate actors of justificatory challenge and thus susceptible to response about their
conduct (Smith, 2012). Defining accountability as mere transparency concerning out-
comes is a partial way to view it (Andersson & Wikström, 2014). The way carbon dioxide
removal strategies are communicated is likely to influence their use and the way people
conceptualize them; hence not only transparency ex-post is needed but also the fram-
ing of information presented to the public needs considerable scrutiny (Spence et al.,
2021). Institutional commercial or scientific actors might misrepresent adverse informa-
tion and frame climate engineering interventions as societal camouflages, reflecting how
social actors prefer to instrumentally or implicitly describe technologies in ways that
avert opposition or debate (Low et al., 2022). Public awareness of technologies like CCUS
is still very low, but the engagement of public and civil society organizations is very
relevant to shape equitable carbon-removal and storage projects that consider human
health, energy needs, ecological integrity, and local community engagement (IPCC,
2022, Chap. 12, p. 65).
In this scenario, accountability may also require space for bottom-up and community
strategies or for contestation (Heidelberg, 2017). Recent empirical studies on climate engi-
neering models have reported the positive role of controversy and opposition from ENGOs,
social groups, media, and delegates at the international conventions; in addition, they have
also motivated the growing need for additional forms of societal appraisal, co-benefits
methods, and citizen, indigenous and entrepreneurial involvement, which are still not
settled for carbon-removal experimentation or are too vague for providing concrete public
engagement (Low et al., 2022). Accountability as a normative criterion involves relations
of responsiveness that aim to promote a dynamic co-variation of people’s interests and
policies (Morales, 2014). Thus, accountability for climate engineering innovation should
deal with this co-variation, even if, due to the early research stage of these technologies, it
is not clear how participatory RRI approaches and their emphasis on inclusivity can guide
toward sustainable solutions, instead of introducing conflict-prone diversity perspectives
that can also hamper or set-back research (Stelzer, 2020). Thus, “No one will be left behind”
(United Nations General Assembly, 2018) is still a work in progress. A civil space that seeks
to promote the participation of different views is necessary and valuable but still requires
novel solutions and continued scrutiny to foster meaningful accountability relations for
the governance of emerging technologies like those of climate engineering.

4.6 CONCLUSIONS
Climate engineering technologies are a technology family whose goal is to change the
Earth’s temperature such that we can readily combat climate change and remediate the
damage that has already been done. This chapter took up a specific climate engineering
technology, namely carbon capture, usage, and storage (CCUS) and showed how these
technologies pose unique, global socio-political issues. This chapter has explored at how
climate engineering innovation can be supplemented with a polysemic and multidimen-
sional account of accountability. This has provided a theoretically informed basis for
reflection on how to implement not only the responsible innovation of climate engineering
46   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

technologies but also a dynamic landscape in which the innovation of climate engineering
technologies can be built to support sustainable development more broadly.
Climate engineering innovation should avoid the risk of adopting an apolitical façade,
which treats governance arrangements as neutral sites and fosters an illusory techno-
optimism over the management of such a complex tech-mediated climate model. We have
highlighted how the consideration of these models as mere techno-fixes does not go far
enough. Indeed, techno-fix solutions can be included in the general vision of techno-
solutionism and optimism, as the belief that technologies can contribute to good outcomes
(see Chapters 1 and 2). But too much reliance on techno-fixes can lead to the progressive
depoliticization of planetary environmental issues, and can foster a distorted binary vision
in which the climate crisis is resolved by either withdrawing from technology (i.e., rejec-
tion) or accelerating it (i.e., solutionism) (Dillet & Hatzisavvidou, 2022). Instead, more bal-
anced approaches that expand and deepen the understanding of socio-political responses,
fundamental and complex social changes to the climate crisis, and the governance of tech-
nologies like CCUS are needed.
We have shown how climate engineering innovation should deal with analyzing power
asymmetries and their problematic dimensions, in line with considerations on infrastruc-
tural technological change as sustained in the introductory chapters. Infrastructural tech-
nological change means that technologies may involve wide societal effects and relevant
shifts in social structures (Barley, 2020). Therefore, our aim in this chapter has been that
of highlighting how climate engineering innovation can be properly considered object of
socio-political theorizing, since its core implications (e.g., the possibility of generating power
asymmetries, and inequality more generally) can generate examples and paradigms of
injustice, as well as require regulatory strategies, enforcements, and normative justifications
on how decisions about innovation and sustainable strategies are taken and communicated.
A reliable implementation of carbon dioxide removal and storage strategies into long-term
national mitigation portfolios and public awareness of such strategies are still very low. And
at the same time further work is needed to assess what responsible climate engineering
innovation means, in modalities that also align with the ideal of sustainable development.
In examining how and to what extent the concept of accountability is polysemic and mul-
tidimensional, our aim was to show how climate engineering innovation involves broad
socio-political processes, and, more fundamentally, requires holistic approaches that take
into consideration the responsibility of the actors involved, mechanisms of distribution and
participation, and democratic governance on its sustainability-related impacts.

NOTES
1 UN 2015, target 16.6, but accountability is also present in SDG #17 in “Data for monitoring
and accountability” and SDG #5 and #10, on gender inequality and inequality between coun-
tries, respectively.
2 For example, the TechEthos (EU Horizon 2020 Grant Agreement no. 101006249) project aims
to provide “ethics by design” guidelines as well as legal recommendations for climate engi-
neering technologies (among others), see TechEthos Project (2022) and Porcari et al. (2021).
3 In those recent years, “just transition” as a concept emerged from labor unions, environmen-
tal justice groups and the EU policy environment, encompassing the equitable shift toward
 Sustainable Climate Engineering Innovation   ◾   47

a regenerative economy in which principles and processes can respect and promote envi-
ronmental and climate justice, see for example, Morena et al., 2020; European Commission,
Just Transition Platform, available at https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/funding/jtf/
just-transition-platform (Last Access 7 Oct 2022). The same SDGs framework that is based on
the “leave no one behind” principle requires among its goals the pursuing of a just transition,
as an energy transition that is shared widely and supports fair distribution (United Nations
General Assembly 2015: Preamble). In this chapter, we do not devote much space to the “just
transition” concept, since we are not exclusively interested in inclusiveness and matters of
distributive justice in climate engineering innovation, that is, in the principles and processes
that distribute benefits and burdens across members of society. However, we concentrate on
the dimension of accountability, which is linked to matters of responsibility among members
in society, and shared standards and normative justifications on actions. Justice issues related
to energy or environment have not only components related to distributive justice but most
importantly to responsibility, see Pellegrini-Masini et al., 2020. On the interdependence of
different types of justice in energy justice, see the recent Astola et al., 2022.

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 Chapter 5

Shinigami Eyes and Social

Media Labeling as a
Technology for Self-care
Henrik Skaug Sætra and Jo Ese

CONTENTS
5.1 Introduction 53
5.2 Sustainability, LGBTQ+ Rights, and Social Media 55
5.3 The Case: Shinigami Eyes and Social Media Labeling 58
5.4 Discussion: Online Public Spheres and the Need for Safe Spaces 62
5.4.1 Public Spheres and the Free Exchange of Ideas 62
5.4.1.1 Habermasian Public Spheres 63
5.4.1.2 Marketplace of Ideas 64
5.4.1.3 Arguments, Not People 65
5.4.2 The Clash of Individual Rights of Protection and Privacy Online 65
5.5 Conclusion 66
5.6 References 68

5.1 INTRODUCTION
Since its inception, the role of social media as part of the public sphere (Habermas, 1991)
has been debated. Ranging from the panegyric praise of the emancipating role of Twitter
and Facebook during the Arab Spring to the condemnation of the corrosive effects of the
very same platforms during the last two US presidential campaigns, social media as part
of our infrastructure for a sustainable and sound public debate has been contested (Kruse
et al., 2018; Vaidhyanathan, 2018). Furthermore, social media platforms are constantly
developing, with changing algorithms nudging the public debate in different directions,
potentially profoundly influencing interactions, the public debate, and eventually how our
democracies and societies are structured.
However, if there ever existed such a thing as a Habermasian public sphere in present-
day society, the concept is certainly challenged by recent developments. In this chapter,

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-5 53
54   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

we examine one particular challenge exemplified by the Shinigami Eyes web browser
extension (Kiran, 2022). The extension is developed as a tool to aid trans people and their
allies in identifying and avoiding transphobic users and content, while easily recogniz-
ing trans-friendly users. However, the add-on has received criticism due to its labeling of
social media users without the users knowing about or agreeing to the labeling, and some
feel that such a tool undermines the very idea of a public sphere and free and open public
debate.
Although society’s treatment and acceptance of trans individuals have gone through
major developments in the last decades, marginalization, exclusion, abuse, and harassment
of trans individuals are still widespread (Ciszek et al., 2021). As with other forms of harass-
ment, a lot of the anti-trans harassment is found online. Social media is a prominent part
of the lives of modern individuals in major parts of the world, and LGBTQ+ people are
also actively using social media to navigate their existence and construct their identities
(Jenzen, 2017; Lucero, 2017; Southerton et al., 2021). However, in this chapter, we discuss
how these individuals, and trans people in particular, experience harassment and hostil-
ity on social media (Jenzen, 2017), which when seen in conjunction with other forms of
marginalization poses clear threats relevant to a number of aspects related to sustainable
development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (Ongsupankul, 2019).
For example, “full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership
at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life” is a target of SDG 5
(United Nations, 2015), and while this might seem to offer opportunities to promote the
rights of LGBTQ+ people, we show how these individuals are erased and omitted from
major frameworks such as the SDGs. Nevertheless, we might interpret the SDGs more
broadly (Dorey & O’Connor, 2016), and if so point out how, for example, participation in
public life requires an online presence and online participation. If these arenas are per-
ceived as threatening and dangerous, it can be argued that these threats undermine sus-
tainable development. A tool like Shinigami Eyes, which potentially helps trans individuals
avoid content perceived as harmful, thus makes it easier to participate in this important
domain of public life (Lucero, 2017).
However, public life is arguably also about the exchange of arguments and ideas,
including facing, experiencing, arguing against, and sometimes learning from ideas
and opinions that we disagree with. Although a technology like Shinigami Eyes pro-
tects individuals from content they find uncomfortable, some fear it could also insulate
individuals from opinions that do not resemble their own. Without communication and
exchanges of ideas, arguments, and experiences between different groups, conflict and
polarization may arise. Furthermore, those who are labeled also have certain rights and
interests. For example, SDG 16.10 specifically addresses fundamental freedoms like free-
dom of thought and freedom of expression, which align with arguments used by the
Norwegian data protection authority to ban Shinigami Eyes from processing data in
Norway (Datatilsynet, 2022a). Furthermore, the labeling of individuals challenges the
Habermasian ideal of the public sphere as a place where the content of a message – and
not the identity of the speaker – is what should be considered, an ideal also promoted by
Merton (1942) in the domain of science.
 Shinigami Eyes and Social Media Labeling   ◾   55

In this chapter, we examine the sustainability-related implications of trans people’s

online lives and Shinigami Eyes labeling, and raise the following questions:

1. How do issues related to the rights of transgender people relate to sustainable devel-
opment and the SDGs?
2. Is social media potentially so hateful and violent toward vulnerable groups that the
kind of labeling described in this chapter is necessary and legitimate?
3. Which conflicts between the rights of different individuals and different SDGs are
central to understanding the controversy surrounding Shinigami Eyes?

5.2 SUSTAINABILITY, LGBTQ+ RIGHTS, AND SOCIAL MEDIA

Sustainability, as discussed in Chapter 2, encompasses economic, social, and environmen-
tal issues. The broader notion of social sustainability, including the principles of inclusion,
safety, and justice for all, is clearly amenable to include issues related to, for example, dis-
crimination and hate-speech based on sexual orientation, gender identity and expressions,
and sexual characteristics (SOGIESC).1 One might, then, be inclined to assume that the
SDGs also provide protection for people experiencing exclusion and discrimination based
on SOGIESC. Such an assumption would, however, be unwarranted.
Quite the contrary, the SDGs do not mention SOGIESC or elements of it anywhere
(Mills, 2015; Ongsupankul, 2019; United Nations, 2015), as proponents of LGBTQ+ rights
and equality have long pointed out (Dorey & O’Connor, 2016; Ongsupankul, 2019). Some
go so far as to state that, for example, gender-diverse and trans people are “completely
omitted and erased from the scope” of key SDGs, such as SDG 5 (Matthyse, 2020). Others
support the notion that LGBTQ+ people are erased in Agenda 2030, and also that their
sexual rights are, problematically, omitted from the SDGs (Logie, 2021). Politics is a crucial
part of the SDGs and similar frameworks (Majeedullah et al., 2016), and while efforts to
include all or parts of the LGBTQ+ community in international frameworks such as the
SDGs achieve intermittent success, the advances made in negotiations are often defeated
before final publication. Ongsupankul (2019), for example, relates how LGBT rights were
said to be “off the table” in the lead-up to Agenda 2030, as the need to compromise with
countries where LGBTQ+ people and their concerns are not accepted or recognized thor-
oughly complicates the negotiation process.
Despite the lack of explicit mention, many are arguing that SOGIESC is encompassed by
the core goal of the SDGs, namely to leave no one behind (United Nations, 2015). This con-
cept is consequently highlighted by many of those exploring the rights of LGBTQ+ people
from a sustainability perspective (Logie, 2021; Ongsupankul, 2019). The most optimistic
accounts of SOGIESC and the SDGs emphasize this and argue that while SOGIESC issues
are not explicitly mentioned, LGBTQ+ people are included through what is referred to as an
“other” status in various reports from, for example, the United Nations, the Human Rights
Council, and the World Health Organization (Divan et al., 2016; Logie, 2021; Mills, 2015).
Stonewall International has released a guide for LGBT inclusion and the SDGs, and while
they state that the SDGs “could have gone further”, this particular publication highlights
56   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

how the SDGs can in fact be used to improve the situation of LGBTQ+ people through the
focus on leaving no one behind and equality for all in Agenda 2030 (Dorey & O’Connor,
2016). Their analysis of the most relevant goals is summarized in the following.
SDG 1 aims to end poverty in all its forms everywhere and entails social protection
systems for all (target 1.3), making sure that all have equal rights to economic resources,
access to services, and control over land and property (target 1.4). As LGBTQ+ people are
excluded and discriminated in a wide range of settings – in education and work – they are
economically vulnerable, and there is a need for more research on economic discrimina-
tion, including SOGIESC considerations in development projects, and social assistance
projects (Dorey & O’Connor, 2016).
SDG 3 is about the promotion of healthy lives and well-being for all, and universal access
to sexual and reproductive healthcare services (target 3.7) and universal health coverage
for all (target 3.8) are of particular relevance. LGBTQ+ people’s access to good and non-
discriminatory health services is key, and this entails education and prevention measures,
proper help for trans people seeking to transition, and not least mental health services and
support (Dorey & O’Connor, 2016).
Quality education for all is the aim of SDG 4, and LGBTQ+ people experience bul-
lying and exclusion throughout the educational system, leading many to dropout and
miss future opportunities (Majeedullah et al., 2016). Increased awareness and competence
for teachers and counselors, active policies against homo-, bi-, and transphobic bullying,
inclusion of LGBTQ+ inclusive and positive material in education, and general efforts to
foster more inclusive cultures are among the key actions required for achieving this goal
(Dorey & O’Connor, 2016).
SDG 5 is also mentioned, despite this goal explicitly and exclusively targeting women and
girls (Ongsupankul, 2019). Dorey and O’Connor (2016) here emphasizes intersectionality
and how lesbian, trans, and bi women are particularly vulnerable to discrimination and vio-
lence. In a critical analysis of SDGs and transgender equality, Matthyse (2020) argues that the
omission of gender-diverse and trans people in SDG 5 has been achieved by the patriarchy
to continue gendered oppression and inequality, and highlights the unfortunate impacts of
such erasure in the global framework designed to include all. They proceed to argue that an
“authentic version of gender equality to achieve freedom from oppression on the grounds
of gender takes into account a multiplicity of gender identities and gender expressions”
(Matthyse, 2020), something also supported by others (Majeedullah et al., 2016).
One of the goals often presented as the most obvious candidate for addressing SOGIESC
challenges is SDG 10 (Majeedullah et al., 2016), which aims to reduce inequality within and
among countries. Target 10.2 states that the goal is to empower and promote the inclusion
of all, irrespective of a number of explicitly mentioned characteristics (age, race, sex, etc.)
“or other status”, which is taken to include LGBTQ+ people (Logie, 2021). Target 10.3 pro-
ceeds to state that equal opportunity should be promoted by eliminating discriminatory
laws, policies, and practices. This goal is consequently crucial for addressing the discrimi-
nation of LGBTQ+ people through discriminatory laws and policies. Examples of such
policies include requiring trans people to undergo sterilization in order to change gender,
not providing opportunities for trans people to change legal gender, prohibiting same-sex
 Shinigami Eyes and Social Media Labeling   ◾   57

or other relations, prohibiting the establishment of LGBTQ+ groups and organizations,

and excluding LGBTQ+ people from social and health services. Dorey and O’Connor
(2016) argue that generating awareness of how LGBTQ+ people are included in “other”
status is key to achieving progress in this domain.
SDG 11 is also relevant, as it relates to the inclusiveness and safety of cities and human
settlements. This could arguably be related to SOGIESC-related violence and exclusion,
but Dorey and O’Connor (2016) focus on target 11.1 and access to affordable housing and
basic services, as many LGBTQ+ people are forced to leave their families and homes and
experience high prevalence of homelessness. Violence is dealt with under SDG 16, which
is another goal with high thematic overlap with sexuality- and gender-related challenges
(Majeedullah et al., 2016). SDG 16 has targets related to reducing all forms of violence and
death threats (target 16.1) and ensuring access to justice (16.3). While all forms of violence
are abhorrent, Dorey and O’Connor (2016) highlight the challenges related to how states
are not taking violence against LBGTQ+ people seriously, and that these individuals in
many areas consequently cannot rely on the state’s protection. This makes these individu-
als more vulnerable to human rights abuse, and taking action to increase awareness of and
the prioritization of hate crimes is crucial for reaching SDG 16 (Dorey & O’Connor, 2016).
It is important to be aware of country-to-country and even community-to-community
differences regarding the situation of LGBTQ+ people. Even if some readers consider the
situation for these individuals in their society to be relatively safe and that they have equal
rights and protections as others, we are here considering the global context and how people
from many different countries are coming together on platforms and social media that
are often not clearly regulated through national legislation. On such platforms, those who
do not respect LGBTQ+ rights cross paths with others who might have rights nationally.
This gives rise to the conflict of rights and interests discussed later. Those who do not have
rights in their homeland, such as people in Tunisia where homosexuality is criminalized
and any offense is retained in a person’s criminal record for 5 years (Ongsupankul, 2019),
may be able to find support and the means to partly fight back through social media as they
can connect with like-minded people and share and develop tools and systems (Haimson
et al., 2020; Haimson et al., 2021).
Despite various efforts and initiatives to improve their situation, the reality is that
LGBTQ+ people are amongst the most vulnerable individuals in many modern societ-
ies. And amongst this group, trans people are the most vulnerable of all (Jenzen, 2017;
Ongsupankul, 2019). Trans people experience “extreme social exclusion” which result in
increased vulnerability to physical and mental health conditions, discrimination in educa-
tion and work, and a “general loss of opportunities for economic and social advancement”
(Divan et al., 2016).
To add to this trans people who experience resentment, prejudice, and threatening envi-
ronments often find themselves in criminalized contexts, discouraging them from seeking
the aid of police and barring them from other avenues of justice (Divan et al., 2016). Trans
people are often criminalized and misunderstood, deprived of basic services (Matthyse,
2020), and, for example, trans women have alarmingly low life expectancies – as low as
35 years old in the Americas (Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 2018).
58   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

Remedies for these vulnerabilities require action at numerous levels, including legal
reform and the criminalization of various forms of violence and hate speech against trans
people, getting rid of laws that criminalize and expose trans people, and “general advocacy
to sensitize the ill-informed about trans issues and concerns” (Divan et al., 2016). This
involves community-level reforms of the societal attitudes and social practices that engen-
der the marginalization of trans people and others (Majeedullah et al., 2016).
Summing up, trans people live in “extremely hostile contexts” (Divan et al., 2016) and
live with a higher risk of experiencing various forms of violence and hate crimes (Matthyse,
2020). That a framework such as Agenda 2030 and the SDGs fail to mention and explicitly
emphasize their rights highlights the potential need for other, and potentially untraditional,
means to improve and safeguard the position of these individuals, both by the individu-
als themselves and by others who support their cause. While institutions, local communi-
ties, and families are often highlighted as arenas in which gender and sexuality norms are
policed (Majeedullah et al., 2016), public spheres and online communities are potentially
equally important arenas both of moral policing and crucial potential arenas for escape
from the aforementioned hostile arenas (Haimson et al., 2020; Jenzen, 2017). Furthermore,
as many sexual minorities live in contexts in which they cannot invoke legal rights or prefer
not to report crimes committed against them out of fear of being arrested (Ongsupankul,
2019), self-care of various kinds becomes necessary (Edmond, 2022). One way for the trans
community to protect themselves online is the marking and filtering of perceived harmful
individuals in social media, to which we now turn.

5.3 THE CASE: SHINIGAMI EYES AND SOCIAL MEDIA LABELING

We focus on one specific technological response to the preceding challenges LGBTQ+
people experience online, namely a browser add-on named Shinigami Eyes (Kiran, 2022).
The add-on is free and distributed on GitHub, and it works for Chrome and Firefox brows-
ers. What it does is highlight “transphobic and trans-friendly social network pages and
users with different colors” (Kiran, 2022). The publisher is an anonymous self-declared
trans person publishing under the nickname Kiran. They describe making this extension
to alleviate some of the uncertainty trans people experience when they face communities
with members whose interests, views, and opinions might be hostile to trans people. This
is particularly difficult, Kiran writes, when dealing with groups of intersectional interests,
such as the feminist, lesbian, and atheist communities (Kiran, 2022).

The purpose of this extension is to make transgender people feel more confident
towards people, groups, and pages they can trust, and to highlight possible inter-
actions with the trans-hostile ones.
(Kiran, 2022)

Intersectionality refers to how minority characteristics seldom come alone, and how, for
example, race and gender interact in shaping the experiences of marginalized people
(Crenshaw, 1990; Matthyse, 2020). SOGIESC, and being trans as highlighted by Kiran,
provides additional minority characteristics that interact with, for example, gender. While
 Shinigami Eyes and Social Media Labeling   ◾   59

feminists and trans people share a broad experience of being marginalized, the interac-
tions between trans people and sections of the feminist community are often quite hostile
(Hines, 2019). Dealing with groups that are uniformly and openly hostile to trans people
is described by Kiran as relatively easy, but dealing with groups with members who are
seemingly progressive but at the same time hostile to trans people is difficult. This gener-
ates insecurity, as trans people are left guessing who their allies and enemies are (Kiran,
2022). In such a process, each individual is left to keep track of whom to trust and not
which, needless to say, is a tall order on the supported platforms Facebook, Twitter, Reddit,
Tumblr, Medium, YouTube, Wikipedia, and search engine results.
Edmond (2022) provides support for the usefulness of Shinigami Eyes in their account
of how a user of the extension states that Shinigami Eyes does in fact aid in conducting the
“vetting process” they were already undertaking (Edmond, 2022). As also emphasized by
Haimson et al. (2021), tags and filtering “will be essential to any future trans technology”,
and Shinigami Eyes provides one way to achieve this on platforms not explicitly made for
this group.
Taking one step back, the add-on has taken its name from the popular Japanese manga
and anime show called Death Note (original Japanese title Desu Nōto) (Nakatani et al.,
2006–2007; Ohba & Obata, 2003–2008). In this show, death gods – the Shinigami – enter
the world of the humans and provide a select few with notebooks called Death Notes. These
notebooks provide their human owners with the power to end the lives of others merely
by writing their names in the notebook while imagining their faces. The Shinigami have
special eyes that enable them to see the names and remaining life span of the humans they
encounter. As the notebook requires someone’s real name for them to die, this is an attrac-
tive ability for death note holders. The Shinigami consequently offer the human notebook
owners a deal: They can have Shinigami Eyes in exchange for half of their remaining life
span. This would then enable them to see the names and life span of their fellow humans
in bright red and in real time. This brief background should suffice to show that the back-
ground of the add-on’s name is quite sinister, and that its functionality is only superficially
connected to the function of Shinigami Eyes in the anime. The publisher’s nickname is also
presumably derived from the series’ protagonist’s nickname – Kira.
The browser extension, when installed, colors people’s usernames either red or green
depending on whether they have been labeled trans-hostile or trans-friendly. Figure 5.1
shows how this appears on the authors’ Twitter, where the usernames and other informa-
tion are clearly colored and consequently stand out from other users.
The initial extension marked people based on the author’s manual labeling mixed with
“machine learning”, and people can now contribute their own labels as well (Kiran, 2022).
Figure 5.2 shows the user interface that allows for the labeling of users, over a post where
the labeling of Margaret Atwood is being discussed.2
The main input for labeling seems to be manual, and the extension website offers guide-
lines for how to label. It urges a conservative attitude, with a set of examples of what is not
enough – and what is enough – to label someone anti-trans or trans-friendly (Kiran, 2022).
The criteria used are based on anti-trans and anti-nonbinary sentiment, and it is conse-
quently targeted at a subset of the challenges related to SOGIESC more broadly.
60   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

FIGURE 5.1 Three labeled users on Twitter, the left being labeled trans-friendly while the center
and right profiles are marked as trans-hostile.

FIGURE 5.2 Shinigami Eyes user interface.

If an existing label is thought to be wrong, or perhaps in need of updating as referred

to in Figure 5.2, the users can simply add new labels, which “will help us [Kiran] improve
this extension” (Kiran, 2022). Kiran also states that malicious and fake reports can be
immediately overridden locally, while only changes that “pass some trustworthiness crite-
ria (including human validation)” are included in the public dataset used to label accounts
for all Shinigami Eyes users.
The browser extension provides an example of how technology enables marginalized
and vulnerable groups to take action to protect themselves and create safer spaces online.
Having seen the challenges faced by LGBTQ+ people, and trans people in particular, the
perceived need to take action online is understandable. In fact, it might be the only way for
 Shinigami Eyes and Social Media Labeling   ◾   61

these people to feel safe enough online to not have to fully withdraw from certain platforms
and networks. Seeing how important these social arenas are in many peoples’ lives today,
this is no small matter (Jenzen, 2017).
However, the extension has also generated controversy related to how such tools poten-
tially change social media as forms of public spheres and could have negative consequences
for those being labeled, and we will shortly turn to such objections. First, however, we
note that more technical issues are also threatening to derail Shinigami Eyes. For example,
Datatilsynet (the Norwegian Data Protection Authority) recently issued a ban on process-
ing after receiving a complaint on the extension from a Norwegian individual marked as
trans-hostile by Shinigami Eyes (Datatilsynet, 2022a).
After publishing their intent to impose a ban, Datatilsynet received no replies from the
publishers of Shinigami Eyes, several more e-mails from the original complainant, and on
June 16, 2022, they proceeded to state that

Even without a response from Shinigami Eyes we have concluded that we have suf-
ficient information in order to conclude on the legality of the browser extension,
i.e. that the processing of personal data in question is in violation of Article 6(1),
Article 12(2) and Article 14 GDPR.
(Datatilsynet, 2022a)

The legal details are of less interest in this context than the overarching arguments used to
justify the ban. First of all, they argue that marking trans-hostile and trans-friendly people
online might constitute protecting people from harm, and consequently that Shinigami
Eyes pursues a legitimate interest (Datatilsynet, 2022a). Furthermore, they agree that data
processing might be necessary to pursue this legitimate interest. However, they argue that
the processing done through the extension constitutes “profiling” according to Article 4(4)
GDPR, and that being marked entails potentially significant negative consequences for
the ones marked. They can “lose their job, or friendships, and the individual could be the
target of hate and mistreatment”, and the individuals in question are not notified of being
marked or provided any insight into why they are labeled (Datatilsynet, 2022a).
This led Datatilsynet to issue a ban, as the potential harms are found weightier than the
potential benefits and the strength of the legitimate interest pursued through Shinigami Eyes.
They also mention the issue that such extensions can create “chilling effects” online, seem-
ingly mainly noting the chilling effects on those who fear marking, and not on trans people
who fear harassment and encountering anti-trans sentiment online if they express themselves
and their identities openly (Datatilsynet, 2022a). The potential chilling effects associated with
social media filtering as here discussed should not be underplayed, as there are good reasons
to be wary of a development where the debate about LBGTQ+ issues, and trans-related issues
in general, is fully closed. Our purpose in this chapter, however, is to more thoroughly explore
the implications for those being discussed – and how open debate influences them.
Datatilsynet seems to state that individuals have the option not to engage with whom-
ever they want on an individual basis, and indicate that trans people should do so instead
62   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

of relying on a “collective decision-making and categorization” which “could strengthen

echo chambers found online” (Datatilsynet, 2022a).
In closing, they state that “the legitimate interest pursued by Shinigami Eyes cannot be
assessed as one of significant strength or importance”, and they consequently impose a
ban, the effect of which at the time of writing is unsure. It might be added that the users
of the extension do not share traffic with the developers, as the username check is per-
formed locally on each computer. Furthermore, the data stored locally are not accessible in
readable format but are represented as a bloom filter (Bloom, 1970), which can be used to
test whether a particular account is in the set or not, but not list the entries in the set in a
human-readable format (Kiran, 2022).

5.4 DISCUSSION: ONLINE PUBLIC SPHERES

AND THE NEED FOR SAFE SPACES
The previous section shows how technology can be used by individuals and groups to
change and mediate mainstream media and platforms. The chosen example demonstrates
how a particularly vulnerable group can use Shinigami Eyes to make mainstream plat-
forms feel safer and more comfortable, enabling them to potentially continue using and
taking part in mainstream social media platforms instead of withdrawing from such plat-
forms completely or having platforms tailored exclusively for such groups, such as Trans
Time or similar alternatives (Haimson et al., 2020). While such technologies could indeed
be good, and could be called “real trans technology” (Haimson et al., 2021), the benefits of
maintaining contact between the trans community and non-trans people seem significant.
The positive potential of using technologies similar to Shinigami Eyes is consequently also
significant, as it potentially enables marginalized individuals to feel safer and included,
and to take part in mainstream arenas and platforms of communication considered impor-
tant for learning, engaging, and constructing identities (Lucero, 2017). In order to evaluate
whether their means of achieving such participation is acceptable, we must begin by rec-
ognizing that marginalized individuals can experience online participation as riskier than
“more privileged counterparts” (Kruse et al., 2018).
Nevertheless, Shinigami Eyes is subject to significant criticism, and we now proceed to
discuss the main potential pitfalls related to the use of such technologies. The main objec-
tions are connected to (a) ideals related to public spheres, free and open debate, and (b)
the rights of those being labeled by such tools. By and large, the objections mainly relate
to SDG 16, and we restrict our analysis to the potentially sustainability-related negative
effects of Shinigami Eyes in the following.

5.4.1 Public Spheres and the Free Exchange of Ideas

The main objections to Shinigami Eyes under this heading could be summarized as follows:

1. Labeling individuals as friendly/hostile through a non-universal technology distorts

and undermines the idea of social media as Habermasian public spheres.
2. The marketplace for free exchange of ideas is undermined by labeling of individuals
instead of arguments and messages.
 Shinigami Eyes and Social Media Labeling   ◾   63

3. Community-exclusive technologies such as Shinigami Eyes promote the emergence

of echo chambers online.

5.4.1.1 Habermasian Public Spheres

The first objection suggests that social media labeling undermines the ideal of an open
and universally accessible public sphere (Habermas, 1991). A public sphere must be open
to all and allows for society to engage in “critical public debate” (Habermas, 1991). The
public sphere is a realm of society where individuals and groups can freely partake in a
special form of public debate where arguments, and not status or tradition, govern the
discourse. The public sphere relates to political communication (Bruns & Highfield, 2015;
Fuchs, 2015; Kruse et al., 2018) and must be independent of economic and political power
with a particular emphasis on the absence of state censorship (Fuchs, 2015). This relates
to Hanna Arendt’s notion of the public realm “as the common world that gathers us
together”, creates bonds, and makes people interested in common affairs and each other
(Arendt, 1998).
An ideal public sphere would be conducive to foster common understanding and the
foundations for a functioning deliberative democracy (Kruse et al., 2018). This could
consequently contribute to promoting SDG 16 and inclusive political institutions, but by
extension it could also arguably contribute to increased awareness of and a reduction of
differences (SDG 10) and safer and more inclusive societies (SDG 11), for example. The
question, then, is whether Shinigami Eyes undermines the public sphere as an arena for
communicative action and deliberative democracy through what could be categorized as
“avoidant social media behaviors” such as labeling and potentially blocking/hiding/unfol-
lowing other participants in the sphere in question (Kruse et al., 2018).
First, the public sphere is arguably an ideal that has never existed (Bruns & Highfield,
2015). According to Fuchs (2015), Habermas engages in immanent critique when he
describes the public sphere in ways that draws out the shortcomings of capitalist society.
Assuming that the ideal of the public sphere currently exists, and that trans people labeling
trans-hostile people destroys the public sphere, entails critiquing Shinigami Eyes based on
a fantasy. There are multiple publics, and these different publics do – and arguably should
be able to – follow their own norms and use the affordances provided through extensions
and add-ons – and through the platforms themselves – according to their interests and
needs (Bruns & Highfield, 2015).
Second, social media has arguably never constituted a public sphere (Kruse et al., 2018).
People use social media for a variety of purposes, and many legitimately avoid political
topics, seek to avoid harassment, and prefer to use these media as a “happy” place for
connecting with like-minded people (Kruse et al., 2018). There is also an important dif-
ference between capitalist media and civil society media, and it is the latter that arguably
carries the potential for engendering a public sphere free of political and economic interests
(Fuchs, 2015). Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, and the other media and platforms
Shinigami Eyes deals with are all private media, and despite formal equality of access these
are arenas where “elites remain elites” (Dagoula, 2019). In Habermas’ account elites com-
municated politically with “ordinary people” as an audience (Bruns & Highfield, 2015),
64   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

and while social media is different from earlier mass media in this respect, there are still
disparities in power and reach.
Third, power and exclusion matter. The notion of the public sphere is arguably also blind
to many forms of marginalization and exclusion (Fraser, 2021; Lunt & Livingstone, 2013).
While liberal ideals suggest that universal access and individual’s freedoms constitute the
foundation for justice and at times equity, both material and non-material inequalities lead
to important differences in access to and ownership of the arenas of discourse and organi-
zation (Fuchs, 2015; Habermas, 1991; Kruse et al., 2018). The public sphere as an ideal has
been a space for “educated, rich men”, whereas women, “gays and lesbians” have been rel-
egated to the private sphere (Fuchs, 2015), and “digital gatekeepers” and others with power
construct systems in which heteronormative content is prioritized and trans-hostile content
is accepted (Jenzen, 2017). If Shinigami Eyes helps those most vulnerable to enter and use
mainstream media, rather than relying on their own separate platforms (Haimson et al.,
2020), this arguably takes us towards, rather than away from, the ideal of the public sphere.
While some are also wary of the chilling effect of Shinigami Eyes (Datatilsynet, 2022a),
it seems highly unlikely that this potential chilling effect is of more consequence than the
chilling effect that occurs from trans people abandoning mainstream platforms because
of unbridled and unmoderated trans-hostility. That one of the most marginalized groups
in society is supposedly able to undermine free speech and chill free discourse through an
extension that helps them identify individuals that are hostile to them seemingly relies on
the liberal notion of the parity and natural equality of individuals. We have shown, how-
ever, that this is little more than a fantasy, and that marginalization is both real and must
be dealt with in order to achieve sustainable development.

5.4.1.2 Marketplace of Ideas

The second objection is closely related to the first and is based on the idea that the “market-
place of ideas” should be as free as possible to generate a broad set of ideas that allows us to
consider all options freely in order to more easily arrive at something close to “truth”. The idea
is often attributed to John Stuart Mill (1985), who argued that even the “ramblings of mad-
men” are important inputs in such a process. As seen through the other objections, some fear
that Shinigami Eyes can contribute to chilling effects, arguing that the marketplace of ideas
becomes less free with such a tool, and that people will refrain from taking part in debates, or
will moderate themselves, when fearing that they could be marked as trans-hostile.
We posit that few historical media or arenas can be characterized as simultaneously
more accessible and unmoderated than, for example, Twitter. As a medium, then, it could
serve as an example of what results from a relatively free marketplace of ideas. Social media
platforms have been wary of heavily moderating content on their platforms, fearing both
accusations of interfering with free speech, but also to be held liable as editorially respon-
sible for content on the platforms (Bozdag, 2013; Southerton et al., 2021). Rather than mak-
ing these platforms the incarnation of Habermas’ public sphere, this has led to a situation
in which a large number of users do not engage in politics on these platforms as they
there experience incivility, harassment, lack of privacy, and a general disinterest in seeking
communicative action and genuine discourse aimed at becoming better informed about
 Shinigami Eyes and Social Media Labeling   ◾   65

others and others’ perspectives (Kruse et al., 2018). Furthermore, non-moderation does not
ensure some form of equity or justice, as non-interference tends to promote the interests of
those already privileged (Dagoula, 2019).

5.4.1.3 Arguments, Not People

In a press release accompanying the ban on Shinigami Eyes’ processing of data, Datatilsynet’s
acting director Janne Stang Dahl states that privacy is intended to safeguard a space for
free speech, and that “the assessment of the quality of an utterance shall not be depen-
dent on the unknown labels that follow a person across the internet” [our translation]
(Datatilsynet, 2022b).
This relates to old ideals of separating an argument from those who make the argument
(Sætra & Fosch-Villaronga, 2021). One example is Merton’s norms of science, of which
universalism is of particular relevance. The norm states that within the scientific discourse,
characteristics of the individual putting forth an argument or making a knowledge claim
should not be considered; theories, discoveries, and ideas should be assessed on what their
contents are, and according to accepted principles of the scientific method (Merton, 1942).
In his seminal 1942 paper on his norms of science, Merton stakes out the same principles
for the exchange of ideas and arguments, in line with the quote from Datatilsynet earlier.
In a discussion of careful consumption in media, Edmond (2022) describes how mar-
kets are increasingly moralized while morality is marketized. We are currently seeing how
individuals are increasingly doing just what Merton warned against, namely evaluating
products or messages in light of their creators and the process of creation (Edmond, 2022).
Rejecting the debates about wokeness and cancel culture as too simplistic, they describe
how individuals in efforts of self-improvement and self-care exercise self-control and
increasingly screen and filter content. Trans youth in particular need coping strategies and
have found measures for protecting themselves (Jenzen, 2017), such as Shinigami Eyes.
Datatilsynet (2022a) referred to their fear that screening and filtering behavior will lead
to echo chambers online – a phenomenon related to filter bubbles – in which people are not
exposed to divergent ideas (Sætra, 2021). This connects to the preceding objections, and we
here merely refer to how research shows that such phenomena, while theoretically feasible,
seem to be exaggerated (Bruns, 2019). Bruns and Highfield (2015) show how the existence
of multiple publics does not necessarily lead to echo chambers, and that such publics are
partly overlapping and not isolated. Furthermore, in the case of Shinigami Eyes, the ques-
tion is not only whether it creates echo chambers in a particular medium, such as Twitter,
but whether it could actually contribute to a wider diversity of users finding the platform
bearable, and consequently countering echo chamber tendencies.

5.4.2 The Clash of Individual Rights of Protection and Privacy Online

A key reason for Datatilsynet’s ban on Shinigami Eyes’ processing of data was the pur-
ported need to protect those being labeled. They state that being labeled could be stigma-
tizing and lead to loss of friends, work, etc., that there is no way to respond to being labeled,
and that those who are labeled are not informed about why they are labeled or that they are
labeled at all (Datatilsynet, 2022a).
66   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

These are all good reasons to question Shinigami Eyes, and they must be weighed
against the potential benefit of the extension. Much of the criticism is, however, aimed at
the technical details of how Shinigami Eyes achieves its objectives. This is not something
we explore here, and we also argue that most of these concerns could in theory be solved
with technological changes while preserving the main functionality of the extension. For
example, if Shinigami Eyes was a registered EU entity which provided reasons and insight
into the categorization process and a channel for challenging the categorizations made,
many of Datatilsynet’s concerns would in fact be moot. We believe that informing indi-
viduals of why they are listed and providing a way to appeal categorization would be ben-
eficial, and we assume that the reason this is not done is that Shinigami Eyes is nonprofit
and seemingly made and maintained by one or very few individuals.
The first concern earlier, however, would remain. It is potentially stigmatizing to be
labeled as trans-hostile. Simultaneously, while freedom of speech is an important prin-
ciple, there are very few who argue that one must be able to utter whatever one likes and be
free from the social consequences of such actions. Taking Twitter as an example, making
a trans-hostile post could easily lead to other users quote retweeting the post and calling
the user trans-hostile. Furthermore, it could lead to the person being put on a manually
assembled “ban list”, for example, put together by individuals concerned with informing
other trans people of which accounts to potentially avoid if they do not want to encounter
trans-hostile content online. In addition, individuals could of course ban the user directly.
Being put on such a list, and being quote retweeted and called trans-hostile, is also stigma-
tizing, but it is also something that most people would accept as necessary costs associated
with other individuals’ freedom to refrain from being exposed to other people and what
they perceive as harmful content. Freedom of speech does not come with an associated
duty for everyone else to listen and pay attention to the speaker. Neither does it come with
a duty for others to agree with and not challenge the speaker.
SDG 16 refers to equal access to justice and appeals to the rule of law and transparency
are clearly valid when discussing the potential negative aspects of Shinigami Eyes. As we
have stated, however, it would be theoretically possible to face all legal requirements and still
provide categorization of trans-hostile and friendly people in a manner similar to Shinigami
Eyes. The chilling effects and effects on public debate have been discussed earlier, and the
remaining concern – that it is stigmatizing to be characterized based on one’s utterances –
seems to us to be outweighed by the needs of others to be informed about and potentially
take precautions against people and messages that are hateful and make them feel unsafe.

5.5 CONCLUSION
When weighing diverging interests as we have done in this chapter, it is imperative that
we consider the disparities in power and vulnerability of those involved, and we argue that
sustainable development often requires us to side with those least well-off. Agenda 2030
is ripe with such emphasis (Sætra, 2022), and if we must choose between the rights of the
privileged and those most vulnerable, the SDGs suggest we leave no one behind. The inter-
net is a “crucial lifeline” for many LGBTQ+ youth (Jenzen, 2017), and this should urge us
to take their concerns and initiatives to increase resilience seriously.
 Shinigami Eyes and Social Media Labeling   ◾   67

Some of the key dilemmas we seemingly face when evaluating a tool like Shinigami
Eyes are:

1. The need to feel safe versus the desire for unmoderated and unfiltered debates.
2. The desire of a community to share information regarding friends and foes versus an
ideal in which there are no groups – only individuals.
3. The need to filter messages by sender due to the massive amount of information avail-
able versus the ideal of only evaluating arguments as detached from sender.
4. Untraditional forms of self-protection and resistance from the marginalized versus
calls for adherence to rules and established institutions by the privileged.

The public sphere and communicative action are indeed important, but we argue that it
seems misdirected to require of the trans community that they spearhead such a devel-
opment and simultaneously support media in which they are marginalized and encoun-
ter massive hostility without taking measures of self-care and self-protection (Edmond,
2022). In any society, some will have more power than others, and the extant structures
of media and politics will be better aligned with the needs, interests, and capabilities
of some groups of people than others. That this leads to “counter-publics” and fosters
resistance through various means and tactics is quite natural (Bruns & Highfield, 2015;
Jenzen, 2017), and we believe this is not necessarily something to be combatted.
There are multiple public spheres (Bruns & Highfield, 2015), and we should do our
best to encourage the participation of the most vulnerable and marginalized in the
mainstream media and arenas where politics and culture are debated and shaped.
Communication technology has provided new media and arenas, but these are privately
owned, largely unmoderated, and not exempt from extant social structures and power.
The use of technology to create the conditions for overcoming and navigating such land-
scapes, like Shinigami Eyes or other tools, demonstrates how individuals and groups can
to some degree resist and protect themselves. While such technologies should ideally
adhere to prevailing laws, we also argue that prevailing laws could perhaps go further
in protecting and promoting the interests and needs of those least well-off, rather than
relying on ideals of the free market of ideas and a public sphere – one that has arguably
never existed – in ways that arguably protect the interests of those already privileged. As
forcefully argued by Ongsupankul (2019), without taking the rights of sexual minorities
seriously the prospects for achieving sustainable development on all three dimensions
are undermined.

NOTES
1 The definitions related to SOGIESC used in this chapter follow the Yogyakarta principles
and the Yogyakarta Principles plus 10 (YP plus 10), found at https://yogyakartaprinciples.org/
principles-en/
2 https://twitter.com/CaseyHo/status/1452007901585809411?s=20&t=OgwPxEeQdf3uYbXzV1i3Ag
68   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

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 Chapter 6

Lessons to Be Learnt?
Education, Techno-
solutionism, and Sustainable
Development
Neil Selwyn

CONTENTS
6.1 Introduction 71
6.2 A Brief History of the Digital (Non)transformation of Education 72
6.3 Current Framings of Ed-Tech and Sustainability Into the 2020s 74
6.4 Education and Sustainability as a Focus of Ongoing Techno-solutionism 76
6.5 Problematizing Ongoing Techno-solutionism Around Education and
Sustainability 77
6.6 Thinking Otherwise – Toward Re-imagining More Sustainable Future Forms
of Digital Education 79
6.7 References 81

6.1 INTRODUCTION
At first glance, education might seem an obvious area where digital technology can be a
major enabler of sustainable development. Indeed, many people presume any aspect of
education to inherently support sustainable development – as Kioupi and Voulvoulis (2019,
p. 13) reason, “the road to sustainability is paved by education, and unless we invest on it,
we might never get there”. This chapter therefore addresses the widely held belief that digi-
tal technologies are an integral part of establishing high-quality educational conditions for
all. With digital technologies now entwined with the generation and sharing of knowledge
throughout contemporary society, growing numbers of policymakers, industrialists, and
education professionals continue to promote the imminent “digital transformation of edu-
cation” (OECD, 2021, p. 5) as a key element of sustainable development in the 2020s and
beyond. This is especially evident through the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) –

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-6 71
72   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

as UNESCO’s framing Incheon Declaration put it: “information and communication tech-
nologies must be harnessed to strengthen education systems, knowledge dissemination,
information access, quality and effective learning, and more effective service provision”
(UNESCO, 2015, p. iv).
In contrast, this chapter argues that we need to radically reconsider the relationship
between education, sustainable development, and emerging digital technologies. Belying
the prevailing hype, there is little justification to expect the digitally driven reversal of
long-standing inequalities in education. Indeed, the continued reform of education around
excessive digital technology consumption might well exacerbate social inequalities, politi-
cal divisions, and environmental degradation. In short, this chapter argues that discus-
sions around sustainable development need to move away from default assumptions that
the continued digitization of education is an inherently “good thing”. This is not to say that
digital technologies have no place at all in desirable future forms of education – rather this
is a call to re-imagine education technology in scaled-back and slowed-down forms that
might be deemed appropriate for an era of continuing social upheaval and climate collapse.

6.2 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DIGITAL (NON)

TRANSFORMATION OF EDUCATION
Notwithstanding the ongoing hype around digital education, the past 40 years provide scant
evidence that the implementation of digital technologies straight-forwardly “enhances” or
“transforms” education systems in widespread and/or lasting ways (see Selwyn, 2021a). Of
course, education systems in the Global North have invested heavily during this period in
the adoption of computers, the internet, platforms, and most recently a range of Artificial
Intelligence systems and tools. Yet, while these waves of “innovation” have all prompted
notable surface-level changes to the nature and form of what takes place in classrooms
and other education settings, any sense of progress is tempered with a general acknowl-
edgment that long-standing structural inequalities and inefficiencies of education persist
(Rafalow & Puckett, 2022). In this sense, it could be argued that we now have education
systems that might well appear to be increasingly technologically dependent, but are still
not technologically empowered.
Any discussions of education technology and sustainable development therefore need to
pay close attention to the long-standing complexities and intricacies of digital technology
and educational change. Take, on one hand, the ways in which current digitally driven forms
of school and university education in high-income countries continue to be structured by
entrenched educational logics. For example, it seems that digital technology has done little
to disrupt resilient hierarchies of time, space and place, as well as curricularized assumptions
of knowledge, the primacy of individual assessment, and other established institutional
forms of schooling. On the other hand, the dominant forms of digitization that have taken
hold in education seem primarily to reinforce and amplify “corporate reforms” of schools
and universities – supporting the creeping standardization of practice, a reliance on
metrics and data-driven accountability, and increased emphasis on market-led efficiencies.
In all these ways, then, the impacts of digital “innovations” and “disruptions” in most
 Education, Techno-solutionism and Sustainable Development   ◾   73

Global North education systems remain firmly in lockstep with vested institutional inter-
ests and the maintenance of administrative power.
At the same time is a long-standing – but largely unrealized – faith in the capacity of edu-
cation technology initiatives to redress social, economic, and cultural disparities in low-
income and middle-income regions. In policy terms, the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development is framed around the notion that “the spread of information and com-
munications technology and global interconnectedness has great potential to accelerate
human progress” (UN, 2015, para 10). In practical terms, the past 20 years or so of work
in the field of “information and communications technologies for development” (ICT4D)
is littered with high-profile instances of such tech-driven hubris. Toward the end of the
1990s, for example, the much-celebrated “Hole In The Wall” initiative saw the placement
of unattended computer kiosks in some of the poorest communities around India –
ultimately rewarded by a $1 million TED prize to further develop the idea of technology-
driven “self-organized learning”. As was subsequently claimed by the initiative’s founder
(then chief scientist at the global “IT learning solutions” corporation NIIT): “what children
achieve routinely in hundreds of ‘Holes-in-the-Walls’ in some of the remotest places on
earth is nothing short of miraculous – a celebration of learning and the power of self-
motivation” (Mitra & Dangwal, 2010, p. 680). In contrast, the impact of these interven-
tions was acknowledged widely by disinterested observers to have fallen well short of any
such claims. As Mark Warschauer (2003, p. 45) reflected: “in short, communit[ies] came to
realize that minimally invasive education was, in practice, minimally effective education”.
Another salient illustration of these unfulfilled ambitions was MIT’s much-celebrated
“One Laptop Per Child” initiative, which worked throughout the 2000s to saturate educa-
tionally impoverished communities across sub-Saharan Africa and South America with
rugged “$100 laptop” devices deemed capable of supporting self-directed learning. In con-
trast to its grand ambitions of “empowering the world’s poorest children”, OLPC ceased
operations after a few years and was soon judged to have comprehensively failed (Keating,
2009), with independent observers noting “how little the project’s vision [was] taken up in
practice” (Ames, 2016, p. 95).
Other high-profile digitally driven social renewals of education have similarly failed
to materialize. During the 2010s, for example, the emergence of Massive Open Online
Courses (MOOCs) prompted much enthusiasm – touted as a means of providing free
university-grade tuition for masses of online learners around the world regardless of their
local circumstances or prior educational experience. Yet, belying promises of radically
democratized tuition, most MOOCs proved to merely advantage those who were already
well-resourced and educationally successful (Rohs & Ganz, 2015). As Tressie McMillan
Cottom (2012, n.p) reasoned at the time:

The people who would benefit most from online learning are not necessarily
where these programs are moving. That means really ambitious autodidacts – the
kind who have long benefited most from innovative education models – will take
advantage of MOOCs to become, well, more autodidact-ish. Already privileged
74   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

elite students with broadband, iPads, Macbooks, and time (the greatest luxury of
all) will simply have more spaces in which to be privileged and elite.

Such high-profile failures illustrate the stubborn trend across the past 40 years for even
the most well-resourced and innovatively designed digital education “solutions” to floun-
der in terms of lack of fit with local contexts and needs, a lack of interest in the long-
term sustainability of such ventures, and what Kemp Edmunds (cited in Madda, 2022, n.p)
describes as “an unadulterated hubris that [technology actors] can solve complicated lay-
ered problems in extremely complex industries with many challenging stakeholders, [and]
financial, bureaucratic and time constraints”. Above all, these unrealized attempts at tech-
nological transformation warn against the folly of assuming that structural, societal, and
deep-rooted issues surrounding education are easily “fixable” via technology. As Megan
Erickson (2015, n.p.) puts it, “education is not a design problem with a technical solution”.

6.3 CURRENT FRAMINGS OF ED-TECH AND

SUSTAINABILITY INTO THE 2020S
Set against this background – and drawing on the key concepts underpinning this book
(see Chapter 2) – why should we presume that further applications of digital education
during the 2020s under the banner of “sustainable development” will be any different? In
practical terms, one of the major reasons why people continue to anticipate the digitally
driven improvement of education is the UN “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs) – in
particular, SDG 4: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong
learning opportunities for all”. Digital technology is clearly aligned with at least six of
the ten targets in SDG 4, which confidently foreground digital technology as a key area of
skill development, as well as a means of equitable delivery, and system-wide planning and
monitoring. As such, tech firm Huawei (2018) reckoned SDG 4 to have some of the high-
est levels of correspondence with digital technology across all 17 SDG goals, concluding
that “even slight technological improvements could result in better performance” in terms
of progress toward SDG 4 criteria. All told, SDG 4 continues to boost the idea of digital
technology as a potentially powerful enabler of sustainable education during the 2020s. As
Tyagi et al. (2019, p. 441) contend in a report titled “ICT Goals for SDG 4”:

rolling out ICT solutions will not only transform education and deliver social and
economic benefits to people but also provide substantial benefits for the education
sector globally.

In more specific terms, the ten SDG 4 targets and associated indicators boldly frame digital
technology use in education as potentially supporting economic, social, and environmen-
tal sustainability. These include various expected economic benefits in terms of increasing
economic growth and workforce capacity. For example, bolstering the long-standing jus-
tifications around supporting young people to develop work-related computer skills is the
continued promotion of specific forms of “digital literacy”, “learning to code”, and simi-
lar forms of technology-centered “up-skilling” within most levels of education (see also
 Education, Techno-solutionism and Sustainable Development   ◾   75

Chapter 8). More recently, schools have been positioned as key sites in the development
of “on-demand” technological competencies required by young people entering the “gig
economy” and other forms of precarious labor. We have also seen digital education initia-
tives in middle-income and low-income regions seeking to develop “digital entrepreneur-
ism” among young people – that is, programs designed to encourage technology-driven
entrepreneurial skills, “digital livelihoods” and provide digital skills development oppor-
tunities with a focus on using digital technologies to start businesses, secure employment,
and access financial products and services (UNESCO, 2018).
Alongside these presumed economic benefits are strong claims over social sustainability
outcomes. In particular is the idea of digital technologies enhancing the accessibility (and
therefore inclusivity) of education provision. This is seen to be the case, for example, for
learners with neurodevelopmental conditions, and other mental and physical disabilities
(see Chapter 7). As Megan Crawford (2017) reasons in terms of the SDG 4 goals:

With connectivity, students can access learning resources and opportunities even
in remote or low-income areas. Teachers can prepare for classes anytime or any-
where. ICT opens up access to education to underserved populations for whom
improved educational opportunities lead to improved economic opportunities.

Specific social benefits include diversifying pathways into computer science and “STEM”
careers for groups traditionally underrepresented in these employment sectors, as well
as establishing schools, libraries, and other educational institutions as centers for shared
community access to computers, internet, and other digital resources. All told, enthusiasm
abounds for the capacity of most new forms of digital technology to enhance equality of
educational opportunities and educational outcomes. As Ward (2020, n.p.) puts it, “rich
nations can contribute immensely to SDG 4 by using the next generation of educational
technology to democratize access to advanced learning on a global scale”.
Finally are burgeoning claims that the continued digitization of education can contribute
to environmental sustainability. For example, it is suggested that digital technologies are
a ready means of developing environmental education, and fostering global communities
of students centered around climate change awareness and action (Gismondi & Osteen,
2017). Alongside these benefits is the alignment of digital education with “green tech” prin-
ciples – where increased use of digital technologies in education contributes to the pursuit
of forms of eco-growth. In particular is the presumption that online education can support
the reduction of carbon emissions associated with campus-based travel and education – not
least by lowering emissions of students and teachers otherwise commuting to-and-from
classes (Versteijlen et al., 2017) alongside the reduction of on-campus power consumption
(Caird et al., 2015). If education technology is considered at all in terms of its environmental
impact, this has tended to be in wholly positive claims of “protect[ing] global environmental
resources” (Caird & Roy, 2019, p. 107). As Becker and Otto (2019, p. 8) conclude:

Digital learning . . . saves resources and CO2 emissions, thus contributing to the pro-
tection of the climate and to the goal of responsible consumption and production. . . .
76   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

it helps to connect people from different cultures by allowing for intercultural

exchange among students without additional travelling . . . it facilitates a self-regulated
learner-centered style of learning that is well-suited to empower learners to become
agents of a sustainable development.

6.4 EDUCATION AND SUSTAINABILITY AS A FOCUS

OF ONGOING TECHNO-SOLUTIONISM
All told, the received wisdom is that the continued digitization of education across the
2020s remains will play a pivotal role in advancing communities, countries, and regions
toward a range of sustainability outcomes. Indeed, in reviewing the likely impact of digi-
tal technology across the 17 SDGs, Neves (2020, p. 266) takes time to highlight a par-
ticularly “strong linkage between education and digital solutions”. Looking beyond such
speculative expectations, however, the push for continued digitized education during the
2020s is clearly extending (if not amplifying) the spirit of techno-solutionism that under-
pinned previous decades of education technology. Indeed, if anything, expectations of an
educational “technical fix” appear to be further exaggerated with each successive wave of
emerging technology. Take, for example, recent expert assertions that all ten SDG 4 indi-
cators can be positively influenced by emerging innovations around mobile internet, Big
Data, and cloud computing (Gupta et al., 2020). Similarly, so-called 4IR (Fourth Industrial
Revolution) technologies such as AI, biotech, mixed reality, quantum computing, and
robotics are now inspiring heightened rhetoric such as “wealthy nations developing trans-
formational 4IR Ed-Tech have a moral imperative to use it to achieve SDG 4” (Ward, 2020,
n.p.). At this point, the only concerns being raised seem to relate to the speed and scale of
the technology rollout. For example, when considering the potential of e-books and digital
libraries, Evans (2016) reflects,

Whilst they have their merits and arguably are having a deep and transformative
impact on particular communities, the reality is that these solutions cannot scale
quickly enough to reach the 250 million children who are not learning basic lit-
eracy. Time is not on our side if we are to achieve the SDGs by 2030.

Of course, as acknowledged throughout this book, such hype and hubris are not unique
to education. Indeed, technological solutionism is integral to mainstream thinking
around most aspects of sustainability and pervades discussions around most of the SDGs
(see Chapter 2). Indeed, current discussions around sustainable development have been
described as imbued with an “ambient promeatheanism” which foregrounds the problem-
solving capabilities of human innovation, and “advances technological solutions developed
by capital and energy-intensive projects” (Dillet & Hatzisavvidou, 2022, p. 1). Nevertheless,
the persistence of this solutionist mentality within sustainability discussions appears par-
ticularly pronounced in terms of education and SDG 4. In many ways, the appeal of this
enduring magical thinking around technology and education is understandable. Morgan
Ames’s (2019) notion of “charismatic technology” describes the ways in which new tech-
nologies gain traction within education discussions through the promised association of
 Education, Techno-solutionism and Sustainable Development   ◾   77

impressive technical progress with equally far-reaching social progress. Seen in this light,
techno-solutionism offers a high-profile and expedient means for governments, education
authorities, and other stakeholders to appear responsive to complex sustainable develop-
ment imperatives in a forthright and innovative manner. There are obvious self-interested
reasons for actors concerned with matters of sustainable development and education to
be acting in this manner. The main question that remains far less obvious, however, is
whether they are justified in doing so.

6.5 PROBLEMATIZING ONGOING TECHNO-SOLUTIONISM

AROUND EDUCATION AND SUSTAINABILITY
At this point, then, we need to consider the prospect of education technology simply con-
tinuing over the next few decades as a case of “business-as-usual”, perhaps overlaid with
a veneer of green growth. The ongoing efforts around SDG 4 certainly seem to presume
the continued mass implementation of digital technologies in the service of sustainable
development outcomes. If so, we need to also take seriously the likely adverse outcomes
and limits of continuing to pursue this line of solutionist thinking in contrast to the likely
lack of impactful change. As Katy Jordan (2020) notes, the presumed beneficial impacts of
digital technology on SDG 4 remain woefully under-scrutinized, with academic research-
ers showing little appetite for investigating actual links between digital technologies and
SDG 4. Yet, in light of previous iterations of digital (non)transformation of education, it is
doubtful that the promise of future digital education solutions under the aegis of SDG 4
will ever be fully realized. As such, it is important to acknowledge that few of these inven-
tions and initiatives are likely to address the complex societal and planetary factors under-
pinning sustainability problems in the ways that are being currently promised.
A few interrelated issues therefore need to be brought to bear on the current optimism
that persists throughout mainstream discussions around digital technologies and SDG 4.
First, it is worth stressing that this is not an argument that digital technologies are of no
benefit at all. As with previous waves of education technology initiatives and interventions
during the 2000s and 2010s, it is likely there will be plenty of specific localized instances
of digital technology innovation that might be seen as cases of “best practice” in terms
of supporting particular social, economic, and/or environmental sustainability. Digital
technologies are likely to continue to “work” for some people – for example, advantag-
ing already privileged students and teachers, and/or resulting in outcomes that “work” in
support of institutional agendas. Yet, it is important to consider the scale and scope of any
ostensibly positive applications of technology – especially in terms of the inevitably limited
capacity to address inequalities and disparities between historically marginalized and dis-
advantaged groups and regions. As Sætra (2022) points out, we should not let micro-level
impacts on individuals and small groups distract attention from (i) the differential impact
of any digital technology use at a meso-level of classes, nations, and regions, as well as (ii)
the long-term macro-level impacts of digital technologies “on our economies and societies
in the broadest sense”.
In addition, it is also important to consider the interlinked nature of any sustainable
development outcomes – with any application of digital technology in education likely to
78   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

have corresponding (and often conflicting) social, economic, political, and environmental
impacts. Indeed, one of the limitations of the current techno-solutionist framings of digital
education is how they over-simplify sustainability issues in ways that fit the technological
solutions being proposed – therefore doing little more than give a surface appearance of
addressing the problems that they purport to address (Nachtwey & Seidl, 2020). Moreover,
as reasoned in Chapter 2, dominant narratives of technological change tend to frame per-
ceptions of what is possible solely in terms of the technology to hand. This chimes with
Christo Sims’ (2017) account of how technology actors often frame (and underestimate)
education “problems” through a technical mindset, resulting in what Sims describes as a
“tunnel vision” where attention is paid only to aspects of education that fit with the tools
that are being developed.
The implications of this “tunnel vision” in terms of the capacity of current forms of digi-
tal technology to meaningfully address sustainability goals need to be taken seriously. For
example, Sims (2017) argues that this narrowness of perspective tends to marginalize con-
cerns for wider social contexts that shape educational institutions and the communities
that they serve, while often glossing over issues of wider structural inequalities altogether.
This “tunnel vision” therefore leads to tautological conclusions where the implementation
of a new digital technology is offered as a plausible response to problems that have been set
in train by the use of a preceding digital technology. In addition is a worrying tendency
for digital technology to fundamentally alter how issues of sustainability in education are
perceived – not least, the “economisation and depoliticization of planetary environmental
issues” (Dillet & Hatzisavvidou, 2022, n.p.; see also Chapter 17).
In this sense, it is well worth reconsidering the likely adverse outcomes of continuing
to pursue reductionist forms of solutionist thinking in relation to sustainable development
and SDG 4. In particular, this raises the need to consider the possibility that digital edu-
cation developments are unlikely to address the complex social nature of sustainability
problems in the ways that are promised. Instead, if anything, it might be expected that the
current wave of techno-solutionism is most likely to perpetuate (and perhaps intensify)
sustainability harms. Take, for instance, the ways in which virtual schooling was imple-
mented across the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns of school and university systems –
demonstrating consistently how technology-based education remains predicated on elite
consumption and uneven benefits (Sosa Díaz, 2021). As Susan Flynn (2021), writing from
the perspective of an educator in a high-income country, reflects on the “online pivot” dur-
ing the COVID-19 pandemic:

The digital realm proffers ease of access, connectivity, easy dissemination of

knowledge and information but it also produces and sustains inequalities and per-
petrates assumptions. Our students may not be the digital natives we assume, nor
is their access to technology necessarily equitable.

Alongside these disparities in educational outcomes are the ways in which digitally focused
forms of skills education have also proven to exacerbate social inequalities in employment
outcomes – at best facilitating access to low-status, low-paid, routine and precarious jobs
 Education, Techno-solutionism and Sustainable Development   ◾   79

within the new economy, or trapping young people into a subsistence self-employment
along decidedly vulnerable and marginalized forms of digitally driven “entrepreneurial-
ism”. As Angela Dy (2019, pp. 11–12) contends:

Despite the transformative potential of the Internet, the landscape of digital entre-
preneurship is still shaped by social patterns of privilege and disadvantage . . . the
current trend of encouraging digital entrepreneurship as a means to social mobil-
ity and economic independence for marginalized and disadvantaged people may
in fact be encouraging greater economic vulnerability.

Perhaps most noteworthy (yet glossed over in most discussions of education and technol-
ogy) are the ways in which a continued emphasis on digital education is likely to exacerbate
growing ecological and environmental harms associated with the production, consump-
tion, and disposal of digital technology. For example, picking up on Brevini’s arguments in
Chapter 3, any enthusiasms for the increased use of AI in education surely have to reckon
with the materiality of this technology and its deleterious consequences for the planet.
Striving to refashion education around AI, augmented reality, and other emerging digital
technologies feeds directly into the problems that Brevini highlights regarding the depletion
of scarce resources in manufacturing, usage and disposal processes, alongside the excessive
amounts of energy used to support data processing and storage, and the exacerbation of
waste and pollution issues. The continued excessive application of digital technology in any
context – education included – makes little sense in terms of environmental sustainability.
All told, we need to take seriously the prospect that digital education is unlikely to be a
key enabler of sustainable development and might well result in regressive and ultimately
harmful outcomes for many people and regions. This corresponds with broader emerg-
ing concerns among environmental activists – what Jonathan Crary sees as the “obvious
but unsayable reality” that digital technology is not likely to be an instrumental of radical
change – instead, that “if there is to be a livable and shared future on our planet, it will be
a future offline” (Crary, 2022, p. 1). Set against this bleak perspective, therefore, it seems
increasingly important that we need to think otherwise when it comes to the forms of “digi-
tal education” that should be encouraged under the aegis of sustainable development.

6.6 THINKING OTHERWISE – TOWARD RE-IMAGINING MORE

SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FORMS OF DIGITAL EDUCATION
In this spirit of thinking otherwise, we now need to reflect on the challenge of looking
forward to what could (or should) be done differently when it comes to digital technol-
ogy, education, and sustainable development. First is the need to reframe popular, profes-
sional, and policy discussions about education and digital technology along more socially,
economically, and environmentally realistic lines. The arguments advanced in this chap-
ter (and across most chapters in this book) follow what can be broadly understood as a
“socio-technical” perspective – that is, considering the application of digital technologies
“in context, and not as some isolated and neutral tool” (Sætra, 2022). As has been evi-
dent throughout all of this chapter’s discussions, the application of digital technology in
80   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

education needs to be seen as a coming together of technical and social issues – of devices,
institutions, economic and political systems, scientific laws, and social relations.
Seen in this light it makes little sense to expect sustainable development outcomes to
arise unproblematically from the application of digital technology in education. Instead,
education technology needs to be reframed as a political issue – that is, guided by values
that some actors wish to see realized, while clashing with the values of others. At pres-
ent, the dominant values informing the implementation of digital education under the
aegis of SDG 4 and “sustainable development” make sense only in terms of what has been
described elsewhere in this book as the “shallow” ecological thinking that typifies the utili-
tarian pragmatism of Western governments, businesses, and industry (see Chapter 18). The
subtext of many of this chapter’s criticisms is that any such “business-as-usual” approach
is likely not good enough. Instead, we need to re-imagine digital education along more
radical lines. In short, we need to find more refined forms of sustainable digital education
that do not perpetuate harms to marginalized people and are not yoked to presumptions
of continued economic growth and/or the excessive harmful waste of planetary resources.
One such radical alternative might be reframing our ambitions for digital technology
and education around an explicit eco-justice agenda (e.g., Ale, 2021). This might start with a
collective “withdrawal” or “releasement” from unsustainable and harmful forms of educa-
tion technology (Heikkurinen, 2018) – that is, not feeling compelled to be led by “gigantic”
developments in corporate software development, but instead feeling confident to follow
other lines of digital use. In this spirit, we might choose to re-imagine education technol-
ogy along more “sustainable” lines, where the allocations of digital resources are appor-
tioned fairly and do not excessively disadvantage the already disadvantaged. In its own
small way, then, these are alternate values and principles that educators, policymakers,
and other stakeholders would do well to take on board as they face up to the challenge of
deciding what “sustainable” technology use in education might look like in times that are
increasingly shaped by climate crisis, social upheaval, and political instability. From this
perspective, rethinking sustainable forms of digital technology use in education requires
us to focus on questions of ethics alongside questions of ecology.
In the immediate term, this reframing of education technology first compels us to
consider current forms of digital technology that might be considered “sustainable” in
nature, and therefore deserving of retention. These technologies and practices might ful-
fill a number of briefs. First is the encouragement of “low-impact” technology use sus-
tained by re-use, repair, and recycling of digital resources within education settings and
local communities (thereby bringing education technology into correspondence with the
efforts around SDG 12 – “responsible consumption and production”). Second is a general
emphasis on basic forms of digital technologies that can be easily produced, maintained,
augmented, and repurposed on a local basis. This relates to the degrowth ethos of “volun-
tary simplicity” (Liegey & Nelson, 2020, p. 12) and the prioritization of technology that is
“slower by design” (Kallis et al., 2020, p. ix). Echoes of these approaches are certainly evi-
dent throughout the recent history of educational computing – especially in terms of the
renewed interest throughout the 2010s for mini-computers such as the Raspberry Pi and
MicroBit, as well as the adoption of “Maker technology” and other forms of “tinkering”.
 Education, Techno-solutionism and Sustainable Development   ◾   81

Much of this alternate spirit of what might be termed “Ed-Tech within limits” (Selwyn,
2021b) is also evident within communities and contexts whose engagements with digital
technologies are already substantially constrained by climate, hostile environments, and
limited resources and infrastructure. In this sense, high-income countries might also learn
from looking toward the forms of technology-based education innovation that have devel-
oped (and sometimes flourished) in low-income countries, regions, and contexts. Indeed,
the history of locally driven education technology development in low-income contexts
over the past 20 years or so can provide strong pointers to the forms of digital technology
infrastructure and use that might be considered “appropriate” for increasingly resource-
constrained and environmentally hostile circumstances elsewhere. These include “low-
tech” technology such as radio, telecentres, SMS, and pre-loaded dumbphones. Indeed,
the worldwide shutdowns of schooling during the successive waves of the COVID-19
pandemic saw local educators in many low-income and middle-income countries turn to
analog technologies (such as radio, television, dumbphones, and paper-based resources)
to redress the inequalities of online schooling (see Meinck et al., 2022). As such, all these
examples point to a number of principles that might be taken forward into re-imagining
education technology for an era of climate crisis.
Regardless of specific form and design, the different ideas just outlined all point to ways
in which we might begin to rethink education technology in terms of distributive justice –
fostering sustainable and socially appropriate forms of technology use for disadvantaged
groups who stand to benefit most from the use of education technology (and, conversely,
lose most from the enforced absence of education technology). This also suggests establish-
ing norms of what constitutes “fair” forms of education technology access and use, as well
as foregrounding principles of collective decision-making and communal ways of manag-
ing how technologies are developed and deployed in education (O’Sullivan et al., 2021).
All told, these examples highlight that reframing forms of education technology that are
appropriate for an age of climate crisis, increasing social instability, and other concerns
that relate to “sustainable development” does not simply equate with making less use of
technology in education. Instead, it requires engaging with the complex problem of how
to make less use of technology for more just education outcomes. These are clear shifts and
changes that will not arise from continuing to approach education and sustainable devel-
opment along techno-solutionist lens.

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Educational Disruption Survey (REDS). UNESCO/IEA
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experiment. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(5), 672–688.
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 Chapter 7

Virtual Reality and Autism

Anders Dechsling and Anders Nordahl-Hansen

CONTENTS
7.1 Introduction 85
7.2 Autism 86
7.3 Autism Interventions 86
7.4 Virtual Reality 88
7.5 Virtual Reality and Autism 88
7.6 The Sustainable Development Goals and Autism 89
7.7 Ethical Considerations 91
7.8 Conclusion 91
7.9 References 92

7.1 INTRODUCTION
Autism Spectrum Disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition affecting approximately 1%
of the world’s population directly (Lord et al., 2020; Zeidan et al., 2022), and many autistic
individuals have a need for help in terms of special education and other support systems.
There is not a broad consensus on how and how much help is needed, but it is indisputable
that the amount of support is demanding, expensive, and time-consuming. Even though
the diagnostic term and description of autism spectrum disorder (autism from hereon)
somewhat indicate that this is a lifelong condition, there is no reason to believe that autistic
individuals are not able to learn. Hence, they should be provided with the same possibili-
ties as others – which is in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) (see Chapter 2). Early interventions can lead to huge differences later in life for
autistic individuals, which in turn leads to the individual fulfilling their life in line with
their own values.
There are already significant differences between service sites, schools locally, and coun-
tries (e.g., low- to middle-income countries [LMIC] vs. high-income countries). Even in
high-income countries, autistic children do not necessarily receive the best possible service
due to, for instance, a lack of trained personnel and resources. In addition, rural places
might lack specialists making it necessary to have a more efficient system of service delivery.
Interventions aiming to help autistic individuals in maneuvering society are not available
for all. Recent technological advancements have opened new approaches to understanding
DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-7 85
86   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

progress in developmental sciences, including intervention and support for groups that
delineate from normative development (Marschik et al., 2022). Technology, such as virtual
reality (VR), has the potential to be of help in reaching the SDGs related to equality in edu-
cation and facilitation for all individuals in acquiring the help needed. Despite technology
having potential in educational settings and interventions, there are important aspects
to problematize. For instance, as Selwyn points out in Chapter 6, whether technological
advancements will benefit LMIC countries and regions is not a straightforward matter
and might even increase inequalities. Further, it is unlikely that VR can be a substitute for
human resources in autism interventions, but rather a supplement.
After presenting important characteristics of autism and autism research, and VR autism
research, this chapter will discuss advantages and disadvantages of applying VR in light
of the SDGs. We will touch upon and elaborate on the availability of the tool, the support
needed, the fact that it should be used as a supplement rather than a substitute, and that
there are a variety of factors related to support needs, implementation, and development.

7.2 AUTISM
Autism Spectrum Disorder is a diagnosis characterized by differences in social com-
munication, and repetitive patterns of thinking and behavior (American Psychiatric
Association, 2013). A person can be diagnosed with autism at any point in life but usually
the diagnosis is given in childhood and adolescence. The diagnosis is given on the grounds
of presentation of the core characteristics mentioned earlier. It is important to note that
autistic individuals are a highly heterogeneous group that includes people that need full
care throughout their lives, but also those that can live independently with little need of
support.
Autistic children and adolescents by definition of the diagnostic criteria experience
social-communicative challenges and have fewer reciprocal relationships in kindergarten
and school. It is common for autistic children to experience bullying which in turn lead
to health issues like anxiety (Skafle et al., 2020), depression (Øien et al., 2019), loneliness
(Mazurek, 2014), and school refusal behavior (Munkhaugen et al., 2017). Substantial efforts
have been made to develop interventions that can help autistic individuals, in particular
with a focus on social communication. During the last decade, there has been a consider-
able increase in the focus on enabling technologies and how technological support might
be used within existing intervention frameworks, with further developments of these
frameworks. In the following, we focus on the particulars of one technological support aid,
namely VR, and how this might be used within the intervention framework viewed as one
of the most effective evidence-informed approaches to helping autistic children in regard
to the social-communicative domain of development, namely Naturalistic Developmental
Behavioral Interventions (NDBIs). But first we give a general overview of the field of autism
interventions from past to present.

7.3 AUTISM INTERVENTIONS
Interventions are delivered in a variety of formats and vary with regard to aims. The inter-
ventions may focus on particular skills or behaviors, while others have a broader scope and
 Virtual Reality and Autism   ◾   87

focus on multiple skills, behaviors, and domains. Depending on the choice of interven-
tions, there is a significant range in intensity of hours. For instance, some short interven-
tions are conducted for one hour per week in a short period, while more comprehensive
interventions lie in between and up to 40 hours per week for several years. It also varies
whether the interventions are led by trained personnel such as therapists or special educa-
tion therapists working with the children in clinical or educational settings, or whether the
interventions are conducted in natural settings led by therapists, or carried out by caregiv-
ers or other non-specialists under supervision from trained personnel (Kaale & Nordahl-
Hansen, 2019).
Developmental intervention approaches focus on the fundamental developmental aspect
that children explore and act on their environment, with support and guidance from sig-
nificant persons in their surroundings. Building on theoretical and empirical accounts
(Carpenter et al., 1998), reciprocity between child and significant others can be capitalized
upon to spur further development and learning. Many influential autism interventions are
built on such principles, and joint attention, that is, the sharing of a common focus toward
an event or object, has been highlighted as important for development and thus an impor-
tant target for early interventions (Lord et al., 2022).
Interventions based on Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) approaches target a broad
range of behaviors and skills considered important for the individual, such as communi-
cation and language skills, motor development, and adaptive behaviors. These interven-
tions can be comprehensive both in time, frequency, and context. Many studies indicate
an impact of ABA interventions in terms of changes in effect sizes, but it is difficult to
conclude the effectiveness of ABA interventions due to shortcomings in design and sample
size (Sandbank et al., 2020), mainly due to single-case designs without control groups.
Several issues must be considered when deciding on intervention approaches for autistic
children. For instance, even though the characteristics of the diagnosis indicate a number
of similarities, there is a significant heterogeneity among autistic individuals. The differ-
ences are shown not only in cognitive and other behavioral skills but also in how they
might respond to various interventions. Further, people change due to development which
also have implications for type of intervention or content for younger children as opposed
to older adolescents. Still, the clinical effectiveness of interventions and evidence on best
practice remain undecided. There are methodological challenges as well as measurement
issues smudging the possibilities of clear-cut conclusions. However, NDBIs were consid-
ered the most promising intervention approach in a recent meta-analysis by Sandbank
et al. (2020). NDBI is an overarching term describing various interventions using tech-
niques from developmental psychology and behavioral theory in naturalistic settings
(Schreibman et al., 2015). NDBIs are all using three core elements and have several com-
mon interventional strategies (Schreibman et al., 2015). These three core elements involve
(a) training a wide range of skills instead of just training specific skills in discrete training
environments, (b) an emphasis on naturalistic learning contexts, and (c) using combina-
tions of various elements and strategies to boost learning.
The cost of many autism interventions is high in terms of both economic and practi-
cal feasibility. This is often the case because of the resources, requirements, and lack of
88   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

training opportunities, in addition to challenges related to accessibility in rural areas where

qualified personnel and resources might be scarce (Lang et al., 2010). Many of these chal-
lenges in autism interventions can be considered key strengths of what a VR intervention
program can offer. In addition, caregivers and professionals have already made the call
for suitable technological tools that support and educate autistic children (Putnam, 2019).
However, the evidence on technology interventions is still scarce and research applying
technology to the aforementioned and already established intervention approaches is war-
ranted (Sandbank et al., 2020).

7.4 VIRTUAL REALITY
The use of technology to facilitate learning and skill development has undergone numer-
ous iterations during its relatively short history, and its application has expanded to include
VR. The term VR describes artificial environments displayed through visual and auditory
stimuli by generating realistic images or other sensations that simulate a sense of presence.
VR is considered suitable to simulate naturalistic situations and, since it is not necessarily
restricted to geographical locations, it enables clinicians to create training environments
otherwise not accessible (Dechsling, Shic, et al., 2021) and to deliver over distance. The
virtual environment can be set up so that the user can do various tasks with a high level
of flexibility and complexity, presenting a range of potential benefits to ecological valid-
ity. These environments and tasks (in VR) are presented with different kinds of hardware
equipment with different levels of immersion. Some virtual environments are presented
using desktop or tablet computers which are considered low-immersive, while Kinect
and other interactive equipment are considered more immersive. The highest levels of
immersion are presented in the now affordable consumer product head-mounted displays
(HMD) or in Cave Automatic Virtual Environments (CAVE; Miller & Bugnariu, 2016).
HMD is a wearable mobile headset equipped with projectors while also shutting out visual
stimuli from the real environment in order to provide a sense of the virtual environment
surrounding the user completely and enables them to directly interact and get sensory
feedback. CAVE, on the other hand, presents a pseudo-three-dimensional environment
without any wearables using several two-dimensional projected displays around the user
or using motion sensor cameras.

7.5 VIRTUAL REALITY AND AUTISM

Acceptability, enjoyment, and high motivation in using HMDs and computer-technology
platforms have been reported in many studies, including children with autism (Dechsling
et al., 2020; Newbutt et al., 2016; Newbutt et al., 2020). In addition, several researchers have
described VR as having advantages over other forms of training skills for autistic individu-
als (Yang et al., 2017). The possibility of simulating real-world environments with reduced
stress or feeling of anxiety for negative real-world consequences when practicing various
situations is seen as the major possible advantage.
The embedding of interventions in an HMD-VR environment might even decouple the
need for an intervention from the need for highly trained and rare specialists providing 1:1
intervention with physical presence. This in turn could empower teachers and caregivers
 Virtual Reality and Autism   ◾   89

who are in daily contact with the children and makes use of centralized and digitally acces-
sible expertise to a wider range of beneficiaries.
Sandbank et al. (2020) concluded that there was a lack of evidence for technological
interventions for autism and one of the possible explanations was the absence of theoreti-
cal grounding in the assessed studies. They articulated the need for a better integration
of technology and validated non-technological intervention techniques, and Schreibman
et al. (2015) called for continued innovation in implementing NDBI in clinical practice in
order for it to be more available and widely delivered in community settings. Despite agree-
ment on the necessity of including NDBI elements, no highly immersive VR intervention
on children with autism explicitly mentions NDBI and only ten studies using immersive
VR incorporated some NDBI elements of the common intervention strategies (Dechsling,
Shic, et al., 2021). Technology interventions building upon established effective interven-
tions, such as NDBI, offer a potentially more effective, innovative, and efficient way of
delivering evidence-based interventions (Dechsling, Shic, et al., 2021).
As one of the main characteristics of autism is associated with social communication, a
common target for interventions focuses on skills and behaviors within this developmen-
tal domain. When investigating the scope of the literature on autism, VR, and social skills,
Dechsling, Orm, et al. (2021) found 50 studies with a broad range of modalities, interven-
tion strategies, and target behaviors. The main research gap within this line of research
appeared to be low reporting of the acceptability, skewed male-to-female ratio, lack of
theoretical grounding, few studies on autistic individuals with intellectual disabilities, and
lack of rigorous and diversity in types of research designs (Table 2; Dechsling, Orm, et al.,
2021; see also Nordahl-Hansen et al., 2020).

7.6 THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND AUTISM

The SDG 4 seeks to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-
long learning opportunities for all”. Education and possibilities for learning are key fac-
tors for psychological developmental processes, also for individuals with developmental
disabilities of various kinds. Individuals with intellectual disabilities or developmental
disorders seem to have a higher dropout rate compared to neurotypical peers (Adams
et al., 2022). Hence, in order to reach the SDG 4, it is important to focus on the group of
children and students that need special education resources and provide them with the
possibilities of reaching relevant and effective learning outcomes, as well as increasing the
chances for academic completion and success. Furthermore, the use of VR in educational
settings can actually be considered an “education facility that is child, disability and gen-
der sensitive and provides safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments
for all” (SDG 4.a).
Targeting a wide range of skills and areas might be crucial in reaching the SDG for the
autistic community. Later, we elaborate further on how VR has already addressed some of
these issues, and how we suggest that VR can contribute further in reaching the goals of
SDGs. We start off with the optimistic view of the technology’s possible solutions before
pointing at the critical questions that need to be raised and elaborating on our concerns by
thinking that technology alone can solve the issues raised.
90   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

The problems related to school refusal, dropouts, or lack of educational degrees (SDG
4, target 4.1.2) for autistic individuals are multifaceted. For instance, the school refusal
behavior is often related to problems with social interaction and other demands, as well
as motivational issues (Adams et al., 2022; Munkhaugen et al., 2019). Training social
skills might have cascading effects on school attendance and academic skills (Kim et al.,
2018). Furthermore, also in rural areas, this kind of technology could provide individual
adjusted or alternative educational context that increases each individual’s opportunity
to complete their educational degree with at least a minimum proficiency level in aca-
demic skills (SDG 4, target 4.1.1; Parsons et al., 2019; Speyer et al., 2018). In addition,
more experience using such tools might increase their competence within ICT (SDG 4,
target 4.4.1).
Gender issues are also prevalent in autism research. First of all, there is a higher preva-
lence of diagnosed boys with autism than girls, with an estimated ratio of 3:1, respec-
tively (Loomes et al., 2017). In VR, research samples appear to have a gender ratio of
around 6:1 (Dechsling, Orm, et al., 2021). There might be several reasons why these gen-
der ratios appear as they do (see, for instance, Øien et al., 2018), but the gender ratio in
VR research on autistic populations is a gap that should be taken into consideration by
researchers conducting such studies (Dechsling, Orm, et al., 2021) and should be given
extra focus in order to reach the target of eliminating gender disparities in education and
ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the vulnerable,
including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, and children in vulnerable situa-
tions (SDG 4, target 4.5).
Target 4.5 also entails the importance of giving the same possibilities to persons with
disabilities. Approximately, 70% of autistic individuals have co-occurrence of additional
diagnoses such as intellectual disability (Øien et al., 2019), but autism and intellectual dis-
abilities still appear as a research gap within most areas of autism research (Russell et al.,
2019), including VR and autism research (Dechsling, Orm, et al., 2021). Therefore, it should
be given more focus in order to reach the target.
Several studies utilize VR in training vocational skills (Kim et al., 2022; Speyer et al.,
2021). These studies might be crucial in increasing the number of people that get relevant
technical and vocational skills, thus reaching the SDG 4, target 4.4. These skills range from
job interview skills to on-task training.
Intervention research for children with autism, including the NDBIs, has mainly focused
on children of preschool age but VR studies for preschool children are few (Dechsling,
Orm, et al., 2021), and thus making it challenging using VR to reach the SDG 4, target 4.2
on pre-primary education.
A concern is whether skills acquired through VR interventions can be generalized into
skills in everyday life. Little evidence from interventions support the generalization of
skills from different types of technological interventions. Further, there is a risk that the
amount of interaction between teachers, caregivers, or peers is reduced, and thus reduces
real-life social interactions (Dahl et al., 2021; Ramdoss et al., 2012). It is probably wise that
VR should be used not as a substitute for traditional support and education but rather as
a supplement.
 Virtual Reality and Autism   ◾   91

7.7 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
There are several ethical considerations that need to be made when implementing and
applying technology. Virtual reality technology adds to the numbers of considerations
when thinking of the implications of the use of hardware such as HMD (Sætra et al., 2022).
For instance, General Data Protection Regulation plans need to be rigorously handled for
the protection of the individual participating in both research and practical implications.
Bearing in mind the reports on autistic individuals having an increased amount of sen-
sory issues compared to the rest of the population (Glod et al., 2019; Thye et al., 2018), it
is necessary to look into the reports from autistic individuals on whether they think VR
is an acceptable and preferable tool compared to traditional intervention approaches. As
autistic individuals represent a highly heterogeneous group, no study can account for every
individual and it is important to always make the normative considerations individually.
Tailoring can, of course, be done within traditional approaches, but this is also possible in
VR. Dechsling et al. (2020) propose a systematic way of making these considerations based
on the checklist by Løkke and Salthe (2012) and provide a systematic review of the accept-
ability reported by autistic individuals on using VR- and computer-based technology. They
concluded that VR technology is considered acceptable, enjoyable, and even motivating
(Dechsling et al., 2020). Additional research underlines these results by clinical investiga-
tions. For instance, Newbutt et al. (2016) found that VR was both enjoyable and motivat-
ing, and Newbutt et al. (2020) found that high-immersive VR tools are the most preferred
among less immersive versions.
Additional ethical considerations are to be made in the developments of interventions
or assessment programs. Participatory designs have been given a great deal of attention,
and there is and should be a wide focus on involving the users and their representatives in
developing and evaluating tools and content (Parsons et al., 2020). Newbutt and Bradley
(2022) offered a case example and suggestions on how these issues can be solved within VR
research and practice.

7.8 CONCLUSION
The challenges associated with the characteristics of the autism diagnosis should be targeted
on a societal level (Gillespie-Lynch et al., 2017), but it is also important to ensure lifelong
learning and vocational opportunities in line with the SDGs. Giving autistic children the
support and help they need through interventions can be costly and require specific train-
ing, and accessibility varies due to geographical conditions and lack of qualified personnel
or other resources (Lang et al., 2010). However, cost–benefit analyses indicate coming in
early with help and support can lower costs drastically at later stages in life (Buescher et al.,
2014). Thus, training and economically low-threshold qualification opportunities provid-
ing contact with persons with the skills necessary to conduct a beneficial and automatized
intervention is often key. VR interventions in a virtual environment provide centralized
and digitally accessible expertise to a wider range of beneficiaries. Studies are emerging that
indicate feasibility of distanced interventions through, for instance, parent coaching, and
also in low-resource regions. Methodologically sound investigations of intervention effects
92   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

have been scarce, but there is an increase in available evidence and rapid implementation
of potentially positive research findings can be put into practice (Sandbank et al., 2020).
Implementation of research findings does potentially not require effortful systemic changes
in the healthcare apparatus, but low economic investment, minimal, or no changes in regu-
latory or educational aspects, and a constant quality assurance by combining the dissemi-
nation of novel digital means with the centrally available expertise. However, it is of key
importance that user involvement, meaning that autistic people themselves take part in the
development and designs of VR intervention studies, is an inherent and active part of stud-
ies on VR for autistic individuals for quality assurance. Individual autistic users, user group
representatives, and an autistic co-researcher should be a natural part of VR and autism
studies for it to be inclusive and increase the applicability and acceptance.
Digital means, such as VR technology, can contribute to a new level of sustainability and
reaching the SDGs in terms of interventions that are personally delivered (by, for instance,
teachers), but centrally quality assured by scientists – providing novel and easy-to-use
opportunities for more ease of access regardless of geographical position or socioeconomic
level. VR interventions have the possibilities to acquire and exercise various skills in a
safe environment even from an early age. Enhanced skills and the capacity to cope with
daily challenges, for example, in school settings could prevent school refusal or drop out
and thus provide the relevant skills also for autistic individuals. However, more emphasis
is needed on providing females with the same possibilities as they are underrepresented
in research regarding technology and autism. Providing autistic individuals with these
opportunities has possible cascading effects toward reaching additional SDGs such as
increased well-being in individuals, use of enabling technology to empower women and
girls, work for all, and hopefully reduced inequalities. Still, although many studies are
emerging testing efficacy and effectiveness of VR interventions for autistic individuals, the
jury is still out as to what types of VR interventions are effective for what type of individu-
als. Also, an important point is whether VR interventions can be a supplement or delivered
as total intervention packages. Further, although some results indicate acceptability within
the autism community, that is the end users, the amount of research is still scarce.

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 Chapter 8

The Technologically
Sustained Digital Divide
Erlend Ingridsønn Nordrum

CONTENTS
8.1 Introduction 97
8.2 Digital Technology Has Not Fixed Inequality 98
8.2.1 SDGs 98
8.2.2 Techno-solutionism and the Notion That Access to Digital Technology
Can Reduce Inequality 99
8.2.3 Lagging ICT Skills and Increasing Inequalities Within Countries 99
8.3 Why Digital Technology Has Not Fixed Inequality 100
8.3.1 3 Levels of Digital Divide Theory 100
8.4 Why Digital Technology Will Not Fix Inequality 102
8.4.1 Mode of Production 103
8.5 Consequences of the SDGs and Sustainability 106
8.6 References 107

8.1 INTRODUCTION
The SDGs emphasize technology-based growth to achieve social sustainability, but is there
an inherent tension between the increased use of technology and social sustainability?
This chapter argues that there is and that this is demonstrated in tensions between various
goals in the United Nation’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) (United Nations, 2015).
A particular tension I focus on here is between SDG target 9.c which aims increasing access
to information and communications technology (ICT), and SDG target 10.1 which aims
raising the relative income of the lower 40% within nations. While these might appear to
be relative eclectic minor parts of the SDGs, I will argue that this tension is one of the most
central challenges in contemporary society: ICT is potentially going to change how we
produce and distribute wealth. The tension also involves other goals like SDG 8 which aims
at promoting “sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive
employment and decent work for all”, and SDG 4 which promotes equitable quality educa-
tion for all.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-8 97
98   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

I begin this chapter by laying out the main SDGs and the UN’s techno-optimistic view
of ICTs. While I agree that ICTs can be developed to solve many problems and neutral-
ize disadvantages, I point out one kind of inequality that does not seem to go down with
technological advancement, namely the inequalities within countries. In the next section,
I begin explaining why economic inequalities are maintained through three stages of digi-
tal divides. I then proceed to discuss the economy of digital commodities and how supply
and demand will make the digital divide larger as the technology progress. I argue that
this process can fundamentally change how we produce and distribute resources in society
and draw a parallel to Karl Marx’s concept of mode of production which he used to describe
how mass production enabled the capitalist mode of production. Lastly, I discuss and con-
clude the consequences my analysis has for the pursuit of the UN’s SDGs.

8.2 DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY HAS NOT FIXED INEQUALITY

In this section, I will place this chapter’s research question within the frames of the UN’s
Sustainable Development Agendas and explicitly point out the relevant elements of the
SDGs. Within these SDGs, I point out an overly optimistic expectation of ICTs to improve
society which comes without sufficient justification. I then present some ways ICTs can
reduce inequalities between people, and why some might believe that the technology will
lead to more economically equal societies. I then show that this does not seem to align with
the available evidence.

8.2.1 SDGs
SDG 10 takes aim at reducing inequalities, both within and among countries (United
Nations, 2015). It is worth noting that this goal targets different levels of inequality; at the
macro-level between countries and at the meso- and micro-levels within countries (see
Chapter 2). These levels are also evident in the various targets. For example, target 10.1
concerns raising the relative income of the lower 40% of within nations. Thus, this target
is aimed mainly at impacting the micro-level. Targets 10.2 and 10.3 are mainly targeted
at the meso-level, as it seeks to empower and include various demographic groups. Target
10.6 is an example of a macro-oriented target, where it seeks to ensure enhanced represen-
tation of developing countries in international economic and financial institutions. In this
chapter, I will primarily focus on the inequalities between individuals and socioeconomic
groups, which then places this in a micro- and meso-perspective. And I will be primarily
concerned with the UN’s goal of reducing inequality within countries.
SDG 9 aims at building resilient infrastructure, fostering inclusive and sustainable inno-
vation and industrialization. Promoting ICT and providing universal internet access to the
least developed countries are explicitly mentioned as one of the targets (9.c) of this goal.
Thus, the UN considers ICTs and particularly the internet as resilient, inclusive, and/or
sustainable technology – at least potentially, as discussed further in Chapter 18. In Agenda
2030, it is claimed that

[t]he spread of information and communications technology and global intercon-

nectedness has great potential to accelerate human progress, to bridge the digital
 The Technologically Sustained Digital Divide   ◾   99

divide and to develop knowledge societies, as does scientific and technological

innovation across areas as diverse as medicine and energy.
(United Nations, 2015, p. 5)

However, very few details on the mechanisms for how this is achieved are provided. This
optimistic view of the potential for ICTs to improve society ignores potential adverse effects
and relies on an overly simplistic view of the digital divide, as I will show later in this chapter.

8.2.2 Techno-solutionism and the Notion That Access to

Digital Technology Can Reduce Inequality
Information and communication technology certainly be used to empower the less
privileged. Some of these solutions have been highlighted in other chapters of this book.
For example, Deschling and Nordahl-Hansen (Chapter 7) use virtual reality to help
people with autism disorder develop social skills, and Tschopp and Salam (Chapter 9)
explore the potential impact of AI on gender and discrimination. Education is another
prime area discussed by Selwyn in Chapter 6. He deals with the idea that it is often
assumed that harnessing information and communication technologies is a require-
ment for strengthening “education systems, knowledge dissemination, information
access, quality and effective learning, and more effective service provision” (OECD,
2021, p. 5).
Despite the potential improvements that digital technology brings to the life of people
with various disadvantages, these are generally solutions in the form of products to be
consummated by the disadvantaged. In this chapter, I focus instead on how ICTs influ-
ence the production process and employment of people. Some might think that providing
access to digital tools will obviously bring the developing world up the economic speed of
the developed. After all, the digital technology sector is a highly lucrative sector with high-
paying jobs in many parts of the world right now. If the poorer workers of the world could
participate in this economy, they could significantly improve their financial situation. At
least that is how the story goes. Next, I show that this does not seem to be the case as most
people in even highly digitalized societies don’t possess advanced digital skills and that
inequalities within countries seem to be increasing.

8.2.3 Lagging ICT Skills and Increasing Inequalities Within Countries

The SDG target 9.c related 2021 report from the International Telecommunication Union
(ITU) shows the potential benefits of being online. We find that access to the internet is
increasing rapidly across the globe (especially in the least developed countries) with a cur-
rent estimate of 63% of the world population being online and 95% covered by a mobile
broadband network (Bogdan-Martin, 2021). Further, the ITU claims that

ICTs and the Internet have been vital in maintaining continuity in business activ-
ity, employment, education, provision of basic citizens’ services, entertainment,
and socializing. Digital platforms and services have enabled countless innovations
100   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

that helped mitigate the health, social and economic costs of the tragedy, and build
resilience against future crises.
(Bogdan-Martin, 2021, p. iii)

However, the report also emphasizes that digital skills (or lack thereof) constitute an
important bottleneck for getting people online when they have coverage, and a hazard in
terms of vulnerabilities to cyberattacks, scams, fake news, or harmful content when online
(Bogdan-Martin, 2021, p. iv).
The UN tracks ICT skills as a part of the SDG 4 (target 4.4) (United Nations, 2021a) and
divides them into three different levels: Basic, Standard, and Advanced.1 The ITU 2021
rapport (Bogdan-Martin, 2021, p. 20) shows that basic skills are quite well dispersed in
countries with high internet access. The standard skills distribution is lower. Only three
(out of 76) economies have more than 60% of their population performing computer tasks
like installing new software, creating presentations, or using spreadsheets. No economy
was reported with a standard skill proportion higher than 80%. And only 11 of the econo-
mies had advanced skills over 10%, and no economy with advanced skills over 50%.
So, what is the status of SDG 10 with regard to the inequality between and within coun-
tries? Developing countries have in recent decades been catching up somewhat, which
lowers the inequality between countries. However, economic inequality within most coun-
tries is growing (Chancel et al., 2021). Despite the increasing availability of ICT, we do not
see any evidence that it has reduced the inequality between individuals. On the contrary,
as I will show in the next section has ICTs likely contributed to the increased inequality
between people.

8.3 WHY DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY HAS NOT FIXED INEQUALITY

In this section, I will show how ICT inequalities extend beyond access to hardware and
software and are working to sustain and increase socioeconomic inequalities. I first focus
on the individual perspective where the accumulation ICT resources (including skills)
tends to be stronger among the already advantaged, which creates a growing divide in
terms of these resources. Then I focus on market mechanisms of supply and demand, and
how ICTs are changing the demand for various labors. These two mechanisms are comple-
menting each other and pose a substantial threat to the UN’s goal of reducing inequalities
within countries (SDG 10).

8.3.1 3 Levels of Digital Divide Theory

The UN states that the rationale for target 9.c is to “highlights the importance of mobile
networks in providing basic as well as advanced communication services, and will help
design targeted policies to overcome remaining infrastructure barriers, and address the
digital divide” (United Nations, 2021b). This formulation witnesses an understanding of
the digital divide as a distinction between those that have access to the internet from those
who do not. The digital divide is consequently portrayed as an infrastructure problem that
can be solved by laying cables and building towers.
 The Technologically Sustained Digital Divide   ◾   101

In contrast to this, I will now present a broader alternative view from sociological
research where the digital divide is a layered problem where new divides surface as more
individuals and groups get physical access (van Deursen et al., 2017; van Deursen & van
Dijk, 2014; van Dijk, 2020; Farooq, 2015; Norris, 2001; Selwyn, 2004).
Three levels of the digital divide have been identified (van Deursen et al., 2015). The first
level is the classic division between the digital “haves” from the digital “have-nots”, defined
by who has access to hardware. This is where we find the UN formulation mentioned ear-
lier (United Nations, 2021b). It was noted early on that this access followed existing socio-
economic divides. The educated and wealthier part of the population got access first (van
Dijk, 2020, p. 1; NTIA, 1995). As hardware access becomes more universal, a second-level
digital divide emerges (van Dijk, 2020, p. 9). This denotes disparities in digital skills and
usage patterns. Again, already advantages people tend to have the most advanced digi-
tal competencies and display the most advantageous use patterns (Cottom, 2012; Rohs &
Ganz, 2015; Scheerder et al., 2017). The third level of the digital divide closes the causal
loop, as it concerns how the aforementioned disparities in ICT use influence socioeco-
nomic outcomes (van Deursen et al., 2015; Scheerder et al., 2017).
To explain the relationship between the three levels of the digital divide, van Dijk (2020)
proposes a resource and appropriation theory, where personal and positional inequalities
lead to resource inequalities that in turn determine the process of technology appropria-
tion. The theory is summarized in the five following points (van Dijk, 2020, p. 31):

1. Inequalities in society produce an unequal distribution of resources.

2. An unequal distribution of resources causes unequal access to digital technologies.
3. Unequal access to digital technologies also depends on the characteristics of these
technologies.
4. Unequal access to digital technologies brings about unequal outcomes of participa-
tion in society.
5. Unequal participation in society reinforces inequalities and unequal distributions of
resources.

Further, van Dijk (2020, p. 117) remarks that to understand the workings of the third-level
digital divide we need to consider the characteristics of contemporary society. Production
of information is becoming more important than material goods, and new digital media
facilitates the network society and increase relative inequality. This stratifies society into
the information elite, the participatory majority, and the unconnected and excluded.
There is reason to believe that these digital divides exacerbate economic inequality. The
rationale is straightforward and simple; high-skilled workers develop and use new technol-
ogy that replace repetitive tasks previously performed by low-skilled low-income earner.
This makes the high-skilled workers more productive, earning them more income. And
low-skilled workers are left unproductive, losing their basis for income (Acemoglu, 2002;
Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2014; Danaher, 2019).
102   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

Thus, the three levels of digital divide demonstrate how ICTs can prevent the achieve-
ment of some of the targets in SDG 10. More specifically, it means that hitting target 9.c can
come with a cost to target 10.1 and the reduction of relative inequality within countries.
That is, while providing universal internet access to the least developed countries will give
everyone access to extra technological means, it is likely that it is the already relatively
advantaged people within these countries that will benefit the most from this technology.
This could then reduce the relative income of the bottom 40 %, which is directly opposed
to target 10.1. In the next section, I will go a little deeper into the economic mechanisms
that show how digital technology is likely to drive economic growth, which reduce the
inequality between countries but simultaneously increase inequality between individuals.

8.4 WHY DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY WILL NOT FIX INEQUALITY

Achieving target 9.c and providing internet access to developing and least developed coun-
tries will undoubtedly open up new economic opportunities. One can view the emergence of
the digital technology as the modern economic frontier. If the new opportunities are seized,
we get economic growth, which is also one of the 17 SDGs (8). Providing digital infrastructure
(reaching target 9.c) could then be an opportunity for developing economies to catch up to
developed economies while simultaneously hitting target 8.1 of achieving 7% per capita eco-
nomic growth and SDG 10 reducing inequality between countries. However, digitalization-
driven economic growth could also have undesirable effects on inequality within countries.
The impact that digital technological progress has on inequality has been subject to
much debate. For example, the influential book The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress,
and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2014) advances
the notion that digital technology is driving a new industrial revolution. This revolution
has two main effects on society that the authors refer to as bounty and spread. The bounty
refers to promising economic benefits in terms of increased quality, variety, and volume of
production. The spread refers to the potential socioeconomic inequality that ensues “unless
we intervene” (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2014, p. 15). Inspired by Brynjolfsson and McAfee
(2014), I will in the following paragraph lay out my understanding of how digital techno-
logical progress influence the economic conditions.
Digital technologies are rapidly and suddenly capable of performing new tasks. Similar
to the way that the steam engine replaced manual work in the first industrial revolution
are computers replaced cognitive work in the second machine age. Today machines are
capable of driving cars and simple clerical tasks. In general, tasks that rely on a predict-
able set of actions are well suited for automation. Because the technological change in the
first industrial revolution automated manual labor, it not only required the physical con-
struction of factories to implement but also limited the speed at which replacement could
happen. The predictable set of actions in cognitive work can be written in software code
and distributed over the internet. The implication is that there is almost no marginal cost
of production. That is the extra cost of producing an extra unit. Or, in other words, the
cost of producing a computer program on computer compared to the cost of producing
the same computer program and installing it on a 1 million computers are practically
indistinguishable. Suppliers of these programs can sell these programs for nearly nothing
 The Technologically Sustained Digital Divide   ◾   103

and still make profits. This is great for the suppliers of the program and the consumers
who get high-quality products at very low price and often free. But the humans who used
to perform these tasks by the power of their own cognition are now faced with a dramatic
increase in competition, that is not possible to meet. This means that a small team of devel-
opers can outcompete whole sectors of workers overnight. The laid-off workers would need
to find new jobs in other industries or remain unemployed. Workers that relocate to other
industries introduce extra supply of labor in the other industries. If the other industry
does not experience at least equivalent increase in demand for labor, the extra supply of
workers will bring extra competition and drive down wages in these industries. Because
it would require less training to relocate to low-skilled employment, the automation of
one low-skilled employment will bring down the wages of all low-skilled employment, all
else equal. On the other side are workers who pose the right skills that are commentary to
digital technology, either by further developing the machines or seemingly unrelated pro-
fessions like athletes and authors. The market value of these latter mentioned professions
can be enhanced many times with new digital broadcasting technology. In any case is it the
skills that are hard for computers to replicate that is the future.
Then, it is perhaps not that surprising that the recommendation, for both individuals
and policymakers, is to develop these skills (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2014, p. 167) and
to unlock “billions of innovators” (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2014, p. 84). SDG target 10.1
explicitly specifies that the goal is to raise the income of the lower 40% faster than the
national average. This be challenging, given that the UN digital skills indicator data show
that it is rare to find economies with an above 60% proportion displaying moderate digital
skills (Bogdan-Martin, 2021, p. 20). And as the three levels of the digital divide suggest, it
is usually the lesser economically advantaged that are also lacking the digital skills. The
implication of this is most likely that the already relatively advantaged laborers will pri-
marily benefit in terms of wages from the digitalization of the economy. Laborers that don’t
keep up to speed with their skills to match the pace of technological progress get discon-
nected from an accelerating skill-demanding labor market with accelerating demands for
skills, and catching up becomes harder with time. The economist Markovits (2019) argues
that this mechanism has already dismantled the middle class in contemporary United
States and makes the professional elite work with crushing intensity to stay ahead.
Now, higher wages for the top earners could cause them to spend more on commodities
that are produced by the lower earners, and thereby indirectly raise the wages of the lower
earners. This is the standard assumption in certain market-based economic theories based
on the “trickle-down” principle and that rising tides raises all boats (Arndt, 1983; Sowell,
2013). But such mechanisms would not raise their wages at a higher rate than the national
average as it would raise the average at a faster rate.

8.4.1 Mode of Production

As noted earlier, Brynjolfsson and McAfee (2014) see the emergence of digital technologies
as the dawn of a new (second) industrial revolution. In the former industrial revolution,
mass production emerged and transformed the way people worked, lived, and related to
one another.
104   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

Karl Marx observed this and coined it the capitalist mode of production (Marx, 1959,
Chap. 51). Every society has a particular mode of production which captures the relations
of production and distribution. One of the distinguishing features of the capitalist mode
of production was the dominant role of production of commodities, with wage labor as the
dominant role of labor.
The steam engine was a technology that made mass production in factories possible,
which also relied on wage labor. Hence, new technologies have the potential to disrupt the
mode of production by rendering social arrangements obsolete and spawn new social rela-
tions compatible with the given technology (Barley, 2020). If digital technology instigates
an industrial revolution as Brynjolfsson and McAfee (2014) suggest, then it should also be
asked; are we also facing a new mode of production? Answering this question is beyond
the scope of this chapter, but reflecting on the question is nonetheless useful if we want
to understand how ICTs shape inequality. With the production of information becoming
more important than the production of material goods, the mode of production of infor-
mation also becomes more important for understanding inequality.
To shed light on the mode of production of information, I will now give a simplified
description of it. Hence, the reader should not consider this the full description of contem-
porary economy, but instead as tendencies that might only become more pronounced as
the digitalization of the economy progress.
Contemporary information and communication technology allow for information to
be gathered, transformed (computed), and distributed with very little human effort. Thus,
an information product, for example, a software program or a text, can be copied and sold
with practically no marginal cost of production. It does not make much difference in terms
of labor hours spent if the computer program is downloaded by 1 person or 5 million per-
sons. Hence, this technology has the potential to make individuals extremely productive.
Digital technology enables a few to produce and provide products and services that can
be used by increasing numbers – sometimes almost unlimited – users. Simultaneously, the
application of digital technology replaces lower-skilled labor. In combination, we see that
the technology has the potential and the economic incentives to produce both economic
growth and economic inequality between individuals with different skills.
When there is competition between producers, this will then quickly drive down the
unit price to a near-irrelevant level for buyers. These buyers can then choose the product
that provides the highest utility at very little cost, while the producer (or seller of the prod-
uct) can earn massive profits fast. This is perhaps most evident in the mobile app market
where everyone with some programming skills and a computer can launch their own soft-
ware in a fast and streamlined way.
While this is potentially great for both consumers and successful producers, for others
this can pose a threat to their income, access to capital, and relative value in the markets.
Increasingly sophisticated robots and software, for example, can reduce the value of labor.
Every task that has a predictable set of procedures can in principle be automated (Danaher,
2019). The displaced workers either have to learn new (often more advanced) skills or find
lower-skilled jobs that have yet to be automated for some reason. While learning new
advanced skills can be feasible for some, for others it can be near impossible. And if they
 The Technologically Sustained Digital Divide   ◾   105

migrate to other lower-skilled jobs, they will compete with others that are already in these
jobs and thus bring down their wages with their extra labor supply. And even if we could
retrain everyone to be product developers, it is hard to see how everyone could produce
something that was both unique and useful enough to be in demand.
Marx (1959, Chap. 15) famously predicted the overthrowing of capitalism as a mode of
production by the proletariat as a consequence of falling rate of profits. However, this pre-
diction has thus far failed, and subsequent theories have argued that capitalism is far more
adaptive than Marx gave it credit for. Josef Schumpeter (1942) argued that the process of
creative destruction sustains long-term economic growth and keeps capitalism as the opti-
mal mode of production. Schumpeter instead predicted instead that it would be the success
of capitalism that would eventually lead to its collapse (Schumpeter, 1942).
Borgebund revisits Schumpeter’s analysis of capitalism in Chapter 12 and argues that
said mode of production has the potential to survive also into the digital future. The argu-
ment forwarded by Borgebund is that capitalism has proven highly adaptive and this
adaptability is likely to carry capitalism into the future. But this begs the question; at what
time has capitalism adapted itself into something other than capitalism?
In Marx’s theory of social change, a society’s mode of production often contains rem-
nants of earlier modes of production together with seeds of new modes of production
(Marx, 1959, Chap. 51). Today we still see relics of the feudal mode of production, like the
nobility in the Great Britain. Simultaneously are we witnessing new occupations social
media influencers (Edwards, 2022; Khamis et al., 2017) and sprouts of new social classes
like the precariat (Standing, 2014). While the former appears like the utopian vision for
many individuals, most people are more likely to find themself in the latter situation, char-
acterized by temporary and part-time employment without job security in the gig econ-
omy (Woodcock & Graham, 2020).
Hence, it is not unreasonable to argue that we are perhaps witnessing the dawn of a new
social order brought about by technological change into the digital mode of production. If
the capitalist mode of production will be sustained in the second machine age remains to
be seen. While the central tenet of both Marx’s and Schumpeter’s evolution of capitalism
is that socialism will follow. But, perhaps socialism is not inevitable next mode of produc-
tion and it is not likely that it will be the same across the globe. Marx emphasized the
historical preconditions in the development of any mode of production (Marx, 1959, Chap.
51) and commented on his contemporary society which was Western Europe in the 19th
century. This capitalist society emerged from the feudal society that preceded it (Marx,
1959, Chap. 36) and was marked by mass production. Today, some Marxist scholars are
advocating that we must consider a myriad of interconnected causes to grasp the evolution
of a social system, which complicates any general future for capitalism (Althusser, 1969;
Burczak et al., 2018). For example, some have argued that democracies are more likely than
autocracies to redistribute resources (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2006; Boix, 2003), but empir-
ical studies have also found significant heterogeneity which complicates this relationship
(Albertus & Menaldo, 2014; Dorsch & Maarek, 2019; Houle, 2009; Knutsen & Rasmussen,
2018). Following the argument for an analysis which considers interconnected causes will
any evaluation of the change in mode of production need to be society specific and account
106   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

for the specific historical precondition and the specific production process in that society.
This implies that the changing mode of production could influence different parts of the
world differently, and lessons learned from one part do not necessarily translate directly
into another part. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to evaluate all possible trajectories
that the mode of production can take in various circumstances. However, it seems clear
that digital technology is likely to change how things are produced and consequently how
resources are distributed, and how this relation of production and distribution will look
in the future is uncertain and likely to depend on local contexts. With that in mind, I will
proceed to explore how ICT can affect the unequal distribution of resources in developed
and developing parts of the world and close to the implications I see that this has for the
pursuit of the SDGs.

8.5 CONSEQUENCES OF THE SDGS AND SUSTAINABILITY

Full broadband coverage has not yet been achieved by much of the developing world,
and the third-level digital divide is a phenomenon that is primarily studied in the Global
North. It remains to be seen if lessons learned from European welfare states are trans-
ferable to the developing economies, and we can only speculate how this will pan out.
However, as I have argued in this chapter, digital technology has particular properties
that lend itself to a mode of production which primarily rely on a skilled elite. Sociological
research on the digital divide shows that ICT resources beget ICT resources and tend to
reinforce socioeconomic inequalities. Inequalities within countries are rising, and indi-
vidual differences are becoming more important. The production of ICT favors highly
skilled labor, and many are struggling to keep up. ICTs are also finding evermore task
to automate, which generally reduce the demand for low-skilled labor and punish them
that do not adapt. When developing economies connect to the more digitally matured
economies of the Global North, it can crack open new digital divides both across and
between countries. Digital elites in developed countries have a head start in developing
their strategic and technical skills which can put them in advantageous positions to profit
from the new business opportunities that emerge. However, it is also likely that there will
develop digital elites within the developing economies, like they have in the Global North.
These can create new business opportunities and further advance technology within and
abroad. This can accelerate the economic growth of the developing countries to partly
catch up with the developed economies. But, where there are elites, there are also likely
to be non-elites that struggle to acquire digital skills in developing nations, just as in the
developed nations. Low-skilled labor is likely going to suffer extra pressure from auto-
mation, and much low-skilled labor is currently performed in developing nations. These
are also often nations that don’t offer the same degree of welfare benefits as many of the
developed nations, which could dampen the consequences for these individuals. Thus, the
digital divide could have more severe consequences in the developing world than what we
have observed in the developed nations.
Then as for the effects of target 9.c on economic inequality within and between countries,
we can see that hitting target 9.c can help to sustain economic growth and by extension
reduce economic inequality between countries. However, target 9.c can simultaneously
 The Technologically Sustained Digital Divide   ◾   107

produce higher income inequality within countries. This inequality can be hard to coun-
teract, and relying on education (SDG 4) to bridge the gap ignores the accumulative ten-
dency of digital skills and how the marginal cost of production of digital commodities
affects labor demand. While catch-up economics might work for countries, it will likely
not work the same way for individuals.

NOTE
1 The digital skill level is operationalized by the ability to conduct specific tasks. Basic:
Copying or moving a file or folder. Using copy and paste tools to duplicate or move informa-
tion within a document. Sending e-mails with attached files between a computer and other
devices.
• Standard: Using basic arithmetic formula in a spreadsheet. Connecting and installing new
devices. Creating electronic presentations with presentation software. Downloading, install-
ing, and configuring software.
• Advanced: Writing a computer program using a specialized programming language.

8.6 REFERENCES
Acemoglu, D. (2002). Technical change, inequality, and the labor market. Journal of Economic
Literature, 40(1), 7–72.
Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. A. (2006). Economic origins of dictatorship and democracy. Cambridge
University Press.
Albertus, M., & Menaldo, V. (2014). Gaming democracy: Elite dominance during transition and
the prospects for redistribution. British Journal of Political Science, (3), 575–603. https://doi.
org/10.1017/S0007123413000124
Althusser, L. (1969). Contradiction and overdetermination. For Marx, 114.
Arndt, H. W. (1983). The “Trickle-down” myth. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 32(1),
1–10.
Barley, S. R. (2020). Work and technological change. Oxford University Press.
Bogdan-Martin, D. (2021). Measuring digital development – facts and figures 2021. International
Telecommunication Union.
Boix, C. (2003). Democracy and redistribution. Cambridge University Press.
Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2014). The second machine age: Work, progress, and prosperity in a
time of brilliant technologies. Norton.
Burczak, T., Garnett, R., & McIntyre, R. (2018). Knowledge, class, and economics. Routledge.
Chancel, L., Piketty, T., Saez, E., & Zucman, G. (2021). World inequality report 2022. World
Inequality Lab.
Cottom, T. (2012). MOOCs, Coursera, online education and performing innovation. Tressiemc
[Web Log].
Danaher, J. (2019). Automation and utopia. In Automation and utopia. Harvard University Press.
Dorsch, M. T., & Maarek, P. (2019). Democratization and the conditional dynamics of income
distribution. The American Political Science Review, 113(2), 385–404. https://doi.org/10.1017/
S0003055418000825
Edwards, S. (2022). Branded dreams, boss babes: Influencer retreats and the cultural logics of the
influencer para-industry. Social Media + Society, 8.
Farooq, M. (2015). Towards a renewed understanding of the complex nerves of the digital divide.
Journal of Social Inclusion, 6(1), 71–102.
Houle, C. (2009). Inequality and democracy: Why inequality harms consolidation but does not affect
democratization. World Politics, (4), 589–622. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043887109990074
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Khamis, S., Ang, L., & Welling, R. (2017). Self-branding, ‘micro-celebrity’ and the rise of social
media influencers. Celebrity Studies, 8(2), 191–208.
Knutsen, C. H., & Rasmussen, M. (2018). The autocratic welfare state: Old-age pensions, credible
commitments, and regime survival. Comparative Political Studies, (5), 659–695. https://doi.
org/10.1177/0010414017710265
Markovits, D. (2019). The meritocracy trap. Penguin UK.
Marx, K. (1959). Capital volume III: The process of capitalist production as a whole (1894). USSR,
Institute of Marxism-Leninism.
Norris, P. (Ed.). (2001). Social inequalities. In Digital divide: Civic engagement, information pov-
erty, and the internet worldwide, communication, society and politics (pp. 68–92). Cambridge
University Press.
NTIA. (1995). Falling through the net: A survey of the “have nots” in rural and urban America. U.S.
Department of Commerce.
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Rohs, M., & Ganz, M. (2015). MOOCs and the claim of education for all: A disillusion by empirical
data. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 16(6), 1–19.
Scheerder, A., van Deursen, A., & van Dijk, J. (2017). Determinants of internet skills, uses and
outcomes. A systematic review of the second- and third-level digital divide. Telematics and
Informatics, 34(8), 1607–1624. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2017.07.007
Schumpeter, J. A. (1942). Capitalism, socialism, and democracy (2nd ed., pp. IX, 381). Harper.
Selwyn, N. (2004). Reconsidering political and popular understandings of the digital divide. New
Media & Society, 6(3), 341–362. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444804042519
Sowell, T. (2013). Trickle down theory” and” tax cuts for the rich. Hoover Press.
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and sequentiality of digital inequality. International Journal of Communication, 11, 452–473.
van Deursen, A. J. A. M., Helsper, E. J., Robinson, L., Cotten, S. R., & Schulz, J. (2015). The third level
digital divide: Who benefits most from being online? Studies in Media and Communications,
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 Chapter 9

Spot on SDG 5
Addressing Gender (In-)equality
Within and With AI

Marisa Tschopp and Hanan Salam

CONTENTS
9.1 Introduction 109
9.1.1 The Dual Fate of AI 110
9.1.2 A Special Kind of Ethics Washing: Fem Washing 110
9.1.3 Our Motivation: AI for Gender Equality 111
9.1.4 The Present Study in a Nutshell 112
9.2 Addressing Gender Inequality Within AI: The Example of Algorithmic Bias 112
9.3 AI Solutionism: Promoting Gender Equality With AI 113
9.4 Methods 115
9.5 Results and Discussion 116
9.5.1 Overview of AI-Based Systems in the Area of Gender Diversity and Inclusion 117
9.5.2 Identified Opportunities 118
9.5.3 Identified Challenges 118
9.5.4 Identified Stakeholders 119
9.6 Recommendations for Research and Practice 120
9.7 Limitations 121
9.8 Conclusion 122
9.9 References 124

9.1 INTRODUCTION
No matter where we humans are and what we do, solving problems is part of our core
existence. How do we humans solve problems? Every generation has its own way in dealing
with problems arising in society. It seems to us that our generation is particularly inclined
towards choosing a technical way for solving problems. In the wake of the great hype sur-
rounding the advances of AI, this major player is now moving into the spotlight, which is
hoped to go down in human history as a panacea for many of our problems. We call this
phenomenon AI solutionism, which in our opinion deserves some special attention.
DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-9 109
110 ◾ Technology and Sustainable Development

9.1.1 The Dual Fate of AI

AI is increasingly being used as a technological solution in various business and manage-
ment domains (e.g., marketing, finance, retail) (Sestino & De Mauro, 2022) due to its poten-
tial in automating repetitive tasks and increasing business revenues via personalization
and adaptation (Latinovic & Chatterjee, 2022). The potential of AI for sustainable develop-
ment and achieving the SDGs is not negligible as well. However, the potential success of AI
solutions can be accompanied by risks and challenges that can have a negative impact on
sustainable development. For instance, it is not entirely clear whether the actual impact of
AI on labor or other fields, such as education, can be sufficiently understood or measured
(Frank et al., 2019). Furthermore, despite the promises, there is a growing amount of evi-
dence showing that machine learning data, algorithms, and design choices that shape AI
systems, reflect and amplify existing cultural biases1 and prejudice (Buolamwini & Gebru,
2018; Crawford et al., 2019; Zou & Schiebinger, 2018), thus hindering the achievement of
SDGs targeting equality such as SDG 5, SDG 10, and SDG 16. In other SDG critical areas,
heated discussions are evolving around the negative environmental impact of certain AI
technologies (Labbe, 2021). For example, while AI can help combat climate change by
introducing low-emission infrastructure, it is significantly emitting carbon on the other
side (Dhar, 2020). AI seems fated to take on a dual role; it helps in some areas and harms in
others. At present, we are all still in the dark as to how to deal with this ambiguity. When
is an AI system a good solution to a problem without harming other areas of life?

9.1.2 A Special Kind of Ethics Washing: Fem Washing

The call of the United Nations has probably sparked many ideas and ethical rationales
for funding opportunities, which also marks the first reason why we want to explore the
topic of AI and gender equality: Enhancing the use of enabling technology, in particular
information and communications technology, to promote the empowerment of women2 is
a target set by the United Nations under the overall goal of SDG 5 to eliminate gender
inequality and empower all women and girls. Numerous non-governmental or non-profit
as well as pro-profit organizations have also committed to make “AI a force for social
impact” and aim to “unlock AI’s potential towards serving humanity ”.3
Without soft and hard regulations, all “Tech for Good” initiatives and products risk to
fail, despite their altruistic intentions. However, comprehensively understanding soft and/or
hard regulations is a discipline on its own. 634 AI soft laws were made public between 2001
and 2019 (Clarke, 2021), comprising a variety of ethical guidelines, principles, and standards
for the regulation of AI use, with no binding obligation to commit and no binding conse-
quences for failing to adhere to the voluntary set guidelines. The latter makes the overall
situation fragile and vulnerable to ethics washing. It is not farfetched that companies “stra-
tegically ‘shop’ for the principles that limit one’s action as little as possible while simultane-
ously presenting oneself as contributing towards the common good” (van Maanen, 2022,
p. 194). With no binding obligations, providing these guidelines publicly could already be
criticized as serving as a gift for those wishing to take an easy way out of hard problems.
Despite the honorable efforts, researchers have also identified and criticized a sub-branch
of ethics washing called “fempower-washing”, where companies or people claim to promote
 Spot on SDG 5 ◾ 111

gender equality, but in reality, efforts and tangible results are strikingly low (Sterbenk et al.,
2021). So, it may not be the case, as mentioned earlier, that many are just about “shopping”
for a good ethical reputation by promising to adhere to standards or investing in a decent
ethics label, or that it is just about increasing the chances of receiving funding. It may fur-
thermore be the case that the solution simply does not solve the problem as planned, or just
contributes marginally, or in worst case, creates more problems than it solves.
In short, it is plausible that AI for social good initiatives serve more as a diversionary
tactic to soften the negative news (ethics washing) than serve as a real contribution to
improving the socio-economic problem of gender inequality. The latter we deem the even
bigger problem in practice as it is hard to measure and define what real contribution is. This
is, furthermore, complicated by the fact that a myriad of such tech solutions are already
on the market. So, it must be clear that we are not talking hypothetically about future
products and problems. We are already in the middle of this situation, without comprehen-
sive mandatory regulations and without continuous standards for measuring success. We
already have many AI systems in our lives and society, promising to solve a problem, but in
fact, we are in the dark of the success of the enthusiastic technological fixes. This marks the
second motivation why we are doing this research: To critically reflect upon whether AI is
a suitable solution for problems in the field of gender equality.

9.1.3 Our Motivation: AI for Gender Equality

Research in the area of AI and gender has primarily focused on challenges linked to gender-
related bias discovery and prevention in product design and machine learning data and
algorithms (Mehrabi et al., 2019), with a great focus on solving rather mathematical (e.g.,
functions) or statistical problems (e.g., datasets). The question of female under-representation
in STEM and AI careers and its influence on the development of AI systems is also largely
investigated in the state of the art (Samuel et al., 2020). However, the question of how AI is
currently or could be used to solve gender equality problems is (a) under-explored empiri-
cally in order to develop solutions and (b) under-evaluated practically in order to measure
and understand the actual effect of the current solutions on the market (Lau et al., 2021).
There is a gap of systematic knowledge in research, development, and success measurement
about how AI (and other related technologies) solve or contribute to solving problems in the
field of gender equality, especially when it comes to normative analyses. For example, what
are the underlying values or benchmarks of creating a solution for a specific problem are still
ambiguous. There is also a considerable lack of empirical evidence for measuring the actual
impact of tech solutions in practice (Cowls et al., 2021).
Several examples provide evidence of how AI maintains, strengthens, and reproduces
bias (Feine et al., 2019; Howard & Borenstein, 2018; Lambrecht & Tucker, 2019; McDonnell &
Baxter, 2019; Otterbacher et al., 2017; Parra et al., 2021; Raji & Buolamwini, 2019) which
presents major ethical concerns and contributes to amplifying gender inequality in society.
On the other hand, product development and design choices can contribute to transmit-
ting gender-related stereotypes to AI products by reflecting the thinking patterns of devel-
opers behind the AI system (Lee et al., 2019). Specifically related to gender issues, there is a
growing concern about the dangers posed by the potential of AI to reinforce societal biases,
112 ◾ Technology and Sustainable Development

where the wrong promotion of AI technology may simultaneously accelerate its negative
impact. Knowledge of the negative impact of AI on society is specifically relevant, as some
may be under the impression that “tech for good” solutions are somewhat free from these
dangers, which is presumably not the case. For instance, an AI-based application which
potentially solves one problem does not make up for all the negative implications of AI. It is
not like a tit-for-tat kind of relationship where “AI for good, makes up for the bad” (Bryson,
2021). So again, the dual destiny of AI makes this situation utterly complex, yet fascinat-
ing. Thus, we have one overarching mindset or question we want to answer in the long run
with our work. Is AI for gender equality more than just fem washing? Can AI serve as a real
(significant) problem-solver? Or is it even causing more harm than benefits?

9.1.4 The Present Study in a Nutshell

Our first step to answering these questions was to conduct the study presented in this chapter.
We critically discuss the results of our study which derived qualitative data on AI for gender
equality: Existing and potential products and most pressing issues. The study is discussing
existing and potential AI solutions in the field of gender equality in five critical areas derived
from the call for action from the UN framework: Gender-related violence, gender-related
inequalities in healthcare, gender pay gap, unpaid work, and uneven funding.

9.2 ADDRESSING GENDER INEQUALITY WITHIN AI:

THE EXAMPLE OF ALGORITHMIC BIAS
Gender inequality within the field of AI has been primarily manifested through biased and
consequently discriminatory behavior against females, mainly due to unfair decisions made by
biased AI systems and algorithms. Examples of bias in AI applications and products span differ-
ent areas. These include AI-powered chatbots (Feine et al., 2019; Lee et al., 2019; McDonnell &
Baxter, 2019), employment matching (Dastin, 2018), search engines (Kay et al., 2015; Otterbacher
et al., 2017), advertising algorithms (Lambrecht & Tucker, 2019), face recognition applications
(Raji & Buolamwini, 2019), recommender systems (Parra et al., 2021; Schnabel et al., 2016), and
voice recognition systems (Howard & Borenstein, 2018; Osoba & Welser IV, 2017).
In the area of advertisement, research has shown that in some settings, Google online ads
for higher-paid jobs were targeted more to male job seekers than female job seekers (Datta
et al., 2015). Gender discrimination was also evident in a STEM job advertisement algo-
rithm (Lambrecht & Tucker, 2019) which was initially designed to deliver gender-neutral
advertisements. However, a gender imbalance in the training dataset has led to less women
seeing the advertisement compared to men. Another example that show gender bias and
stereotypes emergence through algorithms is “Google Translate” that translates gender-
neutral phrases related to certain professions in certain languages (such as Hungarian or
Turkish) to gender-specific professions (for example, she is a nurse, he is a doctor) (Prates
et al., 2018). Biases were also found in image web search results for occupations (Kay et al.,
2015; Otterbacher et al., 2017). Recent research examined the existence of biases, includ-
ing gender bias in emotion recognition systems (Domnich & Anbarjafari, 2021), and evi-
dence showing discrimination in AI was found for Facial Emotion Recognition (FER)
approaches (Howard et al., 2017). A recent work on bias and fairness investigation in FER
 Spot on SDG 5 ◾ 113

systems is that of (Xu et al., 2020), which investigated gender, race, and age bias in two
benchmark FER datasets. The research showed that the model is biased toward females.
On the other hand, product development and design choices can contribute to transmitting
bias to AI products. A famous example is designing personal assistants (e.g., Alexa, Google
Assistant, Siri) to respond in a very loose manner to sexual harassment instead of a serious
way. Another area of research, specifically in the field human–AI interaction and perception,
is geared toward the evocation of stereotypes, depending on specific voice features (Tolmeijer
et al., 2021). For instance, in one study, male AI agents were given higher competence scores
and were trusted more in utilitarian context, while female assistants scored higher in warmth
scores and were trusted more in hedonic contexts (Ahn et al., 2022). This seems to be reflected
in practice, where virtual assistants with basic tasks were assigned female voices and imper-
sonations compared to giving assistants with complicated tasks male impersonations (e.g.,
Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa vs. IBM’s Watson and Microsoft’s Einstein).
These prime examples are live evidence of the pitfalls of AI solutionism. Indeed, when
data-driven AI products are developed and fed with data, we should be careful that we are
neither simply confirming existing biases nor introducing new ones, thus contributing
to the persistence of gender inequalities in the society. Moreover, a fundamental under-
standing of bias and fairness from a technical perspective is necessary, no matter what
the designed products are intended to do, but especially, if we aim to develop and deploy
AI systems to tackle gender inequality. In other words, isn’t it paradox that we aim to fix a
problem in a society or individual with a broken technology?
Researchers around the globe are working toward detecting and fixing or at least miti-
gating the bias problem. However, the underlying mechanisms of how bias happens from
the computational and design perspectives are not yet thoroughly explored. The literature
shows that discriminatory or biased behavior in AI algorithms occurs mainly due to (1)
biased or unrepresentative training data or (2) a mathematical model that does not account
for existing bias in data. Increasing the participation and representation of females in the
design and development process of AI systems is debated as a non-tech solution to the AI
bias problem as well. So, do we have to wait to use “AI for Good” until the technology is
ready? Yes, of course! would be the answer in an ideal world. But reality paints a different
picture. Many immature AI systems are on the market already.

9.3 AI SOLUTIONISM: PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY WITH AI

Therefore, we find it quite urgent to look at these existing systems and at the same time inves-
tigate potential improvements or ideas for new AI systems that could promote gender equality.
The core of our study is to explore the question of how AI is and can be used to promote gender
equality, considering potential pitfalls of existing or potential systems. However, we still believe it
is valuable to start with an optimistic mindset: In other words, how can this technology be used
as a solution to a societal problem of crucial significance? Adopting a multidisciplinary view and
assessment framework for projects tackling the SDGs (Cowls et al., 2021), we conducted a glob-
ally oriented qualitative study to explore the potential of AI tools to enhance gender equality. We
focus on five specific areas within the area of gender equality (SDG 5), deemed most relevant
based on our review of the literature and the UN SDG targets. The areas of focus include:
114   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

Target 5.2: Gender-related violence. “Eliminate all forms of violence against all women
and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other
types of exploitation. (Target 5.2)”

Violence against women comprises physical, psychological violence, threats, and femicide
(the intentional killing of women or girls because of their gender) (Krantz & Garcia-Moreno,
2005). The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that worldwide, an estimated 1 in 3
women experience physical or sexual abuse over the course of their lives. Violence against
women is considered a human rights violation of global significance with limited knowl-
edge of successful interventions (Krantz & Garcia-Moreno, 2005).

Target 5.1: Gender-related inequality in healthcare. “End all forms of discrimination

against women and girls everywhere (Target 5.1)”

Women, and especially women of color, do not have equal access to healthcare and stan-
dards of healthy living (Okoro et al., 2020). The clinical practice continues to rely on evi-
dence collected mostly from men and assumed to represent the other half of humanity with
negative outcomes for women (as well as for other genders or ethnic minorities). Efforts to
improve the situation are gaining great momentum but much more transdisciplinary work
needs to be done to get significant results (Buvinic et al., 2014; Cirillo et al., 2020).

Target 5.1/5.5: Gender pay gap. “Ensure women’s full and effective participation and
equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, eco-
nomic and public life (Target 5.5)”

Women face economic inequalities when it comes to wages, also known as the pay gap or
gender pay gap. This gap has not closed despite many efforts and law enforcement efforts
taking place in different locations of the globe, such as the United States or Europe. The
topic remains to be utterly complex, for instance, due to the cultural differences across
countries and the differences across economic sectors. It is very unlikely that the gap will
close within the next decades, as too many open issues remain. Moreover, research on
how the gender pay gap is best calculated and represented statistically remains unsolved
(O’Reilly et al., 2015; Velija, 2022).

Target 5.4: Unpaid work. “Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through
the provision of public services, infrastructure and social protection policies and the
promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally
appropriate (Target 5.4)”

A rather modern issue is the unequal distribution of unpaid housework, which includes
caring for children, elderly, and relatives. According to the United Nations report4, women
do 2.6 times the amount of unpaid care and domestic work compared to men. This has
not only a negative impact on women’s mental health but also substantial economic
 Spot on SDG 5 ◾ 115

consequences, for instance, when it comes to missing retirement provisions (MacDonald

et al., 2005). There is a lack of systematic empirical data in this nascent field, and structural
problems seem to be evolving and outpacing the rapid change in the workforce due to the
growing emancipation of women in business (Lundberg, 1996).

Target 5.5: Uneven funding. “Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal
opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic
and public life (Target 5.5)”

Women are treated differently regarding loans, venture capital, or funding. Only 3% of
venture capital goes to companies founded by women, where the problem occurs at every
stage of the allocation of venture capital. Recent research has also shown that investors
ask different questions to women and men when pitching their ideas (Kanze et al., 2018).
With the rise of female entrepreneurs, the existing gender bias in funding is considered an
emerging area of research worthwhile investing in (Färber & Klein, 2021).
Within each of these areas, the research questions (RQ) we aim to answer are as follows:

• RQ1. What AI-based solutions already exist in this area?

• RQ2. What potential AI-based solutions could contribute to this area?
• RQ3. What are the associated challenges in this area?
• RQ4. Who are the stakeholders in this area?

To this end, a global committee of Women in AI5 members supported by the Swedish
Innovation Agency6 was founded to investigate these questions empirically.

9.4 METHODS
To answer the previous research questions from a global perspective, we conducted 12
semi-structured expert interviews and 3 local focus groups with different local experts,
which were open to the public in three different countries. Finally, all participants and
stakeholders were re-invited to take part in a global, final workshop with the aim of con-
solidating the findings and collectively brainstorming on the research questions. Due
to privacy restrictions, only participants of the interviews are described. Originally, the
workshops were planned as in-person full-day workshops. However, due to the COVID-19
pandemic, all workshops and interviews took place online with a shorter duration.

• Procedure and sample of expert interviews: In the first half of the year 2020, 12
semi-structured interviews were conducted with experts from heterogeneous back-
grounds: AI, engineering, gender studies, ethics, data science, and industrial special-
ists with business background. Most of the interviewees hold a master’s or doctoral
degree (see Table 9.1). The interviews were 30–40 minutes long and followed the
same procedure and set of questions. However, the interviewees could choose one
116   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

TABLE 9.1 Overview of interview participants (N = 13)

Gender Field Country
Female Computer science assistant professor at university Canada
Female Scientific advisor (health and philosophy) and senior research United Kingdom
fellow at university
Female Computer scientist and philosopher and founder of corporate United Kingdom
research lab
Female Social scientist and research fellow at a university United Kingdom
Female Management scientist at university USA
Female Technology ethics professor at university Germany
Female Gender political activist USA
Female Corporate director for responsible AI United Kingdom
Female Nonprofit director Sweden
Female Bachelor student and fem-tech founder United Kingdom
Male Policy in AI researcher Australia
Female Computer science professor USA
Female Senior researcher at European Commission Belgium

or more of the stated gender inequality areas they preferred to talk about. The inter-
views focused on the barriers, suggested concrete actions, and identified who should
collaborate in such an effort to ensure responsible development and use of a poten-
tial application. The interviews were conducted by one interviewer online. They were
recorded and later transcribed by the same interviewer. To derive the findings, a dif-
ferent researcher summarized and analyzed the transcripts along with the questions
of interest compared to current knowledge available in the field from desk research.
• Local focus groups: In parallel, three online workshops, organized by members of
the global Women in AI committee, took place in different locations. The events took
place in Ireland, Australia, and Mexico. The key research questions were discussed at
the local workshops. Written summaries structured around the four research ques-
tions were provided by the respective organizer and then analyzed by the authors.
• Global workshop: After the analysis of all workshops and interviews, a final global
two-hour workshop took place. The participants included all the experts and local
workshop organizers (25 participants). During this workshop, the findings from
the desk research, the individual expert interviews as well as the local workshops
were presented, with the aim of discussing and consolidating the results. The event
took place on an online platform.7 Participants were separated into different work-
ing groups per target area. Within the breakout sessions, ideas and limitations were
discussed and prepared on a collaborative online platform.8 Afterward, results of the
working groups were presented and discussed with all the participants.

9.5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In the following, the main findings of the study are discussed. First, we provide a selec-
tion of AI-based applications in the field of gender equality which were derived from desk
 Spot on SDG 5 ◾ 117

research. These applications were provided to the participants as a basis for discussions at
the global workshop. Then, the findings of the local and global workshops, and the individ-
ual interviews (identified opportunities, challenges, and relevant stakeholders) are sum-
marized. Finally, recommendations for research and practice within the chosen areas of
interest are presented.

9.5.1 Overview of AI-Based Systems in the Area of Gender Diversity and Inclusion
During the first part of the global workshop, the participants were presented with concrete
examples for a better understanding of how an AI system can be used within the scope
of gender equality. Due to the limited amount of time, we presented two areas, which we
deemed not only most informative but also conceptually translatable to the other areas.
Namely, AI in human resources management and AI in the area of violence against women,
because in these areas, novel tools are disrupting current procedures at a very high pace
(Dattner et al., 2019) and both seem to attract great interest in mainstream media as well.
Especially, since the COVID-19 pandemic, the topic of domestic violence against women
has gained even more crucial importance. Forcing many families to stay at home has led
to an increasing vulnerability of victims of abusive relationships, where violent acts often
remain unreported and without consequences for the perpetrators (Rodríguez et al., 2021;
Sánchez et al., 2020).
An ample number of AI systems are available within the area of violence against women
(including general human trafficking), from helping women in emergency situations of
abuse to detecting sexist written text (Rodríguez et al., 2021). Spotlight9, URSafe10 (per-
sonal safety apps), or the wristwatch Nibye11, for instance, are using a range of Natural
Language Processing (NLP), Computer Vision (CV) capabilities, and analytics to identify
victims of sex trafficking or domestic abuse.
In the hiring process, more and more tools find their way into management which are
directed at mitigating human bias in the recruitment process. Textio12, an intelligent text
editor, or Pymetrics13, a talent matching platform, for instance, are tools that are designed
to identify gender bias in job applications or other stages of the recruiting process.
Other examples of AI-based applications targeted at gender equality issues:

• Applications targeted toward economic equality: Ailira17 (analyzing gender bias in

job postings), Talvista14 (analyzing bias in job postings), Enteleo15(anonymous inter-
view solution), Gapsquare16 (analyzing pay levels), and PIHR17 (fair Pay solution).
• Applications targeted toward women’s health solutions: Gracehealth18 (among others
period and ovulation tracker), Bonzun19 (among others IVF support), NaturalCycles20
(birth control app), WildAI21 (sports performance according to menstrual cycles),
Babylon Health22 (engaging with practitioners), Wysa23(anonymous mental health),
and MyCoachConnect24 (automated telephone-based reporting system).
• Applications targeted toward personal safety: Sisbot25 (helping victims of vio-
lence), Safetipin26 (public safety), Traffic Jam27 (finding human trafficking victims),
Spotlight28 (human trafficking investigations), URSafe29 (personal safety app), and
Nibye30 (wristwatch for personal safety).
118   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

9.5.2 Identified Opportunities

The results revealed that ideas on how AI can contribute to promote gender equality can be
organized into two categories: (1) micro-level, concerning the individual and (2) meso-level,
concerning organizational/structural level. On the individual level, initiatives, research, or
applications focus on empowering individuals at risk of gender inequalities. On the orga-
nizational level, initiatives, research, or applications are targeted toward AI-based applica-
tions that can be deployed in an organization or institution in public or private sectors.
Across areas of intervention, the key opportunities of using AI to promote gender equality
lie in tools for intervention through blind-spot detection, education, self-reflection, and
autonomous action.

• Micro-level: There was a consensus among the experts that many AI-based systems aim
to empower individual women to better understand a situation, make better decisions,
and/or let a device (e.g., mobile phone) decide what to do in an emergency situation.
1. Empowering the individual to help herself: Such systems provide access to relevant
information or (rather active) self-help through interactive communication and
assessment tools. These systems enable the individual to reflect on a given situation
and evaluate it critically.
2. Empowering the individual through autonomous action: Such systems provide a
function in which individuals can get help, for instance, from authorities, autono-
mously (e.g., via an application, unnoticeable from the outside). This was especially
dominant in the area of gender-related violence. This means that the functions often
remain undetected by perpetrators, as no obvious action is needed from the victim.
• Meso-level: From the organizational-level perspective, AI-based systems support or
help on a structural level and are interwoven into an administrative (management)
and/or decision-making system (leadership). In these cases, AI-based systems sup-
port or help the organization by:

1. Detecting patterns invisible to the human eye: This kind of AI-based system
detects problems in data, for instance, health data or written doctoral notes, or
text for internal or external communication, where problems are not visible at all
(e.g., noise in the dataset) or have not been detected by humans (e.g., masculine
language in job advertisements).
2. Improving decision-making mostly targeted toward reducing human bias: This
kind of AI-based system aims to improve the decision-making process, where the
system takes more autonomous action, for instance, deciding who gets funding or
who is rejected or accepted for the next hiring steps.

9.5.3 Identified Challenges

The experts in our study evaluated existing or potential solutions not only in terms of
technical feasibility but also from a legal and ethical perspective. The main questions we
 Spot on SDG 5   ◾   119

asked were “can we?” for technical as well as for legal feasibility, and “should we?” for ethi-
cal feasibility.
For instance, one group focused on how a particular AI system can help women who are
victims of domestic violence and how AI systems can contribute to making public areas
(e.g., streets) safer for women. Various solutions were discussed, such as an IoT device that
calls the police or an application built into Google Maps, which warns a woman if she is
about to enter a potentially dangerous area because of very low street lighting. The tech-
nical feasibility of the idea was followed by assessing context-dependent factors. Critical
requirements of the system concerning hardware and software were discussed: Is it acces-
sible at every location? What happens if it gets lost? How can privacy be preserved? How to
ensure such a system doesn’t run the risk of being misused by stalkers? How to ensure that
the device remains undetectable by a potential perpetrator?
Within the other areas, the following challenges were discussed: Is it possible to track
household work without having to install cameras or tracking apps, posing a challenge for
a relationship based on trust? Is it feasible to implement care robots without neglecting
the complexity and responsibility of what it means to take care of a human? Can a biased/
non-perfect AI-based system be used to help evaluate who is eligible for funding? If people
analytics tools are employed to monitor wages, career tracks, job ads, CVs, and potentially
even written communication and meetings, how to integrate these into a trustful team
culture?
In summary, across the studied areas of intervention, key challenges of using AI to pro-
mote gender equality lie in privacy concerns, risk for abuse, as well as negative effects on
human-to-human relationships.
Furthermore, from a legal perspective, we identified great cultural differences, as well as
differences concerning the respective legal systems. With, for instance, the proposed EU
AI Act31 on Europe’s doorstep (which will impact trading with Europe), it will be inevitable
to consider legal expertise in every step of the development process, next to technical and
ethical challenges.

9.5.4 Identified Stakeholders

Anecdotal evidence was discussed, that remaining in one’s own echo chamber often happens
when designers or managers throw themselves into technical solutions full of enthusiasm
and under pressure from the market, causing them not to include the classic “nay-sayers”
in their development work. The usual suspects here are lawyers, privacy activists, gender
advocates, and so on. However, transdisciplinary work comes at a high cost. An assessment
of available resources should be performed, and then a clear strategy is needed in regard
to who to involve at what point in time from ideation, over testing to implementing and
monitoring. Who to engage, at what point of time, and to what extent is a decision not to be
taken lightly. Great investments must be expected here, if done thoroughly. Experts working
in the field have argued that managers mostly fear engaging multiple stakeholders as this
comes with massively underestimated costs, from more time to communicate to financial
payments of expert involvement, as well as the fear of failure. However, it is a requirement
to ensure a high-quality product and to preserve a company’s image.
120   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

The experts of the global workshop created a list of critical stakeholders across fields:

• Computer and data scientists: Academics and practitioners, with expertise in soft-
ware engineering, AI/ML, IT security;
• Gender study experts by area (e.g., violence, health);
• Legal and policy experts;
• Humanities experts (ethicists, philosophers, psychologists, etc.);
• Business and economics experts;
• Civil society (NGOs, charities, activists, etc.);
• Individuals affected by the system: Doctors, patients, administrative staff, victims,
police, HR managers, and potential users;
• Individuals with knowledge of both AI and the respective area of expertise will be of
most value (and also most hard to find).

These findings are in line with researchers and practitioners promoting the integration
of various stakeholders (Butcher & Beridze, 2019). Nevertheless, concrete networks (e.g.,
where does a company find those people?) and resources (e.g., how much does this cost?)
are still a large problem.

9.6 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND PRACTICE

In the following, we briefly summarize our findings and highlight exciting avenues for
further research and recommendations for practice per area of interest.

• Gender-related violence: Within this area, many applications such as personal safety
apps already exist and can be built upon (Miranda et al., 2022). Most opportunities lie
within detection, autonomous help, area safety warnings, and education. Experts agree
that the greatest impact is on empowering individual women. This is a pressing need,
and it may be possible to achieve results (in terms of realizing projects) relatively fast due
to the vast experience available, if smart stakeholder management and privacy protec-
tion measures are taken care of. Multi-stakeholder collaborations can lead to fast, high-
impact results, and are thus deemed a very exciting avenue for research and practice.
• Gender-related inequalities in healthcare: AI in healthcare is on the rise and of critical
importance (Cirillo et al., 2020). The most discussed issue was around how to create more
diverse datasets. Furthermore, the roles in the doctor–patient technology context seem
to lack clarity. It is suggested that the actors of such human–machine trust framework
must be clearly differentiated to get more insights into understanding what influences
decision-making (Tschopp et al., 2021). A promising area of future research – especially
since the COVID-19 pandemic – is how remote diagnosis could decrease bias and how
AI systems could help doctors make better decisions in online or hybrid settings.
• Gender-related pay gap: Discussions in this area focused on people analytics tools
and how they can be used to detect and warn employers if inequalities exist. This
 Spot on SDG 5   ◾   121

can serve as a basis for blind-spot detection and a persuasion tactic to not only create
awareness but also motivate for change. It is possible to use certain people analytics
tools without transforming the workplace into a surveillance machine (Weibel et al.,
2016). Close collaboration with work psychologists and HR managers who are knowl-
edgeable in the AI/data science field is the most promising track (S. D. Schafheitle &
Weibel, 2017). A research group has developed a promising framework which seems
suitable to scrutinize how technology will influence management and leadership, and
traditional configurations of control (S. Schafheitle et al., 2020).
• Unpaid work: Unpaid work was the most difficult area to, first of all, understand and
then identify the ways by which AI could help or intervene. Examples of robots or trac-
ing data were discussed with great skepticism, as it is questionable how this can be
built while preserving privacy and healthy relationships built on mutual trust. So much
groundwork is missing in this area, and collaborations with social sciences are called
for. Much more exploration on a theoretical and conceptual level must be done hav-
ing technology assisting already in mind. As there is a lot of research dedicated to the
future of work in general, such as hybrid and work-from-home settings, unpaid house-
hold work is too often lacking within the majority of studies (Hertog et al., 2022) and
thus considered an exciting avenue for future research.
• Uneven funding: The experts agreed upon the existence of inequality in this area
and welcomed various ideas, especially the idea of having algorithms as co-evalu-
ators, which were deemed most promising. Notably, there was a consensus that in
this area, the technical feasibility poses the greatest challenge. In other words, can an
algorithm, which is nowadays most likely biased, be used to de-bias human decision-
making? Can we combat human bias with machine bias? More studies are needed,
which detect gender discrimination in funding proposals (Romei & Ruggieri, 2014).
• Across areas: Despite the importance of choosing very specific use cases, the discus-
sions also implied that some of the areas are interrelated and thus improvements
in one area may also lead to improvements in other areas. For instance, decreas-
ing inequalities in unpaid work or wage gap may lead to higher financial status for
women/families and could reduce domestic violence or violent acts in public as
women are better equipped or do not need to work, travel, or live in certain places.

In summary, we urge researchers and practitioners to consider the following key points.
By taking a systemic approach, one should consider that technology is not independent of
society that AI is not isolated from “other” IT systems and that multi-stakeholder man-
agement is key. Furthermore, by acknowledging that the areas as well are not isolated but
related in many aspects, one can gain from possible spill-over effects that knowledge and
interventions that are beneficial for and within SDG 5 are also beneficial for other areas
within the other SDGs and vice versa.

9.7 LIMITATIONS
This exploratory work although done with best intentions, of course, also has limitations.
First, the online format may have a negative impact on the depth of discussions and solution
122   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

findings. We assume that the original full-day in-person design thinking workshop may
have resulted in other outcomes.
The second set of limitations is based on the study participants. We deem this specifi-
cally relevant for researchers who aim to plan similar studies and urge them to take these
issues into account. The gender imbalance among the study participants (12 females: 1
male) is a limitation of the methodology. The participants were all chosen based on their
expertise relevant to the present study, and on convenience, that is, who is willing and
available to contribute. Since we were specifically looking for people with expertise in at
least the technical field and one other field related to gender equality, it is obvious that more
women are inclined to study gender equality issues, and less men. The question of whether
having a more gender-balanced panel would have altered the outcomes of the study is wor-
thy of investigation.
Furthermore, we identified a lack of expertise in legal topics. This would have been par-
ticularly useful as the legal framework gives the required limitations in which ideas can
move. We identified great cultural differences, as well as differences concerning the respec-
tive legal systems. Due to the lack of legal expertise and the changing regulations in the
current state, we were unable to incorporate this perspective into our discussions.
Lastly, qualitative studies, including expert interviews, all suffer from the similar meth-
odological issues around lack of generalization and objectivity. The small sample size does
not allow for generalization, and outcomes are biased for various reasons, for example,
cultural reasons, or biased researchers, evaluators moderators that only ask questions they
think are relevant. The small sample does not allow us to see it as a reflection of reality, and
the sample most likely favors a specific outcome. However, it shall be kept in mind that this
method is well used, if new beliefs shall be captured, and it is much better suited for an
exploratory field, where peoples’ – in this case experts’ – opinion shall serve as the guiding
pillars to drive the issue of gender equality forward.

9.8 CONCLUSION
This chapter has addressed gender equality within AI and reported the results of our quali-
tative study investigating the barriers and opportunities of gender equality with AI within
five chosen areas: Gender-related violence and health inequalities, pay gap, unpaid work,
and uneven funding.
The findings of our AI for gender equality study indicate that key opportunities lie in
awareness and intervention through blind-spot detection, in other words, using AI to
mitigate biased outcomes, furthermore, using interactive AI systems to empower the indi-
vidual through, for example, education and self-help. Finally, especially in safety-critical
situations, for example, a woman being attacked by a perpetrator, AI-based systems can be
used to help the victim by taking autonomous action.
We identified areas that need to be addressed in different ways: We motivate research-
ers and practitioners to further develop and engage in activities addressing very specific
issues in the areas of gender-related violence, health inequality, and pay gap as a lot of AI
systems are already deployed. On the other hand, more conceptual, groundwork is needed
for the areas of unpaid work and uneven funding, such as (academic) research proposals.
In these areas, subject matter knowledge is very narrow and lacks an empirical foundation.
 Spot on SDG 5   ◾   123

In all stages of the research as well as the development and deployment phase of an AI
system used to tackle a problem of gender equality, a transdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder
approach is key to ensuring the trustworthiness of AI, which comprises ethical, legal as
well as technical- and safety-related dimensions.32
However, it was also made clear that no technology is a magic pill to cure our society of
inequality. Beyond all enthusiasm, no AI technology was found to serve as a panacea for
gender-related issues. Presumably, no AI software or hardware can ban violence against
women for good, but it has potential to help. Furthermore, there is a substantial risk of eth-
ics washing, in this case “fem washing” and that the proclaimed impact is much lower than
expected, which unfortunately is very difficult to measure and prove.
During the workshops, we have experienced a great deal of enthusiasm for the topic,
especially from the developers’ side, regarding all the opportunities certain technologies
offer to (potentially) solve a certain problem. However, when discussed in an interdisci-
plinary group, where not only the technical but also the legal and ethical feasibility were
discussed, we observed a decrease in enthusiasm. Especially, problems around regulation
and privacy evolved into emotional and eventually unresolved discussions. This kind of
friction is though what we deem necessary, to evaluate and develop a solution aimed at
promoting gender equality (or probably any other SDG), especially in highly delicate areas
such as personal safety, as it is important to avoid creating more problems than we solve.
The overall consensus of experts supports our endeavors to continue our work on how AI
can promote gender equality. We also want to motivate others to invest in technology for
good, but cautiously, with skeptical optimism so to speak, and setting the right expecta-
tions with ambitious visions but realistic goals.

NOTES
1 AI bias can be defined as “the inclination or prejudice of a decision made by an AI system which is
for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair” (Ntoutsi et al., 2020).
2 www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/
3 https://https://ai4good.org/
4 www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/csw61/redistribute-unpaid-work
5 www.womeninai.co
6 www.vinnova.se
7 https://zoom.us/
8 www.mural.co/
9 www.thorn.org/spotlight/
10 www.ursafe.com/
11 www.nibye.com/
12 https://textio.com/
13 www.pymetrics.ai/ 17 www.ailira.com/
14 www.talvista.com/
15 www.entelo.com/
16 https://gapsquare.com/
17 https://pihr.com/
18 www.grace.health/
19 https://bonzun.com/
20 www.naturalcycles.com/
124   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

21 www.wild.ai/
22 www.babylonhealth.com/en-gb/
23 www.wysa.io/
24 www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01749124
25 https://changefusion.org/initiatives/11kdhvc0ebab7mgr9d85rviwj9axan
26 https://safetipin.com/
27 www.marinusanalytics.com/traffic-jam
28 www.thorn.org/spotlight/
29 www.ursafe.com/
30 www.nibye.com/
31 https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/
32 Referring to the EU Ethics guidelines for trustworthy AI www.aepd.es/sites/default/files/2019-
12/ai-ethics-guidelines.pdf

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 Chapter 10

A Legal Sustainability
Approach to Align the Order
of Rules and Actions in the
Context of Digital Innovation
Eduard Fosch-Villaronga,
Hadassah Drukarch, and Marco Giraudo

CONTENTS
10.1 Introduction 127
10.2 Interdependent Transitions Toward Holistic Sustainability 130
10.3 Technological Innovation Disrupts Regulation 131
10.4 A Call for a Strong Legal Sustainability Approach to Avoid Legal Bubbles
or Constitutional Crisis in the Context of Digital Innovation 132
10.5 Aligning Technological Innovation and Regulation 135
10.5.1 The Information Needed to Combat Information Asymmetries 136
10.5.2 Inclusive Policymaking 136
10.5.3 Creating Opportunities to Raise Unheard Voices 137
10.6 Conclusion 139
10.7 References 140

10.1 INTRODUCTION
The increased productivity and efficiency in the industrial and retail sectors, thanks to
robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI), have caused an emerging interest in realizing a
comparable transformation in other sectors, including healthcare, farming, and phar-
maceutical (Simshaw et al., 2015). While technology has fueled significant innovations
geared toward making life and work more accessible, not all such advancements benefit
society. Some of this progress has led us to experience social, economic, and environ-
mental challenges (Brundtland, 1987; Johnston, 2018; Zuboff, 2019; Crawford, 2021, see
also Chapter 3). For instance, screen-based technology leads humans to be less creative
DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-10 127
128   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

(Zomorodi, 2017), tired (Genner & Süss, 2017), and more distracted, thus increasing traf-
fic accidents (NHTSA, 2021). On another note, the increasing use of technology in patient
care makes one wonder whether and to what extent all parts of society can be automated
(Fosch-Villaronga, 2019; Sharkey & Sharkey, 2020). Breakthroughs at the expense of nature
also have disastrous consequences for planet Earth’s survival (Khakurel, 2018).
Since new technologies are novel, push the boundaries of the current understand-
ing of how the world works and may have a broad range of consequences on people; the
development of new technologies comes with the need for increased regulatory attention.
Nevertheless, there is an increasing gap between the policy cycle’s speed and technological
and social change (Downes, 2009; Sucha & Sienkiewicz, 2020). If market participants are
to coordinate their investments and economic plans in light of the emerging legal rules
being affirmed by the judicial bodies, there might be a problem of unexpected conflict
between them. Spontaneous coordination of activities within the market may clash with
the normative order of legal rules established and applied by the court system and rule
makers. This gap is becoming broader and more prominent in the field of robotics and
AI, as existing policies were unprepared to deal with machine learning and autonomous
agents adequately and, consequently, often lag and do not adequately frame or address the
implications of such technologies (Liu et al., 2020; Custers & Fosch-Villaronga, 2022).1
The enlarging divergence between policy adaptation and public authorities’ responses
can result from information and knowledge gaps between developers and policymakers.
However, sometimes it also results from stalling strategies deployed by technological firms
to seize dominant market shares to become “too big to be banned” (Mazur & Serafin, 2022,
see Pollman & Barry, 2017). For instance, scholars have highlighted for years the legal,
ethical, and societal consequences arising from services provided by Google or Facebook,
which go from privacy violations to democracy alteration (Choolhun, 2009; Isaak &
Hanna, 2018; Milmo, 2022), or sharing economy platforms such as Uber or Airbnb that
challenge workers’ rights (Posen, 2015; Lutz & Newlands, 2018). As our dependence on
these firms has reached unprecedented heights, these companies seem to have become too
big to adequately regulate by public authorities (Beard, 2022). In such an uncertain and
strategic scenario, a recurrent question is then how society, and more precisely how the
law, responds to these events (Sætra & Fosch-Villaronga, 2021a), or, in other words, what
direction of adaptation should be between the “order of actions” and the “order of rules”
(see, e.g., Dold & Lewis, 2022; Rizzo, 1999).2
Although technological change is believed to be at the core of all major historical dis-
ruptions, revolutions, wars, and general development (Bailey & Barley, 2020), it may nev-
ertheless offer a means to mitigate precisely those problems it has caused (Millar et al.,
2018). At the same time, it is also true that institutional change and legal reforms have
been conducive to and have proved essential preconditions for technological investments
and economic growth (Hodgson, 2015). We must ensure a synergistic relationship between
these two constitutive economic and social progress dimensions.
Given such a co-evolving and constitutive relation between legal, institutional, and
technological innovations, it is all the more urgent to modernize the policy cycle on many
levels and to ensure as smooth co-evolution as possible between the “order of actions”
 A Legal Sustainability Approach to Shaping Digital Innovation   ◾   129

and the “order of rules”. It is in this state of affairs that data-driven policy interventions
appeared, evidence-based mechanisms promising to offer a more comprehensive under-
standing of the issues at stake concerning a particular technology or field (such as chem-
icals or pharmaceuticals), frame it accordingly, and provide more detailed guidance to
developers (Höchtl et al., 2016; Athey, 2017; Calleja et al., 2022). Departing from the notion
that information is power, we hold that data may offer a valuable means to policymakers
to ensure adequate and sustainable policies for societal and technological developments
(Sandersen & Kvalvik, 2014).
Legal sustainability is an interdisciplinary notion we derive from economic literature
(Davies, 2013), aiming at singling out different postures toward the substitutability of legal
capital with technological capital, bearing on the propensity toward gambling core legal
interests and values to favor technological innovation patterns whose society-wide impli-
cations are unknown. For instance, the substitution of strong consent requirements and
other legal guarantees for individual autonomy in favor of security or “efficiency” prom-
ises attached to new technologies. In this sense, and in the pursuit of the UN Sustainable
Development Goals (SDG), we aim to contribute to the realization of legal sustainability
through the encouragement of more robust and more capable institutions (SDG 16 – peace
justice and strong institutions) in an age characterized by rapid developments, diminished
accountability, and increased uncertainty.
By framing democratic public order, fundamental rights, and constitutional rules as
core legal capital – at least in Western Legal Tradition (Gambaro, 2002) – the notion at
hand aims at emphasizing weak and strong policy and legal approaches toward the danger
of corroding the foundational constitutional structure of our society, as a result of unin-
tended and unexpected consequences of technological adoption and diffusion. Advocates
of weak approaches tend to see technological solutions as substitutes for constitutional rules
and values. In contrast, proponents of strong positions see the corrosion of legal capital as
conducive to the erosion of the ability of the legal order to reproduce itself and preserve the
prevailing constitutional order in the future. In both cases, access to better information
is a condition to make sense of how the ongoing social, economic, and political dynamics
around technological adoption and diffusion square or imperil the prevailing constitu-
tional order and the rule of law.3
This chapter is structured as follows. After this introduction, we lay the grounds for this
chapter in section 2 by explaining notions of sustainability in an uncertain legal world.
Since the current narrative focuses on how the order of actions (i.e., technology) shapes
constraints and world problematics and how the order of rules (i.e., the law) is doomed
to lag behind the order of actions, sections 3 and 4 provide examples on how technol-
ogy disrupts the legal ecosystem and how an uncontrolled legal environment may provide
carte blanche to techno-solutionism to cause further disruptions. We explain a three-step
process to align the order of ideas with that of actions in section 5. Such a process aims
at bridging information asymmetries by generating policy-relevant data, sharing knowl-
edge among stakeholders to understand and make sense of such information, and creating
opportunities for those ideas to turn into an “action” in the world of actions. This chapter
concludes with some final remarks in section 6.
130   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

10.2 INTERDEPENDENT TRANSITIONS TOWARD

HOLISTIC SUSTAINABILITY
We are living in a time of transition, especially the twin transition concerning the techno-
logical migration toward a digital environment and the ecological transformation, which
are regarded as complementary, co-evolving dynamics toward the sustainability of human
development (European Commission, 2021). Technological breakthroughs and dedicated
policies are essential to counter various crises, including climate one, toward realizing a
sustainable, fairer economic–social system (Fischer & Newell, 2008; De Cian et al., 2012).
Equally, technological innovation is increasingly necessary to solve long-standing social
and economic problems and inequalities (Johnston, 2018).
Any transformative and innovative activity involves the exploitation of some
resources, thus generating unpredictable and undesirable effects on third parties and
the environment (Addressed in SDGs 12–15) (Calabresi, 1985). The most notable and
well-known example is the environmental externalities of industrial development based
on fossil fuels and plastic materials. From the 1950s onward, it had already become evi-
dent that the remarkable improvements in terms of productivity, economic growth, and
standards of living enabled by massive motorization of society and new cheap materi-
als were based on the consumption of natural capital, which were polluting the envi-
ronment (see Missemer et al., 2022). However, the extent to which these undesirable
and unintended implications of technological innovation would have affected the envi-
ronmental sustainability of the prevailing business models of the time was unknown
(Davies, 2013), with authoritative – yet unheard – voices calling for early course correc-
tion (Meadows et al., 1972).
On the one hand, advocates of a weak sustainability approach claimed full substitut-
ability of natural capital being destroyed by the externalities of industrial and techno-
logical development. They held that technological improvements would have made it
possible to replace natural capital with functionally equivalent technological artifacts to
maintain ecosystemic equilibrium and avoid climate change and environmental disas-
ters (Neumayer, 2003). On the other hand, advocates of a strong sustainability approach
claimed that full substitutability was impossible (Dobson, 1998). Thus, they warned about
the danger of depleting core natural resources, for their destruction would have hindered
the replicability of the ecosystem, thus eliciting climate changes with unknown and poten-
tially destructive implications. Time has shown who was right, and the current climate
crisis is a monumental warning toward techno-solutions. Indeed, the more time advances,
the more we can see a parallel with the ongoing legal debates around digital transforma-
tion based on datafication of human experience (Zuboff, 2019).
In this respect, diverging positions are emerging as to the legal sustainability of the
ongoing digital transition in the face of a compelling and growing body of information
and knowledge about prevailing business models’ legal implications in terms of funda-
mental rights and democratic order (see, e.g., De Gregorio, 2022). The more visible these
implications become, the more pressing the question becomes how those undesirable
and unexpected harms to the foundational “legal capital” of the prevailing technological
trends shall be treated (Flórez Rojas, 2016). These can be characterized as “constitutional
 A Legal Sustainability Approach to Shaping Digital Innovation   ◾   131

externalities” caused by the prevailing data-driven business model, which must be duly
accounted for when assessing the efficiency and costs of the current digital transition (see
Giraudo, 2022a). Moreover, increasing information makes it apparent that AI development
also has an enormous environmental impact, for instance (Zuboff, 2019; Crawford, 2021;
Wynsberghe, 2021). As a result, instead of Earth resources as in the previous industrial
revolution, we see a broader sustainability question that embraces our legal–institutional
“capital” being corroded by surveillance capitalism.
The issue of externalities is neither a surprise nor new (Pigou, 1920; Coase, 1960). What
we see today is the need to understand the peril of pushing the prevailing constitutional
and legal order out of equilibrium with unpredictable political, economic, and environ-
mental consequences. However vital the twin transition is, it is not self-standing. For it to
be lasting, there is also a need to consider a third overlooked transition taking place whose
implications are as important as the previously mentioned two: The legal–institutional
transition that spans the economy, society, and environment altogether (Sætra, 2022a). We
have to ensure that by pursuing the twin transition, we do not do away with preserving
the prevailing constitutional order or the rule of law. In fact, given the foundational mat-
ters involved, there is little chance that the twin transformation can be stably attained if
the legal foundations of these activities are not shared and properly accommodated with
the prevailing fundamental rights and constitutional order. However, the rapidly evolving
order of actions in the digital environment is shattering the order of legal rules and the
constitutional order, the implications of which in terms of the prevailing legal order are
substantial and largely still unknown. We provide some illustrative examples of this dis-
connect in the following section.

10.3 TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION DISRUPTS REGULATION

In their 2019 report on regulatory effectiveness in the era of digitalization, the OECD
noted that governments and regulators, in particular, play a significant role in encouraging
digital innovation and incentivizing the development of digital technologies for the benefit
of society (OECD, 2019). It is within their ability to foster public and consumer interest in
the deployment of these technologies and to limit, where possible, any unintended negative
consequences of their introduction and use by providing general rules that reflect societal
values and preferences (OECD, 2019). However, this does not come without drawbacks
(Sætra & Fosch-Villaronga, 2021a).
This approach is reflected in our current legal system, a horror vacui system, which aims
to prevent legal lacunae from presenting themselves and ensuring legal certainty at all
times (Bryson et al., 2017). Departing from this objective, our legal system has produced
laws covering many phenomena and developments, including newly developed technolo-
gies such as robot and AI technologies. However, regulatory frameworks often lack the
agility to accommodate the increasing pace of technological developments and deeply
challenge how governments regulate (Downes, 2009; OECD, 2019). While the benefits
abound, new technologies inevitably disrupt how we conceive reality, causing growth and
innovation across the board (SDGs 8 and 9) and leading us to question and challenge exist-
ing norms and push us toward an increasingly louder call for legal and regulatory change.
132   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

An illustrative example of this newly introduced complexity can be found in healthcare

robots and AI, which, despite its unprecedented potential, still generally fails to incorpo-
rate safety sufficiency comprehensively to ensure satisfactory performance of the resulting
technologies in the wild (Gruber, 2019). Healthcare robots and AI challenge the timeliness
of laws and regulatory standards that were unprepared for technologies that, for instance,
would assist wheelchair users in becoming mobile (Tucker et al., 2015), perform surgeries
autonomously (Shademan et al., 2016), or offer assistance and support to children under
Autism Spectrum Disease in learning emotions (Scassellati et al., 2012; Fosch-Villaronga,
2019; Sætra et al., 2022).
Myriad examples can be found which indicate how such technologies have led us to
seriously question and challenge existing norms, such as safety and security, autonomy
and responsibility, and non-discrimination and equality (as addressed by SDG 10)
(Fosch-Villaronga & Drukarch, 2021). For instance, current legal frameworks tend to
overfocus on physical safety when addressing safety concerns. However, they fail to
account for other essential aspects like security, privacy, discrimination, psychological
aspects, and diversity, which nevertheless play a crucial role in ensuring the safety of
such devices to the fullest extent possible and for a wide diversity of potential users.
Moreover, these robotic and AI technologies are becoming increasingly autonomous and
complex in their interaction with humans, blurring the existing roles and responsibili-
ties and ulteriorly affecting society (Carr, 2011; Yang et al., 2017; Boucher et al., 2020;
Fosch-Villaronga et al., 2021).
While technology’s dramatically accelerating pace increasingly causes these disparities
between the norms we had once established when our societies took on an entirely differ-
ent architecture and the practical meaning and applicability of these norms in our current
technology-driven age, however, (adequate) legal responsiveness does not always follow
as a consequent step (Collingridge, 1980; Downes, 2009; Marchant, 2011; Newlands et al.,
2020). Moreover, while the pace of digitalization and its impacts on society and markets
have become an independent topic of research and debate, far less is clear on how the
traditional regulatory functions of governments should evolve with these transformative
changes, as will further be elaborated on in the following section.

10.4 A CALL FOR A STRONG LEGAL SUSTAINABILITY APPROACH

TO AVOID LEGAL BUBBLES OR CONSTITUTIONAL
CRISIS IN THE CONTEXT OF DIGITAL INNOVATION
The legal ecosystem faces similar issues and dangers when deciding how to deal with
externalities eroding constitutional capital at the core of constitutional democratic market
economies: Fundamental rights and democratic order (Büchi et al., 2020). In democratic
countries, fundamental rights and democratic order preserve the ability of the system to
reproduce itself, change ruling élites, or spontaneously adapt to unexpected events. The
uncertainty about the actual capacity of economic agents and political actors to deploy
technological solutions to substitute the constitutional values eroded by some technologies
gives rise to opposite policy stances, thus paralleling those observed regarding the issue of
climate or technological change.
 A Legal Sustainability Approach to Shaping Digital Innovation   ◾   133

Also, opposite positions are facing the newly emerging constitutional externalities:
Weak legal sustainability advocates versus strong legal sustainability ones. The first posi-
tion has long been dominant in academia and industry by supporting the prioritization of
technological innovation over legal compliance in case of conflicts or undesirable consti-
tutional externalities. By contrast, the second position is strengthening over time, thanks
to the consolidation of EU case law prioritizing privacy, data protection, and fundamental
rights over economic interests attached to the deployment of technological innovations
(e.g., Custers & Malgieri, 2022). As the current climate crisis suggests, “over-trust on the
ability of the technology sector to correct and mitigate by itself the externalities it gener-
ates may sound fragile” (Aroyo et al., 2021), if not naive. However, unlike the case of envi-
ronmental pollution, the possible crisis looming ahead if weak sustainability approaches
prevail is of legal, economical nature – if not constitutional.
As we will discuss in this section, the brewing crisis may come about either in the form
of a legal bubble or a constitutional crisis affecting the effectiveness and preservation of the
rule of law with unforeseeable political implications (Giraudo, 2022a). Systemic disregard
for constitutional externalities may create political friction and spell unprecedented con-
flict. From that perspective, we argue that a strong legal sustainability approach might be
needed to avoid unexpected crises of constitutional nature with all the disruptive conse-
quences which may follow.
Due to the favor libertatis (i.e., the preference for freedom/liberty) that formally
underpins democratic market economies, everyone is free to let others infringe upon
one’s fundamental rights unless that jeopardizes public security or other public inter-
ests in a democracy. Thus, in the face of newly emerging business models based on
direct or indirect forms of commodification of technological innovation, the long-term
legal sustainability question relates to the notion of individual autonomy and liberty
as well as to the expected implications of these transactions (e.g., privacy implications,
dignity violations) in terms of public democratic order. Hence, the level of legal trans-
action costs attending any transaction involving technology is highly influenced by
the account of liberty, and democratic public order is going to be dominant, as well as
by the expected implications on society at large of the emerging privately concluded
transactions. The disregard for the role of liberty and individual autonomy may, in fact,
eventually hamper the sustainability and attainment of the SDG in liberal–democratic
countries.
The core question is then multifold and refers to different levels that can be individ-
ual (micro), intermediate or organizational (meso), and collective, social, and economic
(macro) (Sætra & Fosch-Villaronga, 2021a). On the individual plane, and if we think about
a technology that processes personal data, the question can boil down to broadly under-
stood data protection issues. Thus, it deals with the issue of the extent to which contractual
agreements, working as a legal basis for data processing, can be qualified as spontaneous
and consensual rather than the result of coercion and private power relations and lack of
alternatives (Sætra, 2022a). On the collective and macro-levels, the question relates to the
expected benefits of surveillance capitalism with AI at its core and its compatibility with
the constitutional democratic order. From the different balancing of these expectations
134   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

follow other stands toward the ability of surveillance capitalism and the downstream tech-
nology to correct the constitutional externalities by itself (Zuboff, 2019).
Of course, there is a spectrum of possible ways of balancing fundamental rights, privacy,
and freedom of enterprise bearing on various views on the compatibility of the legal foun-
dations of the data-driven economy with the prevailing notion of liberty and autonomy
at the core of EU constitutional order that also happen in the meso-level (Spano, 2021).
Depending on which facet of liberty one chooses to prioritize and which of the multiple
possible expectations about the future implications of the digital transition, the answer to
the legal sustainability issue can vary remarkably (Wu, 2010; Sætra, 2022b). We may frame
the ongoing debate regarding weak and strong sustainability approaches competing at the
policy, judicial, and academic levels to shape the legal–institutional foundations of the con-
tinuous twin transitions.
Building on the experience with environmental pollution, whereby over-trust in the
ability of technological innovation to mitigate – even solve – consequences relating to
depletion of natural capital, we may call for a more conservative, strong legal sustainability
approach to avoid – or reduce the number of – unexpected future extreme phenomena
within the legal, economic ecosystem. At the moment of writing, however, there is no way
to envision which approach will prevail, or which future each of them embeds will come
to light. Only by taking a precautionary approach and through discovery processes inside
top judicial courts in the EU, elsewhere, and other legal actors will we discover whether the
conflict exposed by constitutional externalities can be accommodated within the prevail-
ing constitutional order or, instead, substantial constitutional incompatibility is going to
bring to a stop many of the personal data commodification practices.
What is already visible today is how economic agents and some departments of public
agencies, driven by techno-optimism, are migrating and investing enormous resources
into newly emerging technological ecosystems. They do so as if AI-powered tech solutions
could replace lost shares of individual autonomy and democratic debate or persistent legal
uncertainty did not exist. Economic agents’ investment strategies joining the digital tran-
sition seem unfettered by the ongoing legal discovery processes and shifts, up to the point
that legal bubbles may eventually come to light (Giraudo, 2022a). To some extent, such a
systemic overlook of institutional dynamics results from legal over-optimism that has been
dominant for decades within the industry.
In other words, it is hard to reasonably explain economic agents’ tacit legal bets on the
stability of the legal foundations of the rampant digital economy unless we acknowledge
the fact that there are systemic and silent assumptions within the industry that, sooner or
later, weak legal sustainability approaches will unavoidably prevail. These possibly mis-
placed expectations of securing stable legal entitlements over personal data lie at the core
of innovative business models dominant in technological innovation, generating ten-
sion between the order of actions and the order of rules at the heart of various industries.
Sooner or later, they shall adapt as we cannot expect a market economy to last without firm
legal foundations (Deakin et al., 2017). Thus, they will either “generate an industry-wide
collapse, once the loss of courts’ protection substantially decreases the value of invest-
ments as the keepers of the legal system” (Giraudo, 2022a) or the adaptation will favor the
 A Legal Sustainability Approach to Shaping Digital Innovation   ◾   135

order of actions, thus exposing a constitutional conflict between courts, Data Protection
Authorities (where present), and the legislative bodies coming to the rescue of the digital
industry. Time will tell who guessed correctly, however. As common wisdom has it, “it
ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just
ain’t so” (McKay, 2015).

10.5 ALIGNING TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION AND REGULATION

The High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence (HLEG AI) highlighted that AI
technologies demand “new legal measures and governance mechanisms . . . to be put
in place to ensure adequate protection from adverse impact as well as enabling proper
enforcement and oversight, without stifling beneficial innovation” (HLEG AI, 2019).
Nonetheless, although something ought to be done, there is no understanding yet of what
exactly can or should be done or what effective regulation might look like (Wischmeyer &
Rademacher, 2020), an uncertainty that, unfortunately, is at the expense of user rights
(Fosch-Villaronga & Heldeweg, 2018).
The fallacy of composition is a recurrent problem, that is, those circumstances in which
the central planner (private or public) is unable to anticipate the consequences of specific
individual choices, and the other way round, it is unable to predict the effects of choices
done at the macro-level (Finocchiaro, 2015). Regulators often operate in a regulatory envi-
ronment where it is difficult to enter such a conversation, let alone intervene adequately.
Moreover, academic research is often not ready to provide usable and valuable knowledge
either because it takes time to adequately accommodate the ongoing evolution of the order
of actions into a sufficiently adapted order of ideas or because its conclusions prove affected
by a form of bias in favor of entrepreneurial endeavors due to the prevailing economic
and political incentives structure (Nightingale & Coad, 2014; Whittaker, 2021). Regulatory
capture strategies have been adapted to the new institutional multi-level and epistemic
order, whereby the role of academic narratives and think-thanks cognitive support is an
essential part of the attempts of the industry to seize control of the regulatory framework
applicable to newly emerging technologies (Wold, 2022). As such, regulators find them-
selves at a strategic disadvantage due to information asymmetries, a lack of knowledge to
properly understand the implications of technologically enabled social relations as well
for lack of resources and institutional mechanisms to intervene timely before technology
has been developed and widely adopted (Calleja et al., 2022). These are challenges that UN
SDGs 16 and 17 precisely aim to address.
Should these asymmetries and strategic disadvantages continue, technology companies
“[will] have a lock on how their products work while underfunded and understaffed regula-
tors will continue to struggle not only to understand the technology but to articulate their
concerns” (Guihot & Bennett Moses, 2020; Calleja et al., 2022), thereby further destabiliz-
ing the already weak constitutional accountability structures in place. Moreover, develop-
ers will struggle to implement legal provisions into their designs, resulting in constant
disconnects between policy goals and safe technology (Kapeller et al., 2021). Equipping
regulators with technical knowledge of design and practices could help them understand
the regulatory needs of a specific and novel technology. However, solving such information
136   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

asymmetries among developers and regulators raises questions concerning (1) what kind
of information is needed to bridge this gap, (2) what knowledge-sharing mechanisms exist
for these different stakeholders to make that information intelligible, and (3) what oppor-
tunities do those groups have to act upon such knowledge, and foster a change in the order
of actions.

10.5.1 The Information Needed to Combat Information Asymmetries

Departing from the notion that assessing risks through experimentation is essential to
ensure the safety of new technologies and compliance with existing norms, recent research
has proved how experimentation facilities can serve as a source for overcoming infor-
mation asymmetries between developers and regulators (Fosch-Villaronga & Heldeweg,
2018). Anticipating hazards and reflections on appropriate safeguards for new technolo-
gies often happens in testing beds, where prototypes’ characteristics are improved to meet
safety standards. Some initiatives in Japan (via the Tokku zones, see Weng et al., 2015)
and Europe (see Calleja et al., 2022) depart from the premise that these settings could
also provide knowledge to improve regulations. The idea behind their method is that
testing zones primarily used by developers (for instance, the ones created by the H2020
EUROBENCH Project) can be places where policy-relevant data can be generated and that
policymakers could ulteriorly use to establish new safety requirements for uncovered chal-
lenges or reformulate existing criteria inconsistent with how technology works. The project
PROPELLING showed how scholars could harness robot testing zones as a source for evi-
dence-based knowledge interventions concerning diversity and inclusion for lower-limb
exoskeletons, that is, because experiments showed that exoskeletons do not account for sex
differences and that men and women experience exoskeleton use differently, something that
further influences the device safety. As the saying goes, scientia potentia est: Generating
policy-relevant, accurate, and representative data can help decrease existing information
imbalances among policymakers concerning different communities in line with the SDG
4 objective of improving the quality and accessibility of knowledge. Consequently, legal
action can, if necessary, be more efficient.

10.5.2 Inclusive Policymaking

Although data generation is essential, its value ultimately depends on which sources these
data come from and how it is distributed among other levels and orders. The H2020 COVR
project, which stands for “Being safe around collaborative and versatile robots in shared
spaces”,4 aimed to present detailed safety assessment instructions to robot developers and
make the safety assessment process clearer and more straightforward, which, in turn, may
allow robots to be used in a more trustworthy and responsible way. In this sense, this
EU-funded project sought to develop a tool to better equip robot developers with knowl-
edge (in line with SDG 4) about various aspects, among which legal and regulatory, that are
relevant for them throughout the development of their creations. To this end, they created
the COVR Toolkit (“toolkit”), an online software application that, among other things,
aimed at aiding developers in identifying legislation and standards relevant to them in
framing their robot development process and eventual product outcome. More specifically,
 A Legal Sustainability Approach to Shaping Digital Innovation   ◾   137

the toolkit compiles safety regulations for collaborative robots or cobots, that is, robots
developed to work closely with humans (Surdilovic et al., 2011) in various domains, such
as manufacturing, agriculture, and healthcare.
Although compliance tools, such as the COVR toolkit, represent a practical step toward
bridging legal knowledge gaps among developers, new robot applications may fail to fit
into existing (robot) categories. A “feeding robot”, for instance, may be composed of a
robotic wheelchair, an industrial arm, and a feeding function (Herlant, 2018) and may be
difficult to classify in existing laws and regulations that cover wheelchairs and industrial
arms, but not such a complex cyber-physical system. Moreover, current standards (e.g.,
ISO 13482:2014 Personal Care Robots), laws (e.g., Medical Device Regulation, 2017), and
proposed regulations (e.g., AI Act, 2021) are often technology-neutral and were enacted
when practices were at the early stages of implementation and impacts were still unknown,
often resulting in dissonances about their protected scope (Fosch-Villaronga, 2019; Salvini
et al., 2021). Providing developers with legal information that may be outdated or unclear
may do little to help them integrate these considerations into their R&D processes and may
have ulteriorly adverse effects once their technologies are put into practice.
In this state of affairs, and contributing to the SDG 9 objective of investing in scien-
tific research and innovation to facilitate sustainable development, the LIAISON Project
was set in motion by researchers at Leiden University. LIAISON stands for “Liaising robot
development and policymaking to reduce the complexity in robot legal compliance” and
was a Financial Support to Third Parties (FSTP) from the H2020 COVR Project. LIAISON
departed from the idea that developers may identify legal inconsistencies among regula-
tions or call new categories of devices that struggle to fit any legal categories established in
the legal compliance process. At the same time, patient organizations and other actors may
identify other safety requirements (physical and psychological alike) that remain uncov-
ered in existing legislation but are nevertheless essential to cover to protect user safety.
LIAISON realized that this currently uncaptured knowledge could be formalized and
serves as data to improve regulation. To do so, LIAISON attempted to formalize a commu-
nication process between robot developers and public and private regulators from which
different actors (and eventually policies) could learn, thereby channeling robot policy
development from a bottom-up perspective fueled by partnerships between relevant stake-
holders across the technology-policy ecosystem (Fosch-Villaronga & Heldeweg, 2019). This
approach would align with SDG 17, which aims to contribute to realizing a more sustain-
able constitutional interaction with digital innovation.

10.5.3 Creating Opportunities to Raise Unheard Voices

The existence of an opportunity to timely and effectively intervene in the regulatory pro-
cess for noncommercial entities and individuals – for example, associations and think
tanks – is essential for implementing a (strong) legally sustainable transition. That is true
concerning the two most relevant institutions directly or indirectly influencing policy-
making: Law and science (Greif & Mokyr, 2017). If information is available and technical
knowledge has been gathered, then there is the need to make sense of all the evidence
regarding societal implications and constitutional consequences to translate it into a policy
138   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

agenda. This happens in the legislative process, court litigation, and academic research
programs, whereby scientific authority is attached to sponsor alternative policy agents. If
one-sided views dominate legal and scientific policy assessments, then the strategic dis-
equilibrium society experiences will be exacerbated and bear on regulatory delays and the
enlarging pacing problem (Downes, 2009; Sætra & Fosch-Villaronga, 2021b).
Such a situation of strategic disequilibrium between those advocating for legal inno-
vation and those defending the prevailing order of rights shall be leveled off through
positive actions funded by public institutions. There is the need to create equal opportu-
nities for corporate and non-corporate entities to timely participate in rulemaking and
knowledge production through academic and research institutions in line with the SDG
10 goal, which aims, among other things, to empower and promote the social, economic,
and political inclusion of all, ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of out-
come (see Chapters 5 and 8). If there is no equal opportunity in both dimensions, society
risks perpetuating the distortive loop whereby policymakers use knowledge produced by
corporate-sponsored research programs to critically appraise corporate-designed rules
laid down with intensive lobbying investments and strategically litigated case law (see, e.g.,
Mazur & Serafin, 2022).
As to the legal dimension, AI-enabled ecosystems enjoy a strategic hedge in their abil-
ity to directly shape the regulatory landscape because they have the economic means to
reach out to rule makers and win long-lasting lawsuits. There is the need to create institu-
tional venues to match the strategic disequilibrium between those willing to deploy legal
innovation instrumental to technological solutions and those willing to protect the pre-
vailing order of rights and interests. On the procedural level, there might be the case to
think of dedicated specialized judicial bodies within the judiciary enjoying independence,
autonomy, and impartiality to address prompt requests and adjudication on newly emerg-
ing issues. One might think of prototypical rules being announced to be applied to a specific
case, with no ambition to have general scope during a period of grace. That may combine
the need to immediately protect users’ rights and prevent society-wide harm while limiting
legal decisions’ impact on reliance interests at the same time. In fact, due to the prompt legal
adjudication from the specialized body, there is less time for relying on interests to form.
As to the knowledge production level, there is the need to counter technological firms’
power to fund complacent academic research to shape exclusively positive narratives about
technology’s future implications and social costs without objectively considering the risks
and threats accompanying these developments. Such a knowledge advantage lets them
have the ability to rapidly and effectively shape the order of ideas, which will be used to
appraise the unfolding technological dynamics critically. To counter that, it might be pos-
sible to establish publicly funded research schemes for scientific knowledge production
specifically aimed at creating knowledge about the negative implications and incompatible
effects with the prevailing order of rules. If public research institutions over-fund pro-
innovation research programs, there is a risk of having a distorted incentive structure for
researchers to underestimate possible threats coming along with specific trends of techno-
logical change (Sætra & Fosch-Villaronga, 2021b). By ensuring a knowledge generation on
the implications of technological innovation does not suffer the consequences of (hidden)
 A Legal Sustainability Approach to Shaping Digital Innovation   ◾   139

bias while simultaneously leaving room for all relevant interests and incentives – both
economic and social – to be considered, a step closer to sustainable economic growth and
innovation, in line with SDGs 9 and 10, may be achieved.

10.6 CONCLUSION
Information imbalance is one of the main drivers behind policy goals and technological
innovation dissonances. As science moves faster than moral understanding, people even
struggle to articulate their unease with the perils novel technologies introduce (Sandel,
2007), and it is not uncommon to see inventors and users sidelining ethical considerations
while focusing on the practical considerations of efficiency and usability (Carr, 2011).
Regulation is not immune to those problems. On the contrary, information asymmetries
between corporations and regulatory agencies are increasing, impeding the enactment of
frameworks closer to reality and more attuned to the real problems that technology poses. In
this context, among the 17 UN SDGs, the UN SDGs 16 and 17 are instrumental in promot-
ing a more participatory, inclusive, and accountable institution for technology regulation.
We live in a time of regulatory comeback and technological turmoil after years of
retrenchment of public rule makers to the advantage of self-regulation. In this respect,
society must be sure not to let the State and the public institutions be trapped within a
knowledge bubble whereby alternative voices to current deployments and concerns at dif-
ferent levels are not let in for lack of opportunity. If the body of knowledge used to make
sense of available information is biased in favor of corporate interests, the effort of the
State to mitigate constitutional externalities is doomed to fail. For this reason, this article
reasoned from a precautionary perspective about the importance of having a strong legal
sustainability approach and generating information from different sources and communi-
ties, establishing communication processes to share such information, and creating oppor-
tunities to raise unheard voices and learn from diverse communities to avoid legal bubbles
or constitutional crisis in the context of digital innovation.

NOTES
1 In this contribution, we use the terms policy, regulation, and law as synonyms.
2 We refer to the order of actions as the practices carried out by developers and the industry and
the order of rules as the set of norms, policies, and laws governing the behavior of the actors
involved in the order of actions (including industries but also consumers and users).
3 According to the UN, the rule of law is “a principle of governance in which all persons, insti-
tutions and entities, public and private, including the State itself, are accountable to laws that
are publicly promulgated, equally enforced and independently adjudicated, and which are
consistent with international human rights norms and standards”. See www.un.org/ruleo
flaw/what-is-the-rule-of-law/. The UN has highlighted that rule of law and development are
strongly interlinked, and that strengthened rule of law-based society should be considered as
an outcome of the 2030 Agenda and SDGs. Especially in relation to SDG 16, the development
of inclusive and accountable justice systems and rule of law reforms will build trust in the
legitimacy of governments. In this context, SDG 17 also contributes to this goal by forging
partnerships to share ideas and foster innovation.
4 See www.safearoundrobots.com/home.
140   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

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 Chapter 11

Governing Toward
Sustainable Development
From a Path-Dependent Transition
to a Disruptive One

Lilja Mósesdóttir and Ivar Jonsson

CONTENTS
11.1 Introduction 145
11.2 State of the Art on Sustainability Transition and on Political Dimensions 148
11.2.1 Sustainability Transition 148
11.2.2 Politics 149
11.2.3 Path Dependency 150
11.2.4 Governing Sustainability Transition – A Framework 151
11.3 The Case of Norway 153
11.3.1 The Global Ambition 153
11.3.2 A Mismatch Between the Global and National Discourse 153
11.3.3 Pressures From Below 154
11.3.4 The Piecemeal Approach to the SDGs 155
11.3.5 The Case in View of Our Framework 155
11.4 Conclusion 157
11.5 References 158

11.1 INTRODUCTION
In 2019, an independent expert group appointed by the United Nations (UN) found that
the world is not on track for achieving most of the 169 targets that comprise the SDGs due
to “rising inequalities, climate change, biodiversity loss and increasing amounts of waste”
(UN, 2019, p. xx). All member states have made a commitment to fulfill Agenda 2030 with
its 17 SDGs designed to achieve UN’s vision of sustainable development involving economic
growth, social progress, and promotion of environmental sustainability (see Chapter 1).
The SDGs are not legally binding but provide the member states with global sustainability

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-11 145

146 ◾ Technology and Sustainable Development

goals whose fulfillment requires a transition involving “a profound and intentional depar-
ture from business as usual” (UN, 2019, p. 5). The UN experts responded to the lack of
progress on the SDGs by urging member countries to devise transition pathways contain-
ing fundamental changes in current socio-environmental–economic systems. As the layers
of change needed to attain the SDGs vary across countries and regions, different transition
pathways will be created (UN, 2019, p. xx).
The UN experts’ recommendations shed the light on the importance of political efforts
in accelerating sustainability transition. At the same time, climate emergency has started
to cast doubt on the ability of techno-solutionism (see Chapter 1) and the “reformed” capi-
talist system to secure sustainable development (see Chapter 17). Political efforts accelerat-
ing sustainability transition do not operate in vacuum but interact with technology, the
national context, and pressures from the regional/global level. Political actors seek, for
example, to promote technological changes to solve what they see as a problem, and they
react when technology creates new opportunities or threats (see Carstensen & Schmidt,
2016; Acemoglu & Robinson, 2010). Moreover, sustainability transition can be facilitated
by changes in a broad range of interrelated technologies that create, for example, technical
solutions to the negative environmental effects of economic growth involving unsustain-
able resource use and carbon emissions. Both the health crisis created by COVID-19 and
the War in Ukraine with its negative effects on food and energy prices have caused perfor-
mance problems on the SDGs in many countries (see Zhao et al., 2022).
Different transition models have been suggested as a means to achieve sustainable devel-
opment. These models involve green growth, circular economy, and greening of the econ-
omy in a fair and inclusive manner (just transition). According to the green growth theory,
technological change, substitution, and structural change toward fewer resource-intensive
services will allow us to decouple fast enough GDP growth (SDG 8) from resource use
(SDG 12) and carbon emissions (SDG 13) to meet environmental targets. However, Hickel
and Kallis (2020) were unable to find empirical support for this assertion. Surprisingly,
their findings also apply to countries following the OECD’s and the World Bank’s rec-
ommendation to deploy technological innovation and government policy to achieve this
decoupling. Hence, Hickel and Kallis claim that “green growth is likely to be a misguided
objective, and that policymakers need to look toward alternative strategies” (2020, p. 469).
Similarly, Geels (2014, p. 25) and Kivimaa and Kern (2016) argue that policymakers need
to put greater emphasis on the destruction part in what Schumpeter (1942) calls “creative
destruction” involving not only creation of green industries but also phasing out of fossil
fuel industries.
A circular economy model is a model of production and consumption that ensures
economic growth (SDG 8), while materials and products maintain their values, waste is
avoided, and resources are kept within the economy (SDG 12). This is achieved through
sharing, leasing, repairing, and recycling existing materials and products as long as pos-
sible (see Corvellec et al., 2021; Geisendorf & Pietrulla, 2018, p. 779). Critics maintain that
the model is just another technical fix to the challenges of climate change that depoliticizes
sustainable growth by emphasizing the role of consumers, markets, and corporations in
the development of recycling economy (see Corvellec et al., 2021; see also Chapters 12,
 Governing Toward Sustainable Development   ◾   147

15, and 17). According to Korhonen et al. (2018, p. 41), the limitation of the model is that
cyclical production systems still consume resources and create wastes and emissions given
the current technological state of the economy. Moreover, the extent to which the circular
economy model is able to ensure social sustainability needs thorough investigation (see
Mies & Gold, 2021).
Studies of environmental and climate change demonstrate how countries with high
level of GDP per capita who are governed through social goals and relative egalitarian
redistribution such as the Nordic countries are more likely to be successful in achieving
sustainable development (see Lockwood, 2015; Kuzemko et al., 2016, p. 100; Koch, 2020,
p. 122). This is also manifested by Sachs et al. (2022) who compared the overall perfor-
mance of 163 countries on the 17 SDGs, giving equal weight to each goal. The comparison
for 2022 places Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway at the top of the list with scores
ranging from around 86.5 to 82.3 followed closely by Austria and Germany. Sachs et al.
(2022) found that Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway have achieved the goals of no
poverty (SDG 1) and affordable and green energy (SDG 7), while they have major problems
attaining reduction in greenhouse emissions (SDG 13) and sustainable production and
consumption (SDG 12). The good performance of the four Nordic countries on the SDGs
has given support to what the global labor movement calls “just transition”.
According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), “just transition means green-
ing the economy in a way that is as fair and inclusive as possible to everyone concerned,
creating decent work opportunities and leaving no one behind” (ILO, n.d.). In other
words, economic growth (SDG 8) is compatible with high level of environmental protec-
tion (SDG 13) and social progress (SDG 5 and SDG 10) as a shift to a low-carbon energy
system can create jobs that are not only environmentally friendly but also decent (see
Sabato & Fronteddu, 2020, p. 13). The labor movement’s understanding of just transition
has been criticized for embracing economic growth and techno-solutionism (see Xinxin
Wang, 2021; see also Chapters 17 and 18). Moreover, the just transition framework fails to
acknowledge the need to transform power relations and structures underlying unsustain-
able growth regimes (Xinxin Wang, 2021). Hence, just transition needs to involve a radical
critique of capitalism and green growth (see Normann & Tellmann, 2021, p. 424).
As the three transition models of green growth, circular economy, and just transition
demonstrate, the SDGs are putting the developmental trajectory of many countries under
strain. The SDGs involve partially contradictory goals that green technologies and politi-
cal efforts have, so far, not managed to solve (see also Chapter 1). In addition, transitional
changes facilitated by, for example, disruptive technologies and policies create not only
winners when new structures are created but also powerful losers when old unsustainable
ones are destroyed (Turnheim & Geels, 2012; see also Chapter 15). Hence, various actors
are seeking to inform and/or control the terms of the debate about the need for continuity,
adaptation, and transitional change to meet them. At the same time, the climate urgency
has increased awareness that much more needs to be done to accelerate the sustainability
transition. However, the four Nordic countries, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway,
scoring highest on the SDGs are not characterized by transitional change but stability and
path-dependent development involving just transition or inclusive economic growth (see
148   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

NOU, 2021a; Khan et al., 2021). This puzzle creates a need to gain a better understanding
of the impulses behind stability and disruption in sustainability transition.
In the following, the literature on the political dimensions of sustainability transition
is reviewed to unwrap the meaning of sustainability transition, identify the role political
actors play in sustainability transition, and how their efforts are shaped by the national
context. Based on our literature review, we develop a framework for analyzing the role
of politics and path dependency in shaping sustainability outcomes. Our contribution to
scholarship on the political dimensions of sustainability transition is to explain why top
performance on the SDGs can be achieved without transitional change. Moreover, our
framework goes beyond policy outputs by considering sustainability outcomes and their
implications for transition pathways, that is, whether they are path-dependent, lock-in,
or disruptive. Thereafter, we illustrate our framework by a case study. We have chosen
Norway as our case as it has attained a high overall score on the SDGs and played an
important role in the global partnership for sustainable development (achieved SDG 17).
At the same time, Norway has a petroleum-based economy and is characterized by strong
institutions (achieved this part in SDG 16) that are sign of stability rather than disruption.
Finally, we analyze the national context prevailing in Norway in view of our framework
to improve our understanding of why a certain transitional pathway receives support, and
why it is associated with stability rather than disruption.
The main assumption of our framework is that ideas underlying the global SDGs need
to be compatible with underlying political values and supported by material conditions
(technology and wealth) for a country to attain a high score on the goals without radical
change. The ideas on which the SDGs are grounded are “destructive creation”, inclusive
development, and fair distribution of opportunities and income. The last two ideas are in
line with Social Democratic values of solidarity and universalism that have to vary degrees
become entrenched in institutional structures of countries with top score on the SDGs.
Our case study highlights how political actors in Norway have been assisted by the Nordic/
Norwegian model of tripartite collaboration and the welfare state (the Nordic/Norwegian
model) and, especially its entrenched values in their efforts to secure a path-dependent
development in a petroleum economy. These values are solidarity with oil workers and
future generations, universalism involving the need to maximize employment and welfare
(state income) and decommodification of future generations by saving for their pension in
the sovereign wealth fund (oil fund). However, there exists a real risk of lock-in situation at
the current high level of the SDGs due to the enormous wealth creation of the petroleum
industry and lack of technological advances allowing “decoupling” of environmental harm
from economic activity.

11.2 STATE OF THE ART ON SUSTAINABILITY TRANSITION

AND ON POLITICAL DIMENSIONS

11.2.1 Sustainability Transition

An important assertion of studies in the field of sustainability transitions is that incre-
mental improvements and technological fixes are not enough to achieve sustainability
 Governing Toward Sustainable Development   ◾   149

transition (Fuenfschilling & Binz, 2018; Köhler et al., 2019). Instead, transition requires
considerable changes along institutional, technological, organizational, political, and
socio-cultural dimensions that make up the so-called socio-technical system (Markard
et al., 2012; Duygan et al., 2019). The drivers of such radical regime change can, for exam-
ple, be a large and unexpected system shock (e.g., drought, flood, financial market crash)
and changes incubated by transition actors that accumulate into a transition of the current
socio-technical system (see Werbeloff et al., 2016, p. 120). The main role of political actors
and public policy in sustainability transition is to influence the transition’s direction and
speed (see Edmondson et al., 2019). However, political actors will disagree about the direc-
tions of transitions, appropriate ways to govern such processes, and the extent to which
transitions create potential winners and losers (Köhler et al., 2019, p. 6).
Few studies focus on the implications of the SDGs on sustainability transitions, although
they are a set of stretch goals defining UN’s vision of sustainable development in terms of
outcomes. Hence, the commitment of the UN member countries made in 2015 to achieve
the 196 targets underlying the 17 SDGs by 2030 settled disputes over how sustainabil-
ity transitions can be accomplished (mission), while the choice of transition pathways to
sustainable development (strategy) was left to the national level to decide on (cf. strate-
gic management). We know from studies of sustainability transition that political efforts
to govern or facilitate transitional change along certain pathways are contingent on the
national context and influenced by socio-technical change (see Fuenfschilling & Binz,
2018; Edmondson et al., 2018). As the SDGs are global goals, the extent to which politi-
cal and institutional settings at the national level support their attainment varies across
countries. Hence, political pressures arising from performance problems on the SDGs and
potential distributional effects of the transition differ across countries.

11.2.2 Politics
As pointed out by Köhler et al. (2019), studies of the political dimensions of sustainability
transition have sought to identify the (potential) effects of sustainability transition on dif-
ferent actors (winners and losers) and their strategies to protect their interests (see, e.g.,
Kalt, 2022; Geels, 2014; Turnheim & Geels, 2012). The focus of these studies has also been
on how different groups seek to use their power to shape discourses and build alliances
(based on shared beliefs, discourse, or common interest) to influence policy processes, and
thereby policy outputs (see, e.g., Edmondson et al., 2019; Kuzemko et al., 2016; Kern, 2011).
As transition involves fundamental changes in the distribution of power, there will be mul-
tiple political actors with multiple interests and strategies seeking to influence policy out-
puts (see Köhler et al., 2019; see also Chapter 15).
Geels (2014) identified various ways in which incumbent actors such as businesses
in coal, gas, and nuclear production in the United Kingdom used power and politics to
actively resist fundamental transitions to new low-carbon systems. According to Geels
(2014), incumbent actors resist fundamental system change, using instrumental, discur-
sive, material, and institutional forms of power. Instrumental forms of power are exercised
when regime actors use resources in interactions with other actors as a means to achieve
their goals and interests. Regime actors can also apply discursive forms of power to resist
150   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

change by shaping not only what issues are being discussed but also how they are dis-
cussed. Material strategies are adapted by the regime actors when technical capabilities
and financial resources are used to improve the technical dimension of socio-technical
regimes. Examples are technological solutions like Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
to reduce emission problems created by fossil fuel industry. Institutional forms of power
are embedded in political cultures, ideologies, and governance structures. Institutional
power is wielded when regime actors are able to use the institutional context or norms and
decision-making procedures to shape policymaking in their favor or away from alternative
transition (Geels, 2014).
Kalt (2022) has, for example, identified four possible transition strategies that different
trade unions can adopt. The choice of strategy is shaped by the extent to which the unions
regard the transition as an opportunity to renew their power or fear a loss of power. First,
oppositional strategies are practiced by actors when seeking to protect jobs in fossil fuel
industries through subsidies and relying on technological solutions. Second, the reactive
strategies are adopted when actors accept slow phase-out of fossil fuel. Third, actors apply
affirmative strategies when supporting changes within the existing institutional frame-
work. Fourth, the transformative transition strategies are pursued when actors reject green
capitalism by demanding radical changes in power relations and institutional and eco-
nomic structures. His study of union’s strategies in Germany and South Africa showed that
social justice-oriented unions are more likely to adopt transformative transition strategies.
Moreover, unions are more likely to be on the offensive when neoliberal approach to green
transitions is adopted as it is believed to have negative employment effects (Kalt, 2022).

11.2.3 Path Dependency

The interaction between politics and the institutional context is also the focus of research
on sustainability transition policies (see Kuzemko et al., 2016; Kivimaa & Kern, 2016;
Kern, 2011). Kern (2011) studied, for example, the relationship between ideas, institutions,
and interests and its influence on policy initiatives to promote system innovations in the
United Kingdom and the Netherlands. In line with Schmidt (2008), Kern (2011, p. 1120)
maintains that we need to pay attention to the processes through which actors create new
policy ideas, and to the extent to which these ideas are shaped by existing institutional fac-
tors such as formal rules (e.g., laws, regulations, and standards) and informal rules (e.g.,
norms, habits, and customs). Ideas are the substantive contents of discourse that is to some
extent constrained by existing institutions through their influence on what can be said
meaningfully (Schmidt, 2008; Kern, 2011). According to Kern (2011, p. 1129), “radical pol-
icy change is expected to occur only when a new discourse transforms existing interests
and successfully challenges existing institutional commitments”. Moreover, policies are
path-dependent when a new discourse transforms existing interests, while a mutually sup-
portive relationship exists between a new discourse and existing institutions. Finally, little
or no policy change takes place when the new discourse, existing interests, and institutions
are mutually supportive.
Kuzemko et al. (2016) give a detailed account of why it is difficult to change existing
institutions that they attribute to their path-dependent qualities. These qualities are, for
 Governing Toward Sustainable Development   ◾   151

example, sets of ideas that have become embedded in institutions and are used to mediate
between interest groups that in turn influence which voices are “heard” in political debates
and which are not. Hence, embedded framework of ideas shapes choices of policy objec-
tives and instruments used to achieve them (Kuzemko et al., 2016, p. 99). Moreover, the
path-dependent qualities of institutions diverge across countries and regions resulting in
different transition pathways. In countries with strong market-liberal ideas as, for example,
the United Kingdom, the range of acceptable policy options in response to climate change
has been narrowed down to market-based instruments, while countries characterized by
core values of Social democracy and greater collective and/or coordinative capacities allow
for a more active role for government actors in setting and meeting sustainability goals (see
Kuzemko et al., 2016, pp. 102–103). Chapter 13 also demonstrates how the neoliberal state
in the United Kingdom has implemented policies focusing on “nudges” that seek through
framing rather than economic incentives to steer people’s behavior in green direction as a
means to maintain its policy of austerity.
Kivimaa and Kern (2016, p. 205) argue that sustainability transition requires innova-
tion policy mixes aiming at “creative destruction” or facilitating both creation of the new
and destabilization of the old. However, studies have found that most policy mixes have
developed through policy layering including new policy goals and instruments added on
top of existing ones or policy drift including changed policy goals without changing the
instruments (Howlett & Rayner, 2013). Designing innovation policies aiming at phasing
out/destroying wasteful or polluting industries has been challenging as they contradict
the ideology of traditional innovation policies seeking to contribute to economic growth
(Kivimaa & Kern, 2016, p. 214). Disruptive policies are also actively opposed by those who
believe they will lose out or are uncertain about its economic advantages (see Turnheim &
Geels, 2012; Geels, 2014).

11.2.4 Governing Sustainability Transition – A Framework

Based on the central issues in the literature reviewed earlier, we develop a framework for
analyzing the role of politics and path dependency in shaping sustainability outcomes.
The aim is to explain why sustainability outcomes associated with transitions coexist with
stability and incremental policy changes, and what the implications are for transition path-
ways. Its basic assumption is that the SDGs are based on ideas offering political blueprints
for how to achieve sustainable development. These ideas need to be compatible with domi-
nant political values embedded in the institutional context and supported by material con-
ditions (technology and wealth) for a country to attain a high score on the goals (see Kern,
2011; Geels, 2014). In other words, the more compatible these factors are, the more success-
ful a country is in attaining the SDGs with only incremental changes.
The SDGs not only are global goals defining sustainability outcomes but also contain
ideas that favor certain policy objectives and instruments. These embedded ideas are
inclusive development (e.g., SDGs 1, 2, 7, 8, 11, 16, 17), fair distribution of opportunities
and income (e.g., SDGs 3, 4, 5, 10, 16), and “creative destruction” involving destruction of
wasteful and polluting industries and consumption patterns at the same time as new green
ones are created (e.g., SDGs 6, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15). Interestingly, inclusive development and
152   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

fair distribution are in line with the Social Democratic idea that all who are able and will-
ing to work should have access to employment and should receive a fair share of the eco-
nomic benefits produced (von Platz, 2020, p. 22). Hence, countries where Social Democratic
values have become embedded in the political cultures and governance structures have a
comparative advantage and will start off with a better performance on the SDGs than
countries dominated by other political ideologies (see Mósesdóttir & Jonsson, 2020).
When the SDGs and the national context are based on compatible ideas, the political
elite is able to deploy their instrumental, discursive, material, and institutional forms of
power to implement their oppositional strategy to transitional change involving empha-
sis on technological solutions to environmental challenges (see Geels, 2014; Kalt, 2021).
The sustainability pathway is then characterized by a changing discourse arising from the
SDGs’ emphasis on not only the economic and social dimensions of the SDGs but also its
environmental dimension. The changing discourse puts a pressure on the domestic inter-
est constellations, while the institutional context remains intact due to its path-dependent
qualities (see Kern, 2011; Kuzemko et al., 2016). This external pressure on the domestic
interests may push the dominant political actors to adopt reactive strategy or to accept
slow phase-out of not only the consumption but also the production of fossil fuel (see Kalt,
2022). Policy outputs are then layered (new policy objectives and instruments) or drifted
(changed policy objectives but old instruments) and added on top of existing ones facilitat-
ing path-dependent policy outcomes (see Kivimaa & Kern, 2016).
We assume that most transition pathways to sustainable development as defined by
the UN are at first path-dependent or shaped by stable institutions such that transition
actors only make small adjustments in strategies and instruments in response to chang-
ing global discourse on sustainability (see Werbeloff et al., 2016; Hanger-Kopp et al., 2022;
Kern, 2011). These path-dependent transition pathways differ across countries as they are
contingent on the national context. Moreover, they are less contentious and contradictory
in countries with high scores on the SDGs than in countries with lower scores. However,
political tensions will also grow in high-scoring countries when it becomes apparent that
the SDGs cannot be fulfilled without radical changes.
Path-dependent transition pathways will eventually create a lock-in situation mani-
fested in a persistent lack of progress on the SDGs and no prospect of an improvement
through, for example, technological advances in the country’s performance (see Hanger-
Kopp et al., 2022). If the balance of power and structures remain inflexible at the same
time as no new technological solutions appear, a country moves from its path-dependent
pathway to a lock-in pathway characterized by minor changes that do not meet external
and internal pressures for change (see Hanger-Kopp et al., 2022). The lock-in period is
marked by a real critical juncture in which actors struggle for different alternatives in soci-
etal development after the long period of path dependency with relatively stable institu-
tions and power relations. During the critical juncture, the actors attempt, despite their
conflicting interests and visions, to build coalitions around a shared vision of how future
society is to be constituted (Mósesdóttir & Jonsson, 2020, p. 113). External pressures aris-
ing from climate emergency and the domestic lock-in crisis may tilt the political balance
of power toward more radical alternatives, paving the way for disruptive changes along
 Governing Toward Sustainable Development   ◾   153

institutional, technological, organizational, political, and socio-cultural dimensions (see

Markard et al., 2012; Duygan et al., 2019). The move toward disruptive transition pathway
will be evolutionary, if radical changes do not impact simultaneously all three dimensions
of sustainable development: The economic, social, and environmental.
Later, we illustrate how our framework can be applied to a case example. The aim of our
brief narrative description, which is based on secondary sources, is to highlight how political
efforts, material conditions (e.g., oil revenues, technology), and institutional conditions pre-
vailing in Norway underpin its high score on the SDGs. We then analyze and discuss the case
using key assumptions of our framework to identify the sustainability pathway of Norway.

11.3 THE CASE OF NORWAY

11.3.1 The Global Ambition
Norway is an interesting case among the Nordic countries as it has been trying for the
last three decades to find a solution to its paradox of being dependent on oil revenues
at the same time as it has climate leadership ambitions (Lahn, 2019; Tellmann, 2012;
Tjernshaugen, 2011). According to Asdal (2014), political actors tried to solve this paradox
during the 1990s and 2000s by organizing climate and petroleum policymaking as two
separate policy fields. Hence, political efforts focused on pursuing ambitions of climate
leadership by being the first country to adopt a target for CO2 emissions reductions, which
was subsequently expected to be achieved through carbon taxes and then emissions trad-
ing (Lahn, 2019; Tellmann, 2012; Tjernshaugen, 2011).
The broad consensus in Norway around its leading role in framing climate change as
a demand problem rather than a supply problem was fundamentally shaped by concerns
about how climate policy might impact oil and gas production. This decoupling of cli-
mate and petroleum in policy discussions was strengthened by international commitment
to climate change (Kyoto Protocol in 1997) that focused on carbon trading (Lahn, 2019).
According to Bang and Lahn (2020, p. 1001), this emphasis on the demand side of fossil
fuels allowed Norway to continue pursuing its contradictory interests as a major oil and
gas exporter and its ambition of acting as an international climate leader.
In Norway, the effects of market solutions such as carbon taxes and carbon trading
on the emission of CO2 turned out to be limited. Hence, the focus of political efforts to
reduce carbon emissions gradually shifted after 2000 to measures supporting the devel-
opment of technological solutions such as Carbon Capture and Storage or CCS (Lahn,
2019; Tellmann, 2012; Tjernshaugen, 2011). While public investment in CCS projects has
enjoyed widespread support, a full-scale project for capture, transport, and storage of
CO2 in Norway has not materialized due to the high costs involved (Lahn, 2019, p. 14;
Tvinnereim & Ivarsflaten, 2016, p. 366).

11.3.2 A Mismatch Between the Global and National Discourse

When ambitious global climate goals were agreed on (cf. Copenhagen 2009 and Paris
2016), it became increasingly clear that measures to reduce consumption of fossil fuels
were no longer sufficient. As a result, the political controversy around the future of the
Norwegian oil and gas industry intensified. According to Lahn (2019, p. 6), this political
154   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

controversy shifted the political discourse toward framing that connected the two policy
areas together, that is, petroleum policy and the climate policy. Oil was framed as an object
of carbon risk since petroleum extraction contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions.
However, smaller political parties go further in linking the two policy areas together than
the two largest political parties, the Labor Party (LP) and the Conservative Party (CP), as
they have advocated restrictions on new oil and gas extraction and in due course managed
decline of petroleum production (see Bang & Lahn, 2020; Lahn, 2019).
During the last two decades, governments led by either the LP or the CP have had to
form coalitions with the smaller parties to gain parliamentary majority. When in gov-
ernment, the largest party has secured the basic features of Norwegian petroleum policy,
while the smaller parties have managed to impose restrictions on oil and gas develop-
ment in some specific cases (Lahn, 2019, pp. 20–21). According to Bang and Lahn (2020,
p. 998), the political majority has justified its support for a continuation of the main aspects
of Norwegian petroleum policy with reference to “oil as welfare” and the relatively low
level of production-related emission of Norwegian oil. Oil creates welfare in Norway as
its production provides employment opportunities for current generations, and income to
sustain the welfare state for future generations and during crisis (cf. COVID-19). Since the
mid-1990s, all of the revenue that comes to the state from oil and gas production has been
paid into the sovereign wealth fund (oil fund). The fund is meant to secure the welfare of
future generations through its financing of their pension. Only returns from the fund’s
investments are paid out annually and used to finance infrastructure investments, and to
maintain the welfare state during crisis (see Arvin, 2021).

11.3.3 Pressures From Below

The Nordic tradition of extensive tripartite cooperation on employment and social issues
has enabled broad consensus-building in different policy areas (see NOU, 2021a; Dølvik &
Steen, 2019; Lidskog & Elander, 2012). The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions
(LO) is the largest umbrella organization for trade unions in Norway, and it has been the
most powerful in terms of political influence due to its close links to the LP (Normann &
Tellmann, 2021, p. 425). Conventionally, LO has been a supporter of petroleum indus-
try as it organizes many petroleum workers who fear job losses (Houeland et al., 2020).
Normann and Tellmann (2021, p. 429) claim that LO has during the last 10 years increas-
ingly embraced the concept of just transition in an attempt to reconcile the interests of
both petroleum workers and its affiliated unions with members in the service and public
sectors who have become increasingly concerned with climate change. LO achieved this
reconciliation by defining the concept of just transition in terms of reduction of emissions
from production within the oil and gas industry through green technologies and the cre-
ation of new green jobs (Houeland et al., 2020; Normann & Tellmann, 2021).
In 2017, LO showed a sign of willingness to accept transformation away from fossil fuel
industry after intensified pressure from affiliated unions in the service and public sectors.
This happened when LO adjusted its policy of a clear support toward impact assessment
(seen as a first step toward exploration) to a compromise that included permanent protec-
tion of some environmentally sensitive areas (cf. Lofoten, Vesterålen og Senja) from new oil
 Governing Toward Sustainable Development   ◾   155

and gas extraction. In 2018, the minority government led by the CP announced that it also
went for permanent protection of these areas and the LP followed suit in 2019 (Normann &
Tellmann, 2021; Lahn, 2019). In the Spring of 2022, the controversy among the affiliated
unions of LO over oil and gas production surfaced again at the LO’s Congress. The policy
compromise agreed on by the Congress stated that extraction of new gas and oil fields should
only take place if economically feasible and climate-sustainable (Svenning et al., 2022).

11.3.4 The Piecemeal Approach to the SDGs

In 2020, the Office of the Auditor General assessed the Norwegian government’s man-
agement and review of the national follow-up of the sustainable development goals from
2016. During this period, the governments were headed by the CP in coalition with smaller
right-center parties. The Office concluded that political efforts to attain SDGs have been
piecemeal and lacked coordination across various governmental departments. This has led
to, on the one hand, low awareness of the national challenges posed by the various SDGs
and, on the other hand, insufficient efforts to improve progress and attainment of SDGs
(see Fosser, 2020, p. 6).
Norway is not alone among the Nordic Social Democratic countries in adopting a piece-
meal approach to greening the economy. In their study of public discourses in policy docu-
ments on greening the economy in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, Khan et al. (2021)
found that all three countries lack comprehensive national policy strategies on the green
economy. Instead of radical approaches, the public discourses in the three countries were
based on the optimistic view that economic growth and environmental improvements can
occur simultaneously through the use of technological solutions and innovation enabling
recycling, sharing, and re-use of resources. Khan et al. (2021) also found an emphasis on
state-led transition to sustainable development where technology is a key factor in green-
ing the economy. The main role of the state is to regulate the economy and promote tech-
nical change and innovation in green technologies in close cooperation with the social
partners and relevant stakeholders, while the welfare state is important in securing social
welfare and human well-being (Khan et al., 2021).

11.3.5 The Case in View of Our Framework

Our case study highlights how Norway has safeguarded its economic prosperity based on
oil and gas revenues by framing and organizing petroleum policy and climate policy as two
separate policy areas. The petroleum sector accounted in 2019 for about 35% of Norway’s
exports and the petroleum-related employment constituted about 5.8% of total employ-
ment (NOU, 2021b, p. 56; Statistics Norway, 2021). Moreover, the petroleum export has
made Norway’s score on the target CO2 emissions embodied in fossil fuel exports (kg/capita)
by far the worst among the Nordic countries and even higher than that of, for example, the
United States (see Sachs et al., 2022). The disconnection between petroleum policy and the
climate policy has been justified with direct and indirect references to core values of Social
Democracy such as solidarity with workers in the oil industry and universalism or the need
to maximize employment and welfare (see Normann & Tellmann, 2021; Houeland et al.,
2020; Lahn, 2019; Cox, 2004; Esping-Andersen, 1989). Moreover, the sovereign wealth
156   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

fund (oil fund) is presented as a manifestation of solidarity with future generations whose
decommodification (freed from the market) is secured by paying all state revenue from oil
and gas into the fund to finance their pension (see Bang & Lahn, 2020; Arvin, 2021). This
pension solidarity with future generations makes it difficult to criticize the Norwegian
government, for compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs
with its oil and gas production.
Solidarity, universalism, and decommodification are core Social Democratic values
that have become embedded in the Nordic/Norwegian model including tripartite regula-
tion of the labor market and policymaking, on the one hand, and the Social Democratic
welfare state model providing extensive welfare services and generous welfare benefits,
on the other hand (see NOU, 2021a; Mósesdóttir & Ellingsæter, 2019; Cox, 2004; Esping-
Andersen, 1989). Hence, the political majority in Norway has wielded discursive and insti-
tutional power through references to core Social Democratic values to gain broad support
for its implementation of oppositional strategy involving investment in green technolo-
gies to prevent cuts in oil production, and for its reactive strategy supporting reduction
in oil consumption through economic incentives (see Geels, 2014). At the same time, the
country’s wealth and the Nordic/Norwegian model underlay Norway’s full score on five
SDGs within the social and economic dimensions, that is, on zero poverty, gender equal-
ity, affordable and clean energy, reduced inequalities, and partnerships for the goals (SDGs
1, 5, 7, 10, and 17). None of the other top-scoring Nordic countries has managed this (see
Sachs et.al., 2022; pp. 342–343).
Ambitious global climate goals since 2009 have empowered less powerful actors in
their efforts to contain production of oil and gas in Norway. The political majority and
the labor movement (LO) have, therefore, come under increased pressure to acknowledge
that these two policy areas are interconnected. These internal political pressures and cli-
mate urgency have made the political elite more willing to restrain new oil and gas extrac-
tion, and to acknowledge that extraction industry may gradually wind down due to falling
global demand (see Lahn, 2019; Bang & Lahn, 2020). However, the volume of petroleum
exports from Norway continues to be steered by market conditions rather than sustain-
ability concerns.
Governments in Norway, Denmark, and Sweden have been able to integrate the SDGs
into prevailing governance structures such that conflicts over policy efforts to attain the
goals have been avoided (policy without politics). The compatibility between, on the one
hand, the SDGs’ ideas of inclusive development and fair distribution and, on the other
hand, core Social Democratic values of universalism and solidarity has enabled this inte-
gration and made the current transition pathways path-dependent or shaped by prevailing
power relations, embedded norms, and institutional arrangement. A similar compatibility
underlay the top performance of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden on the SDGs.
However, the governmental commitment and efforts to attain the SDGs have been greater
in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden than in Norway (Sachs et al., 2022, Figure 3.6). Hence,
Norway’s climate leadership ambitions appear to be greater outside of its national border
than inside (cf. achievement of SDG 17).
 Governing Toward Sustainable Development   ◾   157

In Norway, the separation of climate policy and petroleum policy, and relatively good
performance on the SDGs have meant that policy changes have been incremental or in
the form of policy layering (cf. green technologies, carbon taxes, and carbon trading).
However, the SDGs facilitating “creative destruction” (e.g., SDGs 6, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15) poses
a dilemma for the Norwegian/Nordic model of industrial relations and the welfare state as
it was originally not designed to solve the tensions between economic growth and environ-
mental protection. In Norway, employers have, for example, supported the model of exten-
sive tripartite cooperation as it has contributed to industrial growth and moderation of
wages, while employees have enjoyed secure working conditions and benefits from growth
(Ravn & Øyum, 2018, p. 2). Moreover, economic growth and stable stream of returns from
the oil fund’s investments are essential for the financial sustainability of the extensive
Social Democratic welfare state.
In Norway, there exists a real risk of lock-in situation at the current high level of the
SDGs due to the enormous wealth creation of the petroleum industry and lack of techno-
logical advances allowing “decoupling” of environmental harm from economic activity.
Internal actors do not appear to be able to solve this lock-in problem by phasing out the fos-
sil fuel industry in Norway, although policy framework for retraining and compensation
of workers is in place. This became apparent after the parliamentary election in 2021, when
smaller parties with ambitious disruptive approaches to climate change fared less well than
expected. In the political platform of the current government, climate change is stated as
top priority at the same time as the country’s petroleum industry “must be developed and
not terminated” (Office of the Prime Minister, 2021).

11.4 CONCLUSION
The main assumption of our framework of path dependency and real critical junctures is
that ideas underlying the SDGs need to be in line with political values embedded in the
institutional context and supported by material conditions for a country to achieve top
performance on the goals without a disruptive change. We argue that the SDGs contain
ideas of “destructive creation”, inclusive development, and fair distribution of opportuni-
ties and income. The last two ideas are compatible with Social Democratic values of soli-
darity and universalism that are to vary degrees entrenched in the institutional context of
countries with high scores on the SDGs. Our case study highlights how political actors in
Norway have managed to separate fossil fuel production from climate policy with direct
and indirect references to institutionally embedded Social Democratic values of solidarity,
universalism, and decommodification. This separation and the Nordic/Norwegian model
have secured political support for path-dependent pathway to sustainability.
Most transition pathways to sustainable development are initially path-dependent or
shaped by institutions such that transition actors only make small adjustments in response
to changing global discourse on sustainability. The small adjustments implemented in
Norway involve measures to cut petroleum consumption and not its production, and then
acknowledging the need to contain new oil and gas extraction. Path-dependent pathways
will eventually create a lock-in situation manifested in growing political conflicts arising
158   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

from persistent lack of progress on the SDGs and no prospect of a technological solution to
unsustainable resource extraction, production, and consumption.
Inflexible power relations and socio-technical systems will move the country to a lock-
in pathway marked by a real critical juncture or struggle among actors for different societal
alternatives. External pressures arising from climate emergency and the domestic lock-in
crisis may tilt the political balance of power toward more radical alternatives, paving the
way for a move toward a disruptive pathway. The enormous wealth creation of the petro-
leum industry and lack of technological advances to solve emission problems creates a real
risk of lock-in situation in Norway at the current high level of the SDGs. For Norway to
continue to realize its ambition to be a climate leader, political support for large-scale “cre-
ative destruction” is needed. This political support is lacking today, although the country
has wealth (oil fund) to finance its pursuit of a sustainable societal development that will
benefit both present and future generations.

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 Chapter 12

Capitalism, Sustainability,
and Democracy
Harald Borgebund

CONTENTS
12.1 Introduction 163
12.2 Can Capitalism Survive? 164
12.3 Can Sustainability Work? 167
12.4 Sustainability and Democracy 170
12.5 Conclusions 172
12.6 References 173

12.1 INTRODUCTION
This chapter is inspired by Joseph Schumpeter’s classical analysis of capitalism, socialism,
and democracy (1942). I ask the same questions as Schumpeter: (1) Can capitalism survive?
(2) Can the UN’s sustainability goals be realized? and (3) Are democracy and sustainability
compatible? My analysis will emphasize the role of technology in Schumpeter’s analysis of
capitalism. In addition, I replace socialism with sustainability.
My motivation for going back to Schumpeter’s analysis is because the world in 1942
during WWII confronted some of the most challenging situations faced by humanity in
the 20th century (if not by all human history). Similarly, today the world is confronting
situations of the same magnitude as then, given the threat of climate change. Schumpeter
emphasized capitalism’s creativity and innovative role and by replacing socialism with sus-
tainability I want to connect capitalism and sustainability to some of the UN’s Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) such as goals 8 and 9 on economic growth and innovation, and
also 12 and 13 on responsible production and climate action (see Chapter 2). Answering
the previous three questions contributes to a tentative answer to the question of techno-
logical progress and innovation can contribute toward realizing a sustainable society.
The structure of this chapter follows the order of the three questions asked earlier. First,
I discuss if capitalism can survive. Then, I discuss if sustainability can work before I in the
third and final section, ask if democracy and sustainability are compatible.

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-12 163

164   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

12.2 CAN CAPITALISM SURVIVE?

Schumpeter argued that capitalism’s failures would not cause capitalism’s break-
down. Instead, “its very success undermines the social institutions which protect it”
(Schumpeter, 1942, p. 61). Socialism would inevitably replace capitalism. However,
80 years later, capitalism is still a dominant economic system, and socialism has not
replaced capitalism. Socialism has been abandoned by most of its adherents over the
last three decades. Those societies still adhering to a strict socialist ideology are repres-
sive, and authoritarian societies disregard their people and the environment. Although
socialism in its strict Soviet style has largely been abandoned, that does not mean that
socialist ideas have been abandoned. After WWII, welfare state capitalism transformed
Western societies by making capitalism more “social” by alleviating poverty, providing
public healthcare, and offering educational opportunities for large groups of society. In
this sense, capitalism survived by adapting to a new situation by including some socialist
principles (Esping-Andersen, 1990).
Today, capitalism is still a contested concept (Hall & Soskice, 2001). There are many
reasons for questioning capitalism, but my analysis will emphasize two reasons linked to
the UN’s sustainability goals. First, increasing economic inequalities have led many crit-
ics to argue that capitalism should be abandoned for more equality (Piketty, 2014, 2020).
Second, capitalism is blamed for the purportedly ruthless exploitation of natural resources.
Pollution and biodiversity losses are two important examples of how capitalism exploits
the environment. The threat of climate change encapsulates many if not most of the ways
capitalism detriments the environment. What increasing economic inequality and climate
change share is that, according to its critics, both show that capitalism is inadequate to
solve the challenges confronting the world in the 21st century (Barry, 2005 and Meyer,
2001). Because of these inadequacies, Schumpeter’s question if capitalism can survive is
once again an important question to ask. Furthermore, Schumpeter emphasized tech-
nological progress and new modes of production as important and defining features of
capitalism making his theory an interesting starting point for an analysis of the role of
technological solutions to sustainability.
In trying to understand better whether capitalism can survive or not, a good starting
point is to analyze some of the points that shaped Schumpeter’s understanding of capital-
ism found in three defining features: (1) mass production and mass consumption, (2) cre-
ative destruction, and (3) technological progress.

1. Mass production and mass consumption define capitalism through producing afford-
able products for ordinary citizens. Mass production aims to lower production costs
and make mass consumption possible through affordable prices for most consumers.
Industrial capitalism in its modern form is impossible without mass production and
consumption.
2. Creative destruction is, for Schumpeter, the essence of capitalism. Through new
modes of production and new products, old forms of production are constantly
being replaced by new forms of production. Innovation gives rise to new forms of
 Capitalism, Sustainability, and Democracy   ◾   165

production, improving existing products or new products replacing existing prod-

ucts. Creative destruction is fundamental to capitalism because “the fundamental
impulse that sets and keeps the capitalist engine in motion comes from the new con-
sumers’ goods, the new methods of production or transportation, the new markets,
the new forms of industrial organization that capitalist enterprise creates. . . This
process of Creative Destruction is the essential fact about capitalism” (Schumpeter,
1942, p. 83). According to Schumpeter, constant change and innovation are thus the
defining features of capitalism as an economic system.

3. Regarding technological progress Schumpeter claim that “all the features and achieve-
ments of modern civilization are, directly or indirectly, the products of the capitalist
process” (1942, p. 125). Importantly, the modern world is the product of capitalism,
and capitalism has been the main engine in developing modernity. Capitalism set in
motion the overthrow of feudalism created the “mental attitude of modern science”
(Schumpeter, 1942, p. 124) and was responsible for creating the new social classes.
Hence, capitalism was the primary force, while other social and cultural changes
were secondary and set in motion by capitalism. Schumpeter’s argument here is con-
troversial and does not consider the many significant social and cultural changes that
came along with the Reformation and the development of the modern state system,
to mention two crucial changes occurring alongside the development of capitalism
(Skinner, 1978). I will not discuss these controversial aspects of Schumpeter’s view,
but note that Schumpeter’s interpretation of the development of capitalism must be
viewed with caution.

Taken together, these three features are defining features of capitalism as Schumpeter
understood capitalism. Capitalism is subject to various and often competing understand-
ings and although Schumpeter’s analysis has been influential, it is only one of many pos-
sible understandings of capitalism. In contrast, Jürgen Kocka (2016, p. 20), in his history
of capitalism, emphasizes decentralization, commodification, and accumulation as defin-
ing features of capitalism. Schumpeter’s understanding of capitalism does not pay much
attention to the role of decentralization and accumulation although the oligopolistic
and monopolistic features of capitalism receive some attention from Schumpeter. Thus,
Schumpeter’s definition of capitalism emphasizes some of the important features of capi-
talism but can be said to downplay some of the elements highlighted by other theorists of
capitalism.
Schumpeter argued that analyses of capitalism must be based on two criteria: (1) capital-
ism must be judged over time “as it unfolds through decades or centuries” (Schumpeter,
1942, p. 83) and (2) the process of capitalist production is organic. Even if one might worry
about oligopolistic and monopolistic tendencies, such worries are a distraction from “how
capitalism administers existing structures, whereas the relevant problem is how it creates
and destroys them” (Schumpeter, 1942, p. 84). Thus, capitalism is an engine for change
and revolution rather than conserving the distribution of present social and economic
circumstances.
166   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

Now I want to use the three defining features earlier and the two criteria to analyze if
capitalism can survive. My analysis will be limited to commenting on the implications of
the defining features and the two criteria in a contemporary context. (1) Mass production
and consumption are today just as important as during the development of capitalism as
some of the biggest and most influential corporations worldwide produce commodities
for the masses. Examples range from entertainment such as Netflix to oil and gas pro-
ducers producing fuel. What these companies share is that they depend primarily on the
masses, not on the wealthy. (2) Creative destruction has been observable in various sec-
tors, from how mobile phones and smartphones replaced landlines in most homes to how
cleaner energy modes possibly overtake the role of oil and gas in the future. (3) Profit is
the motivation for innovation that makes technological progress possible, and Schumpeter
believed profit and technological progress were indistinguishable (1942, p. 110). Even if
Schumpeter’s view on this point is controversial, it is hard to distinguish if profit or tech-
nological progress were two distinct processes in developing the first smartphone. These
three features offer an economic system that can deliver transformative change for the
masses and, in the process, create technological progress through inventing new and better
products or modes of production.
Judging capitalism over decades or centuries, as Schumpeter suggested, has the advan-
tage of contributing to revealing the long-term consequences of capitalism. Often judg-
ments of capitalism’s performance and consequences are judged at a particular time that is
merely a snapshot distorting our perspective. Unfortunately, Schumpeter’s analysis made
precisely this mistake by assuming what capitalism looked like at a certain point in time
and extrapolating what he found into the future. Schumpeter assumed that socialism
would replace capitalism and that such a take-over was inevitable given capitalism’s inter-
nal structure and logic. Instead, capitalism is perhaps more potent in 2022 than in 1942.
The unprecedented growth after WWII gave rise to higher living standards and reduced
poverty fueled by the expansive welfare states. Schumpeter underestimated how dynamic
capitalism could be and how adaptable capitalism could be to changing social circum-
stances. Because of this adaptability, capitalism should not be underestimated under the
current pressure that capitalism is facing. The answer to the question if capitalism can
survive is yes, and capitalism can survive. That does not amount to saying that capitalism
will survive. My point is mere that in the same way capitalism did survive after WWII
capitalism can survive and may survive in the future.
Assuming capitalism stands in the way of developing a sustainable future, disregard the
innovative power of capitalism highlighted by Schumpeter and the need for innovation
to achieve sustainable societies. As sustainability is understood by the UN sustainability
goals and, in this book, capitalism is needed to engineer the necessary innovations for
creating a sustainable society, the UN sustainability goals ask for innovations to create a
sustainable society, and capitalism may offer a practical framework for creating the needed
innovation. The following section will elaborate on this claim and show how the sustain-
ability goals may require capitalism to reach the established goals.
 Capitalism, Sustainability, and Democracy   ◾   167

12.3 CAN SUSTAINABILITY WORK?

I answer this question by first arguing that technological progress and innovation can
contribute toward a sustainable society through capitalism. There are several objections to
such an argument, and I will address two such objections. The second part of my argument
states that although capitalism can contribute, concerted collective action is also neces-
sary to reach a sustainable society. My analysis is limited to emphasizing a conceptual
framework for achieving sustainability. Furthermore, it suggests what kind of obstacles
might stand in the way of a sustainable future and which direction might be favorable to
move toward the goal of sustainability. Before starting my analysis, one more point must
be emphasized. Sustainability is not politically controversial in the same way as socialism.
Socialism defined itself in opposition to liberalism and capitalism, while sustainability is
compatible with different political frameworks.
Sustainability is nonetheless a contested concept, and there are differing understand-
ings of what sustainability should mean in theory and practice. Despite these differing
understandings of sustainability, the concept itself is not controversial in the same way as
socialism. I will not address these disagreements in any detail.
By sustainability, I follow the framework established earlier in this book. I base my
analysis on the view that sustainability is primarily to further human development within
certain limits. Such limits are environmental but also economic, social, and political (see
Chapter 2). UN’s 17 sustainability goals exemplify how such limits can be operational-
ized. Sustainability such understood implies an instrumental and anthropocentric view
of sustainability. Such notions are perhaps influential and, to some extent, mainstream
understandings of sustainability, but controversial and not beyond criticism. I largely over-
step the criticisms of this chapter’s instrumental and anthropocentric understanding of
sustainability. However, I acknowledge that a somewhat different understanding of sus-
tainability would likely reach different conclusions. The most relevant of the SDGs for my
analysis are 8, 9, 12, and 13. Goal 8 is about decent work and economic growth, while SDG
9 is about industry, innovation, and infrastructure. SDG 12 deals with responsible con-
sumption and production, while SDG 13 is perhaps one of the most important and is about
climate action. These goals concern human development and well-being and presuppose
economic growth. However, economic growth is restricted by the constraints of climate
change and the other goals earlier. My analysis emphasizes both the role of capitalism and
sustainability and is in line with the SDG which also emphasizes the role of markets, eco-
nomic growth, and environmental issues important for a sustainable society.
My argument in favor of capitalism as part of the answer to creating a sustainable soci-
ety over time is that the creative destruction of capitalism replaces current technologies
with new forms of technology and production. An example regarding sustainability is
that when it comes to the dominant position of oil and gas in most economies oil and
gas will fade as these technologies will be displaced by new modes of production. In this
way, the modern world can sit back and let the creative destruction of capitalism do its
work. Because of the organic nature of capitalism, innovation will constantly offer new
168   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

technological solutions. Because this process will take decades or centuries, climate change
might cause irreversible damage to the planet.
SDG 8 asks for economic growth and SDG 9 asks for innovation. These two goals are
not necessarily dependent on capitalism, as economic growth and innovation might be
possible without capitalism. Given capitalism’s prevalence in the modern world, capitalism
is an obvious candidate for achieving economic growth and innovation. SDG 12 is about
responsible production and consumption, and SDG 13 is about reducing climate change.
These two goals may be undermined by capitalism as there is nothing inherent in capital-
ism that will reduce emission of climate gases, although the innovative power of capital-
ism has potential to contribute to reduced emissions. Thus, the sustainability goals appear
contradictory. The SDGs exemplify some of the dilemmas confronted by trying to reach a
sustainable society through capitalism. On the one hand, sustainability as understood by
the UN is compatible or even supportive of capitalism, but on the other hand reduction of
climate gas emissions may be exacerbated by capitalism.
In this chapter, I will discuss two objections related to sustainability. First is the objec-
tion that capitalism focuses on short-term profitability and excludes future generations.
Capitalism focuses on current shareholders and not the broader society or future genera-
tions. A second objection is that relying on capitalism to contribute to creating a sustainable
society is too uncertain. Capitalism may contribute, but it may also contribute to environ-
mental degradation and make it harder to reach a sustainable society. For example, relying
on capitalism to combat climate change is like driving a car while braking and accelerating
simultaneously. Innovation might reduce waste and pollution while increasing inequalities
within and among countries (goal number 10). Thus, offering progress on one goal while
moving in the opposite direction on other goals. What this breaking and accelerating will
lead to is uncertainty about trusting capitalism’s ability to contribute to a sustainable society.
Future generations are mostly excluded from capitalism. Although investment hori-
zons can be long-term, few investment decisions have a perspective longer than two or
three decades (Williamson, 2018). I will not discuss whether we have obligations to future
generations or not but assume that a sustainable society means considering the interests
of future generations. One response is to argue that future generations will be better off
because of economic growth and technological progress, even with climate change. They
will have more resources and technology to resolve the challenges caused by economic
growth and capitalism. Hence, capitalism contributes to future generations if economic
growth makes societies wealthier. Economic growth has made it possible to devote more
resources to welfare and healthcare, increasing life expectancy in many developed coun-
tries. Environmental degradation is a price to be paid and is worth it if it enhances oppor-
tunities for both present and future generations. Despite the temptation to endorse this
argument, the problem is that it does not consider future generations per se. Instead, future
generations’ increased amount of resources is a side effect of capitalism. Thus, capitalism is
seemingly unconcerned by future generations, which is a structural feature of capitalism
and not something that can be easily changed.
Uncertainty is both the strength and weakness of capitalism. Creative destruction can
be surprising and unpredictable. Predicting economic changes and how technology may
 Capitalism, Sustainability, and Democracy   ◾   169

change society is difficult, if not impossible, at least with any accuracy. Trusting in capi-
talism’s possible contribution to sustainability is based on uncertainty, although there are
reasons for thinking that techno-optimism can contribute to resolving climate change
among other issues John Danaher has argued that a modest version of techno-optimism
“that does not assume that technology will save humanity by itself, nor that technology is
sufficient for the good to prevail, is defensible” (Danaher, 2022, p. 54). Given this feature of
capitalism, the concern should be twofold.
On the one hand, the creative and innovative features of capitalism should be promoted
to unleash the potential that lies in capitalism. On the other hand, collective action is
warranted to reduce uncertainty and promote sustainability goals specifically. The two
objections discussed previously point toward weaknesses with capitalism that must be
countered with other measures. This takes us to the second part of my argument, which
states that collective action should counter the lack of concern for future generations and
the uncertainty of creative destruction unleashed by capitalism. Since Garrett Hardin
(1968) pointed out the problem with the tragedy of the commons, the limits of capitalism
have been clear. Elinor Ostrom stated that

the tragedy of the commons, prisoner’s dilemma, and the logic of collective action
are closely related concepts in the models that have defined the accepted way of
viewing many problems that individuals face when attempting to achieve collec-
tive benefits. At the heart of these models is the free-rider problem.
(Olstrom, 1990, p. 6)

Individuals or individual countries are incentivized to let the other participants take the
costs of reducing carbon emissions while avoiding emissions themselves. The result is that
the issue of climate change has not been resolved and emissions are not being reduced, and
binding collective action has not been possible.
At the end of WWII, few would have anticipated the development of the modern welfare
state that followed the war in most Western countries. It required coordination and coop-
eration between previously antagonistic actors such as labor and capital. Disagreements
were overcome and exemplified the potential of collective action to change society and
reach goals previously out of reach. Something along the lines of the compromises that
created the modern welfare state is needed to achieve a sustainable society. The welfare
state shows that it is possible for a society to come together and establish institutions few
had thought would be possible for a society to create. A world war allowed an entirely new
direction, and the opportunity was taken. Today climate change may be an existential
threat, but the circumstances are perhaps not as extreme as the situation was after WWII.
There are limits to the example of the development of the welfare state in the West in the
way that the welfare state could be realized within the constraints of the nation-state, while
a sustainable society cannot be created by one society alone at least in so far as climate
change is part of a sustainable society. Furthermore, the main point of this example is
not to argue in favor of the greatness of a welfare state but merely to draw attention to the
potential of collective action to radically change a society.
170   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

This concludes the argument of this section where I have argued that capitalism engen-
ders creativity and innovation that can contribute toward a sustainable society and that
collective action is necessary to reduce the uncertainty and lack of concern for future gen-
erations in capitalism. I have also suggested that collective action is possible through the
example of the development of the welfare state after WWII. Just that something is possible
does not mean that it will happen. Democratic politics focus on short-term gains just as
much as capitalism (or perhaps even more) and question the realism in creating collective
action of the magnitude necessary to create a sustainable society. The following section
extends the analysis to discuss if sustainability and democracy are compatible.

12.4 SUSTAINABILITY AND DEMOCRACY

I argue that sustainability is compatible with democracy in principle, but in practice, sus-
tainability becomes merely one of many issues competing for attention. There is nothing
in principle with democracy as a political system that prevents a polity from developing a
sustainable society. In practice though, several obstacles are standing in the way of devel-
oping a sustainable society (De-Shalit, 2000). I limit my discussion to three: (1) short-term
focus on electoral democracy, (2) competition between different political issues, and (3)
knowledge and competence of the electorate and politicians.
For example, developing a sustainable society and reducing carbon emissions can
be said to be the right thing to do. Nonetheless, democracy may be unable to deliver
the “right” result. Paradoxically democracy as a legitimate form of government might
sanction policies that undermine the long-term viability of the same society. One of this
chapter’s main conclusions is that more attention should be devoted to the weaknesses of
democracy.
Schumpeter was aware of the weaknesses of democracy, and his bleak and realistic view
of modern democracy has been widely criticized for being minimalistic and pessimis-
tic. Despite the criticisms of the bleak description of modern democracy, Schumpeter’s
description still paints a realistic picture of how democracy functions. For Schumpeter,
“democracy is a political method, that is to say, a specific type of institutional arrangement
for arriving at political – legislative and administrative – decisions and hence incapable
of being an end in itself” (1942, p. 242, original italics). Here, two things are essential.
Democracy is seen mainly as a method of decision-making. It is a means of making deci-
sions and is not valuable in itself apart from the benefits it represents for the electorate.
Schumpeter defines the democratic method as “that institutional arrangement for arriv-
ing at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a
competitive struggle for the people’s vote” (1942, p. 269). Democracy is the political insti-
tution where individuals compete over the power to rule society. It emphasizes political
leadership and the competition over political power as the central elements of democracy.
The will of the people or self-government plays no vital role. In this view, the essence of
democracy is competition among political elites for power. For a society to be democratic
real, although not perfect, competition between political parties or political interests must
be present. Furthermore, democracy means that the political elite rules the people. Voters’
primary role is electing a government and playing a limited role.
 Capitalism, Sustainability, and Democracy   ◾   171

Schumpeter emphasizes that the focus on winning elections means politicians are
tempted to prioritize short-term gains over what is most beneficial over the long term.
Career politicians are concerned about extending their time in government and offering
policies that will provide support from a majority or large enough proportion to be re-
elected. Some policies associated with sustainability are related to short-term gains, such
as improving access to healthcare and education. Reducing inequalities and poverty may
also have some short-term impacts. Thus, on the one hand, some sustainability goals are
compatible with the incentive of emphasizing short-term gains.
On the other hand, other aspects of sustainability, such as exploitation of natural
resources and the interests of future generations, are tempting to discount. Postponing
difficult decisions to avoid short-term pains for present generations is a common strategy
among politicians to avoid reducing carbon emissions. On the problematic issues of future
generations and climate change, democracy offers incentives to make the “wrong” deci-
sions. Democracy is, therefore, a hindrance to sustainability on this point.
Competing interests among political parties and organizations is a second point chal-
lenging the compatibility between sustainability and democracy. Interest groups often
dominating role in democratic politics have been the subject of much discussion among
democratic theorists building on Schumpeter’s democratic theory (Dahl, 1956; Lindblom,
1977). These theorists have interpreted group interests as an integral aspect of democratic
politics because political freedom means that people and organizations can organize and
work for political change according to their preferences and interests. Most democracies
have a broad set of organizations and groups advocating specific policies beneficial to
themselves. In an open society, such rights are essential and foundational for the demo-
cratic process. Critics have argued that wealthy individuals and corporate interests can gain
unduly political influence through donations and public campaigns by accessing abundant
financial resources (Cohen & Rogers, 1983). Interest groups are often concerned with nar-
row interests. If some interests become influential, the interests of the rest of society may
be undermined. Sustainability can, for example, be undermined by corporate interests
arguing for the importance of jobs and tax income when the government is threatening
to regulate or tax polluting activities. Environmental groups often have access to more
limited financial resources making it difficult to challenge wealthier corporate interests.
In addition, competing interest groups mean that sustainability is only one of many issues
on the political agenda. Voters and politicians are confronted by competing interests and
must prioritize which interests are most important, and in that struggle, sustainability
might not win. Competing interests thus stand in the way of sustainability to be realized,
as politics is often about the power to get the world to bend to your will.
Furthermore, the electorate often lacks knowledge about politics and important issues
in the political debate. Schumpeter claimed that

the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as
he enters the political field. He argues and analyzes in a way that he would readily
recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests.
(1942, p. 262)
172   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

This characterization of the electorate points out that many citizens are uninterested or
unknowledgeable about politics. If the electorate were more knowledgeable and better
informed, then they would hold the politicians to account and elect politicians who would,
for example, prioritize sustainability rather than short-term goals. Much research has
shown that the electorate lacks the basic skills and knowledge to make informed political
decisions (Achen & Bartels, 2016). Educating the electorate through democratic education
or in other ways might contribute to a more informed electorate. Still, there are doubts
about whether democratic education can make an impact that will change voters’ priori-
ties (Brennan, 2016). Because the electorate lacks knowledge about the basics of politics
and the issues at hand, sustainability risks are not being prioritized by the voters. Hence,
democracy is a potential barrier to sustainability.
Democracy is mainly unchallenged as a legitimate form of government in contemporary
political theory. The discussion in this section has pointed out three features of democracy,
making it potentially more challenging to realize a sustainable society. Based on the dis-
cussion here, I want to conclude this section by arguing that more attention should be
devoted to democracy’s weaknesses. By acknowledging the flaws of democracy, it is pos-
sible to address them and work toward improving democracy. As Schumpeter describes
democracy, democracy and sustainability are only partly compatible. A democratic gov-
ernment, therefore, does not necessarily support a sustainable society.

12.5 CONCLUSIONS
I started this chapter by asking three questions and have answered them through the the-
oretical framework of Schumpeter. Today the world confronts perhaps equally difficult
situations as during WWII. I have argued that capitalism can support and undermine
sustainability. The innovation and power in creative destruction might offer technological
progress supporting sustainability. The exploitation of non-renewable resources and the
environment may undermine sustainability. Capitalism may or may not contribute toward
a sustainable society, but it is difficult to identify alternative economic frameworks that
might promote creativity and innovation in the way that capitalism does. Thus, the world
is left with a fickle and unreliable economic system in want of something better, which
means that capitalism to some extent can be justified and maybe even a necessary tool in
achieving a sustainable society.
In addition, sustainability requires collective action to be realized. The aftermath of
WWII showed the potential of collective action regarding the development of the welfare
state in many Western societies, which means that transformative collective action within
a democratic context might be possible. Still, democracy contains features undermining
sustainability. Taken together, asking these three questions put us in a position to answer
the overarching question of this anthology related to technological solutions to the issue of
sustainability. Capitalism’s flexibility and innovative features can contribute to technologi-
cal progress beneficial to realizing sustainability by inventing newer modes of production
and ways to reduce carbon emissions. In this way, capitalism may contribute to realizing
several of the UN’s goals for sustainable development. However, historically capitalism has
led to environmental degradation just as well as technological progress and innovation.
 Capitalism, Sustainability, and Democracy   ◾   173

Nonetheless, there is a tension between the UN’s goals for sustainable development
by emphasizing innovation and technological progress and simultaneously advocating a
reduction in carbon emissions. Capitalism may reconcile some of the tensions between
the UN’s goals for sustainable development, although that is far from assured. Collective
action is also necessary to move toward a sustainable society, and I have argued that such
collective action is possible but far from assured. In addition, the weakness of democracy
complicates the kind of collective action that is necessary for a sustainable democracy. Is
the potential to undermine is far from a simple or obvious answer to realizing a sustain-
able society as technological confront structural and institutional challenges making it
difficult to create sustainable societies. To sum up, this chapter concludes that capitalism’s
creativity, developing institutions for collective action, and addressing the weaknesses of
democracy are necessary tasks for sustainability to be realized.

12.6 REFERENCES
Achen, C. H., & Bartels, L. M. (2016). Democracy for realists – why elections do not produce respon-
sive governments. Princeton University Press.
Barry, J. (2005). Environmental and social theory. Routledge.
Brennan, J. (2016). Against democracy. Princeton University Press.
Cohen, J., & Rogers, J. (1983). On democracy – Toward a transformation of American Society.
Penguin Books.
Dahl, R. A. (1956). A preface to a democratic theory. Chicago University Press.
Danaher, J. (2022). Techno-optimism: An analysis, an evaluation and a modest defence. Philosophy &
Technology, 35, 54. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-022-0550-2
De-Shalit, A. (2000). The environment: Between theory and practice. Oxford University Press.
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare state capitalism. polity.
Hall, P. A., & Soskice, D. (Eds.). (2001). Varieties of capitalism – the institutional foundations of
comparative advantage. Oxford University Press.
Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162(3859), 1243–1248.
Kocka, J. (2016). Capitalism – A short history. Princeton University Press.
Lindblom, C. (1977). Politics and markets. Basic Books.
Meyer, J. M. (2001). Political nature – environmentalism and the interpretation of western thought.
MIT Press.
Olstrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons. Cambridge University Press.
Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the twenty-first century. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Piketty, T. (2020). Capital and ideology. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Schumpeter, J. A. (1942). Capitalism, socialism and democracy. Harper Perennial.
Skinner, Q. (1978). The foundations of modern political thought – volume 2 the age of reformation.
Cambridge University Press.
Williamson, S. D. (2018). Macroeconomics. Pearson.
 Chapter 13

Nudging Policy or Crowding

It Out? Green Nudges as
Ideational Technologies
Stuart Mills and Richard Whittle

CONTENTS
13.1 Introduction 175
13.2 Ideas as a Special, Transformative Technology 176
13.3 The Rise of “Nudge” in the United Kingdom 178
13.4 Beyond Statistical Significance 181
13.5 Conclusion 184
13.6 References 185

13.1 INTRODUCTION
Few would deny that new ideas are of great importance to society, and – as the challenges
of various sustainability crises begin to take hold – are as vital as they ever have been.
A curious, yet highly disruptive, policy approach of the past 15 years has been nudging.
Nudging, based on insights from behavioral economics, is the notion that small changes in
how existing systems and incentive structures are framed to the public can have a signifi-
cant and predictable impact on behaviors. Nudges are said to encourage, rather than coerce,
individuals toward choosing better outcomes for themselves, and in this sense may pro-
mote welfare and freedom (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). Politically, nudging has been seized
upon as a means of achieving substantial policy ends by modest policy means (Chater &
Loewenstein, 2022).
Besides the slew of curiosities such an idea throws up for political scientists and econo-
mists as regards the role of the state in society, understanding nudging is important within
sustainable development given the apparent benefits of the approach given the apparently
small costs. The aforementioned sustainability challenges – climate crises, environmen-
tal breakdown, ecological collapse, oceanic pollution, etc. – are typically understood to
require substantial policy responses (e.g., Klein, 2014; IPCC, 2022; Wainwright & Mann,
2020; Wallace-Wells, 2019). Given this, one might wonder – as some (Hagman et al., 2019;

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-13 175

176   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

Harford, 2022; Loewenstein & Chater, 2017; Chater and Loewenstein, 2022; Maki, 2019)
have begun to – whether an idea like nudging distracts from, or crowds out, others, more
substantive policy solutions. Such concern is not dissimilar to those expressed by others
in this book regarding other “low cost, high reward” technologies such as geoengineering
(see Chapter 4).
As we will show through an examination of the history of nudging and the political–
economic forces which surrounded the idea’s ascendence, this notion of nudging “crowding
out”, another more substantive policy, is a reasonable one (see also Chapter 14 on the politics
of overpromising). For some initial evidence, consider a recent policy strategy document
produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The IPCC (2022) report on climate breakdown mitigation features a prominent sec-
tion on choice architecture (read nudging), alongside various calls for reducing fossil fuel
dependence and investment in net-zero technologies. So-called green nudging, as an idea,
remains an established tool in the policymaker’s toolkit, even when directly juxtaposed
against the scale of the sustainability changes which must presently be overcome. In this
chapter, we will explain why and explore what the consequences of this might be.
The structure of this chapter is as follows. First, we will briefly outline our philosophical
and conceptual approach, arguing that ideas can be understood as a special kind of tech-
nology, in the Heideggerian sense of the word, as they are able to transform (a) the world
in which they exist and (b) those who use them. But they are special insofar as ideas can
(c) transform how other technologies are used. Ideas themselves are understood as impor-
tant factors in politics and economics and are treated as such in various areas of politi-
cal economy, which we also draw greatly upon. Second, we turn our attention to nudging
and behavioral insights, focusing on the epicenter of the “Nudge-Revolution”, the United
Kingdom (UK). We explain how the idea of nudging became popular because of specific
political–economic conditions, and how this idea was a useful political technology for
changing how the technologies of the state (e.g., tax and spend) were to be used. Finally,
with this context established, we turn our attention to green nudges, and their suitability
within sustainability policy and the sustainable development goals (SDGs). We argue that
nudging as a policy is an inadequate response to sustainability challenges such as the cli-
mate crisis, but that nudging as an ideational technology still has political capital within
the political economy of a neoliberal state such as the United Kingdom. Our perspective
thus aligns with those of others (e.g., see Chapters 12, 17, and 18) in this book, who are also
skeptical of the limits of technology within existing economic systems.

13.2 IDEAS AS A SPECIAL, TRANSFORMATIVE TECHNOLOGY

Ideas and narratives have an especially crucial role within the political economy of tech-
nology. Heidegger (2010) has been very influential in this space, defining technology as
a transformative tool. Here, the tool serves the purpose of transforming, say, a piece of
wood into a chair, but simultaneously transforms the person using the tool, say from a
person into a carpenter. In this sense, the tool becomes an extension of the person who uses
it, as it enables the transformation of the individual and, in turn, the individual’s capac-
ity to transform the world around them. Such mutual transformation also accounts for
 Nudging Policy, or Crowding It Out?   ◾   177

Heidegger’s (2010) notion of technology becoming invisible, or Latour’s (1999) notion of

“blackboxing”. For instance, while it is the tool which transforms the wood into the chair,
the person (now carpenter) comes to be seen as the transforming entity (e.g., “the carpenter
built the chair”, rather than, “the person used the tool to build the chair”).
Classical political economy, specifically Marx (2013), may also contribute to this dis-
cussion. Marx likewise regards technology as transformative of both nature and the labor
which use it, but further argues that the relationship between technology and human-
ity is one which is socially determined. As earlier, we may say that the person who uses a
tool to build a chair is a carpenter, but if they are a hobbyist, their relationship with and
understanding of the tool is likely different from that of a worker. For the former, the tool
becomes a means of self-expression, relaxation, and perhaps even a means of expressing
one’s power over nature. For the latter, the tool becomes a means of survival through labor-
ing, and perhaps a symbol of their need to labor (Marx, 1973).
Ideas and narratives become vital to the political economy of technology if one accepts
the previous philosophical perspectives on (a) technology as a means of transforming both
the user and the user’s environment, and (b) that the user’s relationship with technology is
socially determined. This is because how the user of technology comes to understand the
technology they use, and how they imagine technology can be used, determines the role of
technology in society (see Chapter 15; Spencer, 2017). A worthwhile example here is that
of the 19th English Luddite movement, a collection of textile workers whose objection to
technology was not predicated on a dislike or distrust of technology per se, but in opposition
to how technologies were being used by factory owners to transform textile production in
England, at the expense of artisan knowledge (Linton, 1992). This objection is an objection
against the transformation of the user, based on conflicting ideas about the role of textile
technology (i.e., for the factory owner, textile technologies were a means of boosting profits;
for the artisan, they were a means of disempowering them and destroying knowledge).
To an extent, the argument that ideas are crucial to understanding how technologies
are used, and are conceived of as being usable, is a self-referential one. This is because
ideas themselves can be understood as technologies insofar as they demonstrate this doubly
transformative character (Feyerabend, 2010; Kuhn, 2012). For example, the carpenter who
uses their tool as a weapon is transformed, in their social role, into a soldier, or an assailant.
But the idea that the tool may be a weapon is also transformative of the tool itself. Equally,
for the Luddite, the idea that a textile machine could destroy artisan knowledge renders
the machine a threat; but under different economic conditions, with different social rela-
tions, the textile machine may come to be seen as a means of liberating the Luddite, or even
as a way of discovering new knowledge (Braverman, 1974; Marx, 1973). Thus, the political
economy of technology is a deeply interconnected study, where technology can change
political–economic ideas, and where political–economic ideas can shape the uses and
imaginaries of technology.
We conceive of ideas as a special kind of technology. In the first instance, ideas are tech-
nologies insofar as they transform those who use them (e.g., a politician becomes a policy-
maker). Yet, in the second instance, ideas are a special kind of technology insofar as they
transform other technologies (e.g., the state can tax, and can spend, but should the state tax,
178   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

or spend?; see also Ellul’s (1964) notion of the technique, to which parallels to our perspec-
tive on ideas could be drawn). Yet which ideas emerge and can be expressed (which is to
say, which ideational technologies are used) depend on the political economy at the time.
For instance, if there is no state, the idea that the state can tax is irrelevant.
Worthwhile ideas emerge constantly, yet only some of these ideas become popular
and influential. Understanding why, and under what conditions, ideas become influen-
tial within society (particularly ideas concerning policy and the economy) are objectives
central to the political economy study of ideas (Mukand & Rodrik, 2018). This study is
a complex one, in part because it is difficult to determine what an idea is, and in part
because it is difficult to attribute the causality of an action or event to an idea (Blyth, 1997).
Nevertheless, several prominent perspectives on how ideas function in political economy
can be found in the literature. A relatively brief overview is sufficient for our purposes here.
The central question of the political economy of ideas is how ideas shape the political life
of economic concepts (Hay, 2004). For instance, central to Gramsci’s notion of hegemony
is that of idea acceptance; that those who succeed economically and politically within soci-
ety do so only through establishing hegemonic control of the ideas which pervade society
(Gramsci, 1992). Susan Strange’s work in international political economy expresses a similar
perspective, though more in the vein of Hay (2004), suggesting that economists (rather than
political economists) are limited in their understanding of the economy because their models
are often divorced from the structures of power, geopolitics, and culture which determine
how those models are understood, and ultimately wielded (Brown, 1999). Ironically, the
economist Milton Friedman has argued candidly that the economic ideas which gain politi-
cal support are not those which are necessarily the best, but those which are “lying around”,
at a time when other ideas begin to fail (Friedman, 2002; Klein, 2007). For Kuhn (2012),
such failure is the result of “anomalous” observations – unexplained by existing ideas –
which build up into a crisis. New ideas – which can explain these anomalies – then proceed
to overtake the old in an act of paradigm shift. For Blyth (2002, 2009, 2013), what matters is
often not anomalies, but uncertainties, and the ideas which come to the fore are those which
are best disposed to vanquish uncertainty, at least in the short term (see also Hay, 2004).
With our conception of ideas as technologies now established, and some theories of how
ideas come to be used or ignored offered, let us now turn our attention to an especially
pertinent idea of modern policymaking: Nudging.

13.3 THE RISE OF “NUDGE” IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

The rise of “nudging” and behavioral insights within the United Kingdom occurred during
a 10-year period from 2004 to 2014. Crucial to this timeline is the Global Financial Crisis
(GFC), a crisis of economics and finance which would have profound effects on policymak-
ing in the United Kingdom and establish the political–economic conditions for the ascent
of behavioral insights. Broadly, the impact of the GFC on nudging can be split into two
occurrences, which we will discuss in turn. First, the crisis led to a “crisis of legitimacy” in
mainstream economics and policymaking, creating the intellectual space for a new idea –
behavioral economics and nudging – to rise to prominence. Second, the GFC led the UK
Conservative party (also known as the Tory party) under David Cameron to adopt a
 Nudging Policy, or Crowding It Out?   ◾   179

macroeconomic program of fiscal austerity, which was complemented by the “microeco-

nomic” program of nudging.
The GFC precipitated an intellectual crisis in economics and policymaking (Colander
et al., 2009). Prior to the GFC, the economics mainstream (typically called neoclassical eco-
nomics) was dominant academically and politically. The dominance of this economic par-
adigm came from its successful track record (Lucas, 2003), securing 14 consecutive years
of economic growth in the United Kingdom, for example (Carney, 2021). Yet this paradigm
also failed to foresee the crisis and failed to respond to the crisis once it occurred, in part
because of a belief in the infallibility of the paradigm, and in part because the paradigm
itself “positively denied it [the GFC] could happen” (Allen, 2009; Asensio, 2014; Kirman,
2009; Stiglitz, 2010). Such denial came from a fundamental axiom of neoclassical economic
thought – rationality. The neoclassical school, and its followers in government, held that
economies consisted of rational, representative agents: Individuals with perfect informa-
tion and ruthless utility maximization. Under such an assumption, the GFC could not
happen; when the GFC did happen, the neoclassical school struggled to mount a defence
as its legitimacy collapsed (Brown & Spencer, 2014; Green & Hay, 2015; Lux & Westerhoff,
2009; Solow, 2008; Stiglitz, 2010; Streeck, 2014). New ideas were now required.
Behavioral economics was one such idea. Tversky and Kahneman’s (1974) “heuristics and
biases” program is widely regarded as the origin of a modern “behavioral” school in eco-
nomics and policymaking (Thaler, 2015). This program had, since the 1970s, sought to cul-
tivate a niche within economics (Heukelom, 2012, p. 810; Kahneman, 2011), and succeeded
in part by retaining a close alignment with the neoclassical school, unlike previous “behav-
ioral” turns – such as Herbert Simon’s (1955) work – which outright attacked the paradigm
(Heukelom, 2012, p. 817). Behavioral economics (later insights) abandons the rationality
assumption (e.g., people do not have perfect information, and do not always maximize util-
ity), but only on a descriptive level. For instance, the school holds that people rarely succeed
in “maximizing utility” but does not question the logic that people want to maximize utility.
This slight change – which is in the spirit of economics’ own long-standing criticisms
of the rationality assumption (Schumpeter, 1940; Marshall, 1980) – positioned behavioral
economics as inoffensively dissimilar to the neoclassical school. Yet, its specific departure
from the neoclassical school – the abandonment of rationality – was the ideal solution to
the “anomaly” the GFC had demonstrated in the neoclassical school. The GFC, which pre-
ceded the crisis of legitimacy, seems to have been necessary to shift the political economy
in favor of behavioral ideas (Halpern, 2015, p. 46; Osborne & Thaler, 2010, para. 2–3). For
instance, the eventual head of the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), David Halpern, would
in 2015 explain how earlier efforts to integrate behavioral ideas into policymaking (Halpern
et al., 2004) had been met with “heavy press attack, leading to the Downing Street Press
Office to distance itself from [the policy]” (Halpern, 2015, pp. 35–36). Similarly, reflecting
on the success of Nudge (2008), Richard Thaler (Nudge co-author and former BIT advisor)
revealed that he and his co-author, Cass Sunstein, found the book’s success to be a “big
surprise” which far exceeded their expectations (Thaler, 2021).
Second, following the GFC, UK politics became dominated by the idea of fiscal austerity –
that cutting the size of the state could produce an outsized economic benefit (Reinhart &
180   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

Rogoff, 2009). In the 2010 General Election, the UK Conservative Party ran on this mac-
roeconomic platform, and the subsequent Tory-led Coalition Government (2010–15) pur-
sued this program with zeal.
Austerity represented a unique opportunity for nudging and behavioral insights. The
Conservative Government had also committed to a slew of social initiatives. Yet, the aus-
terity regime demanded reduced spending and reduced taxation (this formula is some-
times called British Austerity, as “textbook” austerity is a reduction in state spending and
an increase in taxation; the UK Government in 2010 did not pursue the latter compo-
nent), as well as calls for reduced “red tape”, which also discouraged the use of legislation
(Halpern, 2015). With these traditional ideas of how the state could be used now being
politically rejected, the idea of nudging rose to the fore as an alternative (Eaglesham, 2008).
Promising that the state could influence behavior without mandating actions (e.g., legisla-
tion) or incentivizing activities (e.g., tax and spend), nudging became a “microeconomic”
complement of macroeconomic program of fiscal austerity, and represented what George
Osborne (UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, 2010–16) and Richard Thaler would call, “a
fundamentally conservative approach”, to government (Osborne & Thaler, 2010, para. 8).
The link between nudging and austerity in the United Kingdom is well evidenced in
various materials from the time. David Halpern (2015, p. 13) is explicit when discussing
how the idea of austerity had transformed the technologies of the state, and how the idea of
nudging could further this transformation:

Britain, like many other countries, was in the grip of austerity. Most departments
faced major cuts. . . At the same time, the new government was pushing them to
deregulate, cut red tape and avoid legislation. In effect, the two main tools that
most departments had relied on for the past 50 years – spending money and legis-
lation – had been put in a box labelled “do not touch. . . Here in front of them was
a tool [nudging] they could use.

Osborne and Thaler (2010, para. 8) championed this narrative too:

Evidence from behavioural economics and social psychology can’t only help us
meet our goals more effectively, it can also help us to achieve them more cheaply,
and without intrusive and burdensome regulations. This is therefore a fundamen-
tally conservative approach, which can help us to reduce government spending
and get the deficit down.

The political complement of the idea of nudging, following the idea of austerity, was not
lost on journalists at the time either, as Eaglesham (2008, para. 6) writing in the Financial
Times notes:

The theory appears to offer an answer to one of Mr Cameron’s central dilemmas –

how to achieve his social goals, such as tackling poverty and obesity, without
resorting to. . . centrist state measures.
 Nudging Policy, or Crowding It Out?   ◾   181

In sum, the rise of nudging in the United Kingdom is a story of an ideational technol-
ogy. First, the GFC created an ideational crisis in economics and policymaking which saw
austerity economics and nudging rise to prominence. Second, in doing so, the uses of the
state were transformed. Austerity transformed how traditional functions of the state – tax,
spend, and legislation – could be used, namely, arguing that these functions could not be
used. Nudging transformed the state through this policy gap with an alternative idea of
how the state could be used – to nudge, rather than to mandate or incentivize. As such,
changing political–economic conditions (the GFC) changed which ideational technologies
were used (i.e., which ideas became influential), which in turn transformed how existing
technologies (e.g., the state) were to be used.

13.4 BEYOND STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE

The growing importance of sustainability in daily life, and of various environmental cri-
ses regarding the question of the continuance of life, should be understood as an impor-
tant shift in the political–economic landscape of most states. The SDGs are a particularly
powerful statement to contextualize the sustainability challenges facing modern society,
and our commentary has close implications with those concerning more “nudge-friendly”
goals such as SDG-12 (sustainable consumption) as well as “harder” goals such as SDGs 13,
14, and 15, all of which concern broad environmental action.
Given this shifting landscape, it is interesting to look at nudging, as an ideational tech-
nology, to see how, and for what political ends, the idea is being deployed. Behavioral sci-
entists are nothing if not ambitious. The broad topic of the environment (which should be
taken to include global warming, climate breakdown, ecological breakdown, sustainability,
and more) has been a steadfast feature of the nudging agenda in this regard. Thaler and
Sunstein (2021) include a dedicated chapter to this topic in Nudge: The Final Edition, titled
“Saving the Planet”.
Yet, there remains debate about the veracity of green nudges to “save the planet”. Some
critics worry that, at best, green nudges will distract from more effective policy, and “may
give the impression that sufficient progress is being made, reducing the need for other,
more aggressive climate policies” (Maki, 2019, p. 439; see also Hagman et al., 2019 and
Chapter 14). At worse, such policies may be used as purposeful distractions from more
effective – but politically inconvenient – policies (Harford, 2022; see also Chater &
Loewenstein, 2022 and Chapter 4). Others have been more optimistic about the role of
green nudges in climate policy. Fischhoff (2021) has argued that it is plain folly to regard
climate policy as not having a significant behavioral component (e.g., SDG-12), while van
der Linden et al. (2021, p. 431) have expressed their concern that, “traditional policy tools,
such as relying on local market mechanisms to raise the price of carbon and drive tech-
nological change, may be insufficient, or they may operate on too slow of a timeframe to
meet key adaption and mitigation targets” (for a similarly critical perspective on capitalist
mechanisms to promote sustainability, see Chapter 17). Based on these concerns, van der
Linden et al. (2021) argue alternative policy approaches – namely, behavioral science and
nudging – should be utilized.
182   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

Our broad approach in this chapter has not been to question whether nudges work.
Instead, we have focused on why nudging has been used in policymaking, irrespective of
the policy effectiveness of nudging. We continue this approach here.
Advocates of “behavioral climate policy”, such as Fischhoff (2021) and van der Linden
et al. (2021) have argued that climate policy must be understood as behavioral because
most carbon emissions can be attributed to consumption behaviors, broadly defined.
This frames climate policy largely as a matter of individual choice, and climate mitigation
largely as a matter of changing individual choices, which creates the intellectual space for
green nudges to be a viable policy response. For instance, Sparkman et al. (2021, p. 433)
argue – specifically concerning climate policy – that social norm interventions could be
utilized because people have a “tendency to conform to trends”.
While we have no objection to this argument as it is broadly conceived, we note that
contained within the “consumptive behaviors” that such nudges would target are many
consumables which are economically driven, rather than behaviorally. For instance, a
worker must drive to work if there is no public transport alternative, or if the alternative
is unaffordable to them. This “behavior” is not driven by a “tendency to conform”, but by
the infrastructural and economic conditions facing the individual. From this perspective,
one may conclude that “traditional policy tools” have been insufficient insofar as they
have not been used for transport investment (van der Linden et al., 2021). But this does
not necessarily mean that green nudges are sufficient; neither does it mean they are insuf-
ficient. Rather, this is merely a critique of how “traditional policy tools” have been used,
and could be used differently, for instance, investing in public transport and subsidizing
its usage.
Once more, we see the importance of ideas. Such a perspective comes from seeing “tra-
ditional policy tools”, as ideational technologies with political lives, rather than neutral
(see also Chapter 15). Implicitly, authors such as van der Linden et al. (2021) assume the
latter. For instance, they argue behavioral insights should be used to educate legislators
and the public about the threat of climate change, framing the problem as one of indi-
vidual knowledge, and implicitly downplaying the role of political and economic interests
which others (Harford, 2022; Loewenstein & Chater, 2017; Chater and Loewenstein, 2022)
have emphasized (this is not an unusual tendency in more typical discussions of technol-
ogy and neutrality; see Spencer, 2017). Loewenstein and Chater (2017) argue that this is
a common problem of behavioral policy, as all problems are – from the outset – viewed
as behavioral problems, and thus all solutions – implicitly – are regarded as also being
behavioral.
A further example of such thinking may be seen in a recent exchange of criticism in
Nature regarding the effectiveness of pro-environmental interventions. Nisa et al. (2019)
undertake a meta-analysis of behavioral interventions designed to change household envi-
ronmental behaviors and conclude that while the overall effect of these interventions is
positive, it is so negligibly positive that, for the authors, prioritizing such interventions
would be a policy mistake. In a response, van der Linden and Goldberg (2020) replicate
the results and argue that Nisa et al. (2019) likely underestimate the average effect size by a
factor of two. For van der Linden and Goldberg (2020) this is an important result. In their
 Nudging Policy, or Crowding It Out?   ◾   183

response, however, Nisa et al. (2020) note that even doubling a negligible effect size does
not change the validity of the original conclusions (that such interventions do not substan-
tially help), among a slew of other criticism regarding the replication procedure.
Ultimately, Nisa et al. (2020, p. 2) are quite cutting when they write, “A thoughtful
debate beyond statistical significance is long overdue to make psychological and behav-
ioral science more relevant to intervention and policy-making”. This statement could, and
we would argue should, be seen as an acknowledgment that nudges, green or otherwise,
have a political dimension as much as they have an academic one. The notion that “statisti-
cally significant” is sufficient for policy ends (either to solve the policy problem or to satisfy
some political agenda) is an example of viewing nudging as a neutral technology, rather
than one deployed for political–economic purposes (or perhaps failing to see the political
life inherent in all ideational technologies). Of course, opponents to this view may argue
that irrespective of how or why green nudges are used, evidence of a positive effect sug-
gests using them would be beneficial (van der Linden & Goldberg, 2020). Yet, as we have
argued, nudging is an ideational technology, which transforms how other technologies are
conceived to be used. If, through nudging, other more impactful policies are deemed politi-
cally unnecessary, then the net result may be that less progress is made, compared to the
counterfactual (Chater & Loewenstein, 2022). In the economics parlance, this is a variation
on the notion of crowding out (see also Chapter 4).
An interesting example to consider in this debate thus far is the use of green license
plates in the United Kingdom. Introduced in December 2020, electric cars registered in the
United Kingdom are given a green-colored license plate (UK Department for Transport,
2020). This initiative follows policies already introduced in countries such as Norway and
Canada (Helm, 2018) and was explicitly marketed as a “behavioral” policy backed by the
BIT (Costa et al., 2018). The rationale was that these license plates would make electric cars
more salient, and thus nudge people into purchasing an electric car as they come to be seen
as normal. The UK’s Transport Secretary described the policy, following the COVID-19
pandemic, as an opportunity to “build back greener” (Shapps, 2020, para. 6). Such a policy
is an excellent example to draw upon, for three reasons.
First, while it is too early to determine whether this policy has indeed nudged electric
car sales, we can likely already conclude the effect has been rather small. As electric vehicle
registration data from the UK Department of Transport (2022) shows, the third quarter of
2020 (the quarter before the license plate nudge was introduced) was already the highest
quarter on record for the registering of hybrid electric (615,000), plug-in electric (182,000),
and battery electric (152,000) cars. This is to say, even prior to the nudge, there was an
upward trend in electric car consumption; even if this nudge proves to be “statistically
significant”, it is unlikely to be the driver of electric car sales, pardon the pun.
Second, the nudge is insufficient as part of a mass, pro-environmental policy shift,
despite its framing in 2018 (Helm, 2018). Electric cars do not in themselves address the
question of energy generation, with a growing absolute usage of electric cars potentially
continuing to perpetuate environmental harm as this coincides with growing energy
demand (Marx, 2022). Furthermore, the various extraction and production processes
in the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries – key to modern electric vehicles – remain
184   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

extremely environmentally damaging, as well as politically contentious given the associ-

ated resource conflicts which engulf lithium-rich countries such as Bolivia (Agusdinata
et al., 2018). This is all to say that even if this nudge has a substantial impact on behavior
(i.e., increasing electric car usage), it may be a deleterious and harmful policy when con-
sidered outside of its isolation.
Third, the policy may be understood as a resurrection of the political life of nudging in
the austerity era of UK politics. In the previous section, we demonstrated how nudging
was seen as a means of the government appearing to do something, while embarking on
a policy program (austerity) designed to reduce the capacities of the state to do anything
(Eaglesham, 2008). One may make the same argument regarding green license plates; the
same government which introduced green license plates has – at the time of writing –
greenlit new oil and gas developments in the UK’s North Sea (Tidman, 2022) and scraped
subsidies for electric car infrastructure (Kollewe, 2022). Just as nudging in the austerity era
allowed the government to promote a socially progressive program while reducing eco-
nomic investment in such programs, so too might one see green license plates as a political
tool for bolstering environmental credentials (e.g., seeming to tackle SDG 12), while not
challenging more meaningful environmental policy (e.g., fossil fuel development projects
covered by SDGs 13–15).

13.5 CONCLUSION
In this chapter, we have argued that ideas can function as technologies, insofar as they
transform those who use them, and insofar as they transform how other technologies are
conceived to be useable. Ideas are also political–economic creatures, with the political
economy – and the social relations contained within – shaping which ideas proliferate,
and which falter. We have focused on a policy idea which has been very popular in the past
decade, and which continues to influence environmental policy: Nudging.
By considering the political–economic conditions in which the notion of “Nudge”, came
to be popular, we have demonstrated the notion of an ideational technology. Nudging
was able to transform the academic economic paradigm, which was beleaguered by the
Global Financial Crisis, and subsequently, transform conceptions of how the state (itself
a technology) could be used to influence behavior. Nudging also transformed those who
deployed the idea, being of political usage to politicians in the United Kingdom who sup-
ported economic austerity, but still wished to pursue various social programs.
Green nudges now exist as a set of policy prescriptions for pro-environmental ends. In
this chapter, we have explored some of these ideas, as well as the criticism of them. While
all environmental policies may have some “behavioral” component to them (by virtue of
almost always involving humans), the role of behavioral policy is often less obvious than
one may derive from this perspective. Once more, how technologies of the state are used,
and are perceived to be useable, is political–economic in nature. The “failure” of traditional
policy tools is not necessarily a failure of the tools per se, but a demonstration of how the
tools of been chosen to be used; the flipside of this argument is that the “failure” of a tradi-
tional tool does not necessitate a behavioral tool be used instead. To fall into such a trap is
to risk allowing nudges to crowd out policy.
 Nudging Policy, or Crowding It Out?   ◾   185

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 Chapter 14

The Fallacy of Disruptive

Technologies and the
Primacy of Politics
Sustainable Development
Goals as an Example

Imad Antoine Ibrahim

CONTENTS
14.1 Introduction 189
14.2 Technology and Politics 190
14.3 Big Data for Transboundary Water Governance 192
14.3.1 Background 192
14.3.2 Role of Politics 193
14.4 Disruptive Technologies in the Agricultural Field 194
14.4.1 Background 194
14.4.2 Role of Politics 195
14.5 Conclusion 196
14.6 References 197

14.1 INTRODUCTION
Over the last decade, new technologies have emerged affecting the implementation of the
United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These include Artificial
Intelligence (AI), Big Data Analytics, Blockchain, Internet of Things, next-generation
robotics, digital agriculture, gene editing, the microbiome, and additive manufacturing,
among others (Bringing Ingenuity to Life, n.d). Through them, the international commu-
nity hopes to ensure the realization of the 17 aims in the areas of science, technology,
and innovation (Doyle, 2021; Mohieldin, 2018). Examples include SDG 2 “Zero Hunger”,
SDG 3 “Good Health and Well-being”, SDG 6 “Clean Water and Sanitation for all”,

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-14 189

190   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

SDG 12 “Responsible Consumption and Production”, SDG 16 “Peace, Justice and Strong
Institutions”, and SDG 17 “Partnerships for the Goals” (UN DESA, n.d.).
Disruptive technologies are game changers in the field of sustainability and all existing
sectors as they highlight a paradigm shift in governance (Sousa et al., 2020). This notion is
considered part of the theory of “disruptive innovation” established by Christensen in the
1990s. It describes new technologies that can affect and change business models and enable
the creation of new markets (Ibrahim et al., 2022). Disruption in this case refers to a varia-
tion that leads to the inefficiency of products, services, and processes. This may take place
as new technologies cost less, are of a better quality, alter a consumer’s behavior, and there
may, correspondingly, be new regulations and resource scarcity. Disruptive innovation
refers to the introduction of commercial products or services that affect the operations of
existing players at various levels, such as industry segments and structures, and the social
system. Disruptive technology has the potential of creating disruptive innovation (Millar
et al., 2018). The assumption in the literature is that such technologies will significantly
improve governance when it comes to sustainable development (Akkucuk, 2021). There
is an atmosphere of hope and optimism that has begun resulting in international organi-
zations and states riding the disruptive technology wave (ECOSOC, 2019). Nonetheless,
technological progress, if left unchecked, can negatively impact the achievement of the
SDGs given the role of Big Tech and the need to regulate an emerging field that remains
mysterious to numerous policymakers and regulators (Truby, 2020; see also Chapter 10).
This chapter argues that politics remains the main element impacting the implemen-
tation of the 17 goals regardless of whether disruptive technologies are used and despite
their well-recorded advantages (Keping, 2018). Even with the technological develop-
ments taking place, the political interests of various nations affect whether a specific
SDG shall be achieved. This resulted in the emergence of a vast literature on the interplay
between politics and governance theoretically and in practice (Eraydin & Frey, 2019)
in various fields such as economics (Hickey et al., 2015) and development (Schofield &
Caballero, 2015).
To prove the aforementioned claim, the author focuses implicitly and explicitly on sev-
eral goals, specifically SDGs 2, 3, 6, 12, 16, and 17. This chapter analyzes these objectives
through two case studies. The first concerns the use of Big Data for transboundary water
resource management. The second addresses the deployment of disruptive technologies
in the agricultural sector. This chapter first starts with a brief overview of the interplay
between technology and politics. It then examines the two examples. In both cases, a focus
on the impact of politics is emphasized.

14.2 TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICS

The interplay between technology and politics has been discussed in the literature from
various angles (Papacharissi, 2015; Kurgan, 2013; Street, 1992; Wills, 2008; Winner, 1977).
This is because the rules applicable to technology have a political nature establishing
boundaries, rights, and obligations in the public and private domains (Sussman, 1997) and
impact the governance system in place. This has been the case, for instance, with the rise
of the Internet affecting political regimes (Weare, 2006). The relationship between these
 Disruptive Technologies and the Primacy of Politics   ◾   191

two notions changes with the emergence of new eras where the state attempts to regulate
and use technological developments for political purposes (Schot, 2003). For instance, the
government adopts policies concerning the diffusion of renewable energy (Jacobsson &
Lauber, 2006). Technology also drives politics related to energy and climate change
(Schmidt & Sewerin, 2017). Sometimes, such developments are banned when it does not
suit the state’s political goals (Meckling & Nahm, 2019). All this leads to technological and
political change based on the situation (Street, 1992).
Globally, questions are raised on whether technological progress or politics will shape
the course of international governance (Levy, 1975) and as to why certain nations are
better than others in the technological and scientific fields (Taylor, 2016). This is mainly
because such developments are seen through the lens of power in international relations
(McCarthy, 2015), as its impact on politics has already been noticed. However, scholars
have argued that there is an overestimation of its effect on nations, cultures, and military
innovations (Deutsch, 1959). Others also claim that an exaggeration is taking place con-
cerning the importance of politics in technological advancement (Asdal et al., 2008). This
takes place in a context where some see technology as a means to advance society, whereas
others are concerned about its negative consequences (Mayer et al., 2014). This has resulted
in the emergence of various concepts to highlight this interdependency, such as “Digital
Politics” (Karpf, 2017), “Technological Determinism” (Agre, 2002), “Voluntarist Views of
Technology” (van der Ploeg, 2003), and “Technopolitics” (Kurban et al., 2017). Some have
gone further in their classification. For instance, Jasanoff (2008, p. 745) argued that technol-
ogy as a “site and object of politics displays itself clearly in four linked yet separate aspects:
as risk, as design, as standard, and as ethical constraint”. This focus on the classification
of technology is understandable given the complete reliance on it in all sectors (Asaro,
2000) and the public misinterpretation and understanding of its role in society (Bromley,
2002), and its occasional perception as a threat (González, 2005; Van Slyke, 2008). This has
resulted in the emergence of Science and Technology Studies and Science, Technology, and
Society (STS) as new fields tackling politics, governance, and regulatory practices, among
other areas of concern (Irwin & Wynne, 1996; Webster, 1991).
Society is currently being ordered and organized in keeping with existing technolo-
gies, which has resulted in various political questions with respect to its neutrality and
legitimacy as a technical means to achieve social ends (Introna, 2007). This is where
politics is important as policymakers and other stakeholders such as industries and
civil society organizations are seeking to integrate societal and ethical considerations
into the technological sphere. The objectives are to address potential future technologi-
cal problems, ensure the adaptability of the governance system, and allow citizen par-
ticipation among other things (van Oudheusden, 2014). Thus, the relationship between
technology and politics and the analysis of the interplay between both is expected to
gain further importance (Brown, 2015), as technology is not neutral but impacted by
politics (Delvenne & Parotte, 2019) and the latter is influenced by technological evi-
dence (May, 2006).
This is why the law plays an important role in technological progress. Politics rely on
the legislation that creates and regulates it in the general framework of justice and social
192   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

order. It is the driving force behind the establishment of legal norms (Cerar, 2009). Politics
include decisions taken by a group or part of a group, often in the form of a government
concerning governance matters. The law is used to implement the outcome representing
the authority of those who govern (Alexander, 2018). Legislations concerning technologies
have already developed and are expected to be adopted in the future, reflecting politi-
cians views on this matter (Salmerón-Manzano, 2021; Malby, 2018; Gifford, 2007; Mandel,
2007). It is a compromise that needs to be made to ensure that innovation is not stifled
while citizens are still protected (Tranter, 2011). This is complicated as the law cannot catch
up with the rapid technological advancements (Griffith, 2019).

14.3 BIG DATA FOR TRANSBOUNDARY WATER GOVERNANCE

This section tackles the impact of politics on the use of big data in the management of
shared freshwaters. It shows that despite the promises of technology, interstate politics
remain the principal factor affecting the way this resource is governed, thus influencing
directly the realization of SDG 6 and indirectly goals 3, 12, 16, and 17.

14.3.1 Background
Water flow in a hydrological cycle, which does not recognize the existence of political
boundaries or physical characteristics. Having data and information on this resource’s
cycle is essential for its long- and short-term governance. These data are used for moni-
toring, planning, policymaking, and designing infrastructure. Other types also affecting
water management include data on policies and regulations, engineering, culture, and the
various modes of water use, be it agricultural, industrial, and household consumption,
among others. Data on the links between water resources and the ecosystem are equally
important (Leb, 2020).
International water conventions and instruments, mainly the Convention on the Law
of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses (1997), the Convention on
the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (1992),
and the 2008 Draft Articles on the Law of Transboundary Aquifers (Draft Articles, 2008)
include explicit provisions related to the regular data and information exchange; the notifi-
cation of natural and human triggered emergencies and planned measures (Ibrahim et al.,
2022). Similar provisions are found in basin water agreements such as the revised Southern
African Development Community Water Protocol (SADC, 2000).
The inability, unwillingness, absence, and insufficient exchange of data and information
across state borders is one of the most challenging problems that affects the management
of transboundary water resources. Nations can have the technical capacity to collect and
share water data but may withhold such information to protect their bargaining positions.
They might also lack the ability to collect and exchange data given the great costs associ-
ated with the process and the lack of institutional capacity (Ibrahim, 2020). Various factors
culminate in this situation, such as the absence of compatible needs, mistrust among par-
ties, and the inability to perceive benefits from cooperation (Chenoweth & Feitelson, 2001).
New technologies are considered a means to address these issues (Gupta et al., 2020; World
Economic Forum, 2018).
 Disruptive Technologies and the Primacy of Politics   ◾   193

In the transboundary water context, data are collected from different institutions and
disciplines such as social and hydrological sciences. Its great volume has emerged from
various sources like satellites, social media, and monitoring stations providing instant
information that must be factored into the decision-making process (Ibrahim et al., 2022).
Its veracity is questioned as it is not clear as to what data are valuable in drawing up poli-
cies. Big Data through machine learning holds the promise of collecting, storing, manag-
ing, processing, and providing added value from a huge amount of variable water data that
emerges rapidly. This new information, which is considered credible and timely, can be
used for the management of shared water resources (Ibrahim, 2020). The importance of Big
Data led to the establishment of projects such as the Big Data Analytics and Transboundary
Water Collaboration for Southern Africa initiative to improve regional water management
through this disruptive technology (Bocchino & Adkisson, 2020). The opportunities for
Big Data in the water sector have led to an increased focus in the literature on this topic
(Gohil et al., 2021).

14.3.2 Role of Politics

Water management in the transboundary context is extremely complicated. Each state
usually looks to secure the biggest quantity of this resource, which is considered a matter
of national security. The importance of politics has resulted in the emergence of a new term
called “hydropolitics”, based on which scholars have concluded that shared freshwater is
simultaneously a source of conflict and cooperation (Bréthaut et al., 2022). Factors that
play a role include whether a state has asymmetrical power in comparison to other nations
that share the resource and whether the country holds an upstream or downstream posi-
tion (Mirumachi & Allan, 2007). This is worsened by the overuse and pollution of shared
freshwaters. Climate change, the rise in global population, and economic growth have
impacted them negatively, too.
The literature shows that water challenges are mainly governance crises (Johns &
VanNijnatten, 2021) and a political issue. The effectiveness of existing water conven-
tions and instruments at the international, regional, and basin levels and joint water
institutions depends on the political willingness of states to abide by established rules
to solve matters such as water pollution (Ibrahim, 2020). Politics has played an impor-
tant role in the drafting and adoption of international water conventions (McCaffrey,
2008), to the point where many provisions in these treaties have a political character
(Eckstein, 2008). Its impact is far more obvious at the basin level such as the Nile river
basin, which is shared among several countries, each of which has different interests and
needs (Brunnie, 2008).
States may have different political positions and attitudes toward the use of big data,
based on whether it will positively or negatively impact their water needs. Various sce-
narios can unfold as all or few nations or even one may decide to use Big Data. It is also
possible that none of them use it. If all states agree to use Big Data, problems may unfold if
they disagree over key areas of concern. If some states or even one nation agrees to deploy
it, but others do not, more challenges may emerge. Why would any of the other countries
accept the results of data processing if they do not participate in the process? What if each
194   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

state uses its own big datasets and draws out different results? What data should be adopted
to avoid bias? Why would nations accept new data that may leave them with less favorable
conditions? Should a third party take on data processing to ensure objectivity (Ibrahim,
2020)? These are some of the political challenges facing big data; other technologies like
geoengineering are likely to face similar issues (see Chapter 4).
When disruptive technologies are deployed with the promise of enhancing transbound-
ary water management, politics remains the core element in deciding whether actual
changes will occur. Suggestions have been made for the adoption of legal mechanisms
to reduce the impact of politics and allow the efficient use of Big Data. These include the
development of water protocols at the basin level, tackling only the question of big data
including provisions pertaining to the integration of water and information from mul-
tiple databases and the establishment of water data administration funds or accounts to
finance such operations. Globally, incorporating a new provision on disruptive technolo-
gies in international water law has been suggested (Ibrahim et al., 2022). Only time will tell
whether such suggestions will be considered and will yield the needed outcomes.
Even though technology has great potential for the realization of SDG 6, on clean water
and sanitation in the transboundary context, politics has been decisive on whether this
objective shall be achieved. This reality indirectly affects the implementation of SDGs 3, 12,
16, and 17 (UN DESA, n.d.). The good management of shared water resources is essential for
the health and well-being of the population, especially as water needs to be exploited respon-
sibly through strong and just joint institutions to guarantee peace among states sharing it.

14.4 DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES IN THE AGRICULTURAL FIELD

This section shows that despite the proven positive influence of disruptive technologies in
agriculture, a wide range of concerns pertaining to the relationship between farmers and
agritech companies require the political intervention of the state. The aim is to regulate the
relationship between both parties and ensure the adequate realization of SDG 2 explicitly
and SDGs 3, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, and 17 implicitly.

14.4.1 Background
Agriculture is a risky business given its

relatively low operational efficiency and small managerial power due to farm size
limitations, a high level of uncertainty because of weather and environmental con-
ditions, and a volatile balance between food supply and demand due to growing
and breeding times of crops and livestock.
(Osinga et al., 2022, p. 2)

Thus, investments were and are made to improve the efficacy of operations and reduce
uncertainties. The aim is to ensure the production of food with great nutritional value;
constant food supply and reduction of environmental harm; and various types of benefits
including ecological, social, and economic ones (Osinga et al., 2022). Farming is complex
 Disruptive Technologies and the Primacy of Politics   ◾   195

and involves various costs such as those for labor and land. Farmers use expensive machines
and equipment, fertilizers, and pesticides, and ensure proper irrigation (Paraforos et al.,
2016). The agri-food sector is challenged by population growth and climate change, which
results in environmental degradation (land, water, and air) in addition to loss of biodiver-
sity and increase in foodborne diseases (Leader et al., 2020).
New technologies are reshaping the agricultural sector, which has led to the emergence
of Agricultural Technology (AgriTech) as a field (Spanaki et al., 2022). These include smart
farming technologies that have supported agricultural practices, digital ones that have
applied big data and machine learning, and precision agriculture focused on using data
collected from satellites and other technologies to improve productivity and reduce costs.
These include AI, drones, crop monitoring, farming robotics, autonomous transport, radio
frequency identification sensors, tracking, and Machine Learning and Analytics (Leader
et al., 2020). Disruptive technologies focus on increasing productivity and decreasing eco-
nomic and physical burdens, among others. The aim is to facilitate the work of a farmer
by tackling difficult, unwanted and tiring work, which will give them time to focus on
improving and developing the farm. For instance, AI allows the use of unmanned agricul-
tural machinery, and Big Data leads to a detailed analysis of farming data to understand
the ways in which farming practices can be improved (Ryan, 2020).
Globally, efforts have been made for the establishment of an International Digital
Council for Food and Agriculture at the 12th Global Forum for Food and Agriculture
in January 2020 in Berlin. Its role is to ensure the good use of digital technologies in the
agricultural sector and is to be supported by various units and national governments.
Additionally, an International Platform for Digital Food and Agriculture under the Food
and Agriculture Organization framework was created (FAO, 2020). The International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) has issued standards governing the use of digi-
tal technologies in agriculture and has established committees to that end (Gasiorowski-
Denis, 2017; ISO, 2017). The World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation
and Development (OECD), and others have also begun addressing this topic (Mattson,
2019; OECD, n.d.).

14.4.2 Role of Politics

Despite the opportunities highlighted earlier due to the use of disruptive technologies in
the agricultural sector, various political obstacles have emerged in recent years, requir-
ing state intervention at the domestic level and the international community’s attention
(Wiseman et al., 2019; OECD, 2020). Innovation has led to the emergence of agritech
companies such as Monsanto, Bayer, and John Deere. These are profit-driven, which has
resulted in political practices that negatively affect farmers who are the main beneficiaries
of their services (Moon, 2019).
Owing to the great costs associated with investing in new technologies and human capi-
tal, as well as technical knowhow, few agritech companies are expected to have the lion’s
share of the market, resulting in monopolies dictating the terms and conditions to farm-
ers who are set to lose the most from this unbalanced situation (Schönfeld et al., 2018;
Shastry & Sanjay, 2020). This is already resulting in farmers complete dependency on
196   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

agritech service providers through strict and often harsh legal contracts that limit their
capacity to abandon the contract altogether. Additionally, due to this, they are unable to
seek the services of other agritech providers (Ryan, 2020). This is worsened by the fact
that the agritech company with whom the farmer has signed a contract has all the data
on the farm and the farmer does not know how these data are being used, which implies
information asymmetry between both parties. The farmer does not know whether their
agricultural data are disclosed to a third party, and whether agritech, as a result of these
data, may impose different legal conditions on each farmer on a case-by-case basis. The
legal contract signed between both parties does not protect the farmer, as they are usually
extremely complicated and long-winded agreements (Ryan, 2020; Carbonell, 2016). Thus,
the state has to intervene politically to organize the relationship. This has resulted in new
and innovative laws. For example, the European Union adopted the Code of Conduct on
Agricultural Data Sharing by Contractual Agreement to regulate data sharing in the field.
The code contains detailed provisions on data ownership, access, control, portability, pro-
tection, transparency, privacy, and security; and liability and Intellectual Property Rights
(European Union Code of Conduct, 2018). The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF)
adopted the Privacy and Security Principles for Farm Data, which guide companies on
education, ownership, collection, access, control, notice, transparency, and consistency,
choice, portability, terms and definitions, disclosure, use and sale limitation, data reten-
tion and availability, contract termination, unlawful and anti-competitive activities, and
liability and security safeguards (Ag Data Transparent, n.d.). These attempts, alongside
the international community’s efforts through the International Digital Council for Food
and Agriculture, the International Platform for Digital Food and Agriculture, and ISO
standards, aim to address the political challenges emerging from the use of disruptive
technologies in agriculture.
Thus, in the agricultural field and despite the promises of disruptive technology as seen
earlier, politics remains essential in deciding whether SDG 2 shall be achieved. It also
affects the indirect implementation of SDGs 3, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, and 17 (UN DESA, n.d.).
Good governance in the agricultural sector has impacts on land, health, well-being, work
opportunities especially for farmers, and the overall economic growth of the country. It
has a great influence on the industries, mainly those investing in this sector and ensuring
that equality and responsible consumption and production take place. All this must unfold
while ensuring the existence of peaceful and inclusive societies within the general frame-
work of partnerships among many stakeholders.

14.5 CONCLUSION
Politics remain the core element that determines whether disruptive technologies can help
improve the implementation of the SDGs (Ibrahim et al., 2022). The question is then how
we address the interplay between politics and technology in the sustainability field. One
way is to tackle this through regulations (see Chapter 10). As seen earlier, rules are being
developed internationally, regionally, nationally, and locally to address this topic and for
the realization of the 17 goals (Schönfeld et al., 2018). Scientists should be given a greater
role to play in the decision-making process to avoid having politicians with different
 Disruptive Technologies and the Primacy of Politics   ◾   197

agendas drive the use of these technologies in the sustainability field (Siddhpura et al.,
2020; Jameson, 2014). This will not solve the problem of politics but rather help reduce its
impact (Susskind, 2018; McCarthy, 2018; Hilpert, 2016; Jacobsen, 2015).
It is left to the voluntary will of each state to use disruptive technologies efficiently for
the fulfillment of the SDGs and report on the application through the follow-up and review
mechanism established for tracking progress (High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable
Development, 2021; VNR, 2019, 2020). This would happen once a nation sees that the polit-
ical benefits far outweigh disadvantages at various levels (Ibrahim et al., 2022). The grow-
ing literature on the topic has highlighted the increasing interest in the interplay between
the SDGs and disruptive technologies by various stakeholders, including states, which will
eventually impact the role of politics in this area (Iizuka & Hane, 2021; UNCTAD, 2019;
IISD, 2017; ITU, 2021).

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 Chapter 15

Technology and the

Distribution of Power
Faridun Sattarov

CONTENTS
15.1 Introduction 203
15.2 From Human to Nonhuman Power 204
15.3 Some Are More Equal Than Others 206
15.4 Equality Now! 208
15.5 Conclusion 212
15.6 References 212

15.1 INTRODUCTION
The notion of techno-solutionism has emerged to capture a rather modern phenomenon –
attempts of using engineering and technology to solve complex social problems, which are
themselves often the result of past technological interventions (see Chapter 2; Morozov,
2013; see also Stilgoe, 2020). As the other chapters of this book have amply shown, while
technological ingenuity has been the driving force for many great innovations, technologi-
cal solutions can create more problems than they solve. One such problem concerns the
impact of technology on the distribution and exercise of power in society. Technological
fixes can generate inequalities of power, which can have significant implications for soci-
ety, be they moral, social, economic, or political.
Inequalities of power, in their turn, can impact socially sustainable development and
constrain the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs
were introduced by the United Nations in the 2015 publication titled Transforming
our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations, 2015). The
17 goals (see Chapter 2) comprise a wide array of aims, emphasizing people, planet,
prosperity, peace, and partnership (United Nations, 2015). Of these 17 SDGs, at least
6 can directly be impacted by inequalities of power: “Reduced inequalities” (SDG 10),
“Gender equality” (SDG 5), “Decent work and economic growth” (SDG 8), “No pov-
erty” (SDG 1), “Quality education” (SDG 4), and “Peace, justice and strong institu-
tions” (SDG 16).

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-15 203

204   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

This chapter aims to further our understanding of the relation between technology and
power from the perspective of equality and sustainable development. Specifically, it aims to
show how recent advances in AI technology can affect power relations and lead to unequal
distribution of power in society, thereby impeding the attainment of SDGs. In doing so, the
discussion here aims to address the following three questions:

1. What is technological power?

The notion of technological power has been the subject of great many discussions.
However, in relating technology to political and social power, most such discussions
fail to make explicit their conception of power, instead relying on an implicit under-
standing of power which can sometimes lead to confusion given that authors and
their readers may have different, and even conflicting, interpretations of what power
means (Sattarov, 2019). For this reason, this chapter aims first to disentangle different
senses of power and consider how these different senses of power can be applied to
technology.
2. How does technology lead to inequality of power?
Traditional economic thought was dominated by the view that advances in tech-
nology lead to less inequality as more and more people begin to take advantage of
the resulting opportunities (see Chapters 12 and 17). However, this chapter presents
several counterexamples in the area of AI, to show that advances in technology do
not necessarily level off inequality; on the contrary, they can create new and further
reproduce existing inequalities. This chapter discusses how bias and discrimination
embedded in such practices lead to inequality by giving rise to digital segregation and
algorithmic exclusion of marginalized and vulnerable people (see Chapter 5).
3. Why does equality of power matter for sustainable development?
Traditional liberal philosophy tends to hold that inequality and excesses of power
in society can be tolerated so long as the rights and liberties of the powerless are
protected. However, drawing on republicanism, Marxism, and identity politics, this
chapter argues that failure to address asymmetries and disparities of power is symp-
tomatic of a rather “head in the clouds” conception of justice, which is unsuitable
to “here and now” circumstances of disadvantaged and unfortunate persons and
groups. This chapter further highlights the importance of equality in the distribution
of technological power in the context of sustainable development.

15.2 FROM HUMAN TO NONHUMAN POWER

That technology plays a central part in structuring power relations in society is noth-
ing new and has been the subject of many discussions in a number of areas and disci-
plines including critical theory, the philosophy and ethics of technology, Science and
Technology Studies (STS), sociology and history of technology, cyborg anthropology, etc.
(Sattarov, 2019). It has also been an underpinning element of several influential social
 Technology and the Distribution of Power   ◾   205

and philosophical theories and approaches, such as historical materialism (Marx; Fuchs),
actor–network theory (Latour; Callon), postphenomenology (Ihde; Verbeek), and social
construction of technology (Bijker; Woolgar).
Power is defined variously, for example, as one’s “present means . . . to obtain some
future apparent good” (Hobbes, 1839, p. 74); as “the probability that one actor within a
social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance” (Weber,
1947, p. 152); as “the human ability not just to act but to act in concert” (Arendt, 1970,
p. 44); or, formulaically, as “A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do some-
thing that B would not otherwise do” (Dahl, 1957, pp. 202–203). Despite this diversity of
notions of power, those who speak of “technological power” often forget to clarify what
they mean by “power”. To avoid ambiguity in our discussion of technology and power, we
need a pluralist approach to power that first disentangles different notions of power and
then applies them to technology. This pluralist approach to technological power has been
developed in an earlier work (Sattarov, 2019), which, however, does not address the ques-
tion of how technological power affects equality, especially in the context of sustainable
development. This chapter aims to fill this gap.
A review of literature on power (e.g., Clegg, 1989; Haugaard & Clegg, 2009; Haugaard,
2010; Allen, 2016) can show that there are (at least) four main notions of power: (1) epi-
sodic, (2) dispositional, (3) systemic, and (4) constitutive. The episodic notion refers to a
person being subject to the power of another. The dispositional notion denotes a person
having certain abilities, capacities, or capabilities. The systemic notion views power as the
property of entire social systems that structure the actions and possibilities of individuals
or groups. Finally, the constitutive notion regards power as something that acts on people
from within, as something that constitutes their very selves.
When viewed from the episodic perspective, technology can have power over people,
by affecting their moods, decisions, and actions. For example, AI-enabled news and social
media websites can affect the behavior of their readers by tweaking the frequency of appear-
ance of good and bad news on their newsfeed (see, e.g., Kramer et al., 2014). When viewed
from the dispositional perspective, technology can empower people by giving them new, or
enhancing their existing, abilities, or capabilities. For instance, AI-enabled online transla-
tion services can enhance the ability of a human interpreter to translate text and speech in
amounts larger than what the human can do on their own (see, e.g., Kushner, 2013). When
viewed from the systemic perspective, technology can permeate social systems and institu-
tions by creating and recreating asymmetrical relations of power (see Chapter 17; Sætra,
2021a). For example, AI-enabled applications for sorting and profiling people can lead
to an exclusion of certain individuals and groups in the distribution of social goods and
resources through algorithmic bias and discrimination (see, e.g., Barocas & Selbst, 2016).
Finally, when viewed from the constitutive perspective, technology can become implicated
in the myriad of power relations which shape, constitute, and produce modern selves. For
instance, information technologies have become an integral part of the “surveillance soci-
ety” (Lyon, 2001) which shapes and produces the “postliberal” (Cohen, 2012) selves.
The episodic and dispositional views of power are in accord with methodological indi-
vidualism, as they focus on individuals holding and exercising power. On the other hand,
206   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

the systemic and constitutive views are in agreement with holism, as they attend to higher-
level social and political institutions and systems. Similarly, the four views of power cor-
respond to different levels of analysis: Micro, meso, and macro (see Chapter 2; see also
Sætra, 2022). The three levels of analysis, and the corresponding senses of power, can show
how technological power may have different effects on different levels. What is good on one
level may not be good on other levels. For example, a person is refused a bank loan, say, for
funding a house extension, based on an automated assessment of her creditworthiness. On
the micro-level, the algorithm and the bank have exercised power over the credit applicant
(episodic power), thereby negatively affecting her options in funding her home extension
(dispositional power). On the meso-level, we can imagine the bank(s) benefitting from the
automation of routine credit assessments (systemic power). Finally, on the macro-level,
mass automation of credit assessment across banks produces a class of uncreditworthy
“quantified selves” in society (constitutive power).

15.3 SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

The four senses of power, introduced earlier, give rise to different concerns about equal-
ity of power. The episodic sense, to begin with, readily raises the issue of inequality, as it
views power as an asymmetrical relation between two or more agents, in which one agent
(with more power) exercises power over another agent (with less power). Such asymmetri-
cal relations are often described in terms of zero-sum (or negative-sum) games, meaning
that within episodic power relations an increase in the power of the power wielder corre-
sponds to a decrease in the power of the power endurer. This can also mean that the more
power an algorithm (and someone who controls it) has in deciding whether or not you
get a bank loan, the less power you have in deciding about your welfare, housing, health,
etc., as you are left with fewer options and opportunities. Asymmetrical power relations
can arise through delegated seduction (e.g., targeted advertising), coercion (e.g., surveil-
lance systems), force (e.g., lethal autonomous weapons), manipulation (e.g., algorithmic
nudging and recommendation), persuasion (e.g., persuasive technology), and authority (AI
decision-making). The infamous experiment to produce emotional contagion among users
by Facebook (Kramer et al., 2014) and the manipulation of voters by Cambridge Analytica
(Berghel, 2018) are thus instances of asymmetrical power relations between corporate and
individual users, marked by disparity and inequality of power. Yet another example of
asymmetrical power in the area of AI technology is who controls the technology: Training
large AI systems necessitates access to large amounts of data and costs significant sums
of money, which raises the possibility of AI technology being concentrated in the hands
of governments or large corporations (Crawford, 2021), resulting in a disparity of power
between state/corporation and people.
While the episodic sense considers how agents exercise power over other agents, the dis-
positional sense studies how agents become empowered and disempowered through acqui-
sition or loss of abilities, potential or capabilities necessary for self-determination, and
leading a good or successful life. There is a wealth of literature arguing that technology has
become a primary means of empowerment (e.g., Johnstone, 2007; Brey, 2008, p. 87). The
issue of inequality arises as we consider differential empowerment and disempowerment
 Technology and the Distribution of Power   ◾   207

through technology. For example, technology can make the rich richer and the poor poorer,
because the former has access to new technology, while the latter has not. This is an exam-
ple of the problem of the “digital divide”, characterized by the disparity between those with
access to information technology and those without such access (van Dijk, 2020; see also
Chapter 8). A differential empowerment and disempowerment through technology can
occur as technology impacts the overall value of one’s skills and abilities. Classic studies
by Winner (1980) and Noble (1984) show how mechanical automation led to deskilling
among farm and factory workers, respectively. Today, it is algorithmic automation that
presents a similar challenge. Brynjolfsson and McAfee (2014) argue that advances in AI
beget greater inequality by eliminating routine jobs through automation and favoring a
small elite of highly skilled individuals, thus hollowing out the middle class.
Unlike the episodic and dispositional senses of power, the systemic sense puts on a
broader lens and considers how power relations between individuals and possibilities for
empowerment and disempowerment are structurally and systemically conditioned. In this
view, technology can affect the power structure of an entire social system, by favoring
some people to the detriment of others. There have been numerous discussions of how
sorting and profiling algorithms used for recidivism prediction and social welfare manage-
ment leads to exclusion and marginalization of certain individuals and groups. Of critical
concern here is the potential for bias and error in algorithmic decision-making systems.
For example, Hillman (2019) writes how a number of US states have been experiment-
ing with the use of AI in assessing the risk of recidivism among criminal defendants. He
argues that current AI technology poses serious risks of bias and error. Indeed, a study by
Larson and colleagues (2016) found that a recidivism assessment algorithm used in the
state of Wisconsin attributed a higher risk of recidivism to black defendants than to white
defendants. If the algorithm is trained on data from past risk assessments performed by
humans, it can simply reproduce and even increase existing social bias (see also Chapter 9).
Moreover, as argued by Benjamin (2019), technologies designed for policing have expanded
into other areas including hospitals, schools, banks, social services, etc., and recreate exist-
ing social hierarchies and engender new systems for social control. Considering such cases,
the issue is not that a particular AI technology has a specific consequence for some individ-
uals (which can be explained in terms of episodic or dispositional power); rather, the main
issue is that AI technology contributes to the reproduction of existing social, economic,
and political asymmetries and hierarchies in society as a whole (which is what the systemic
view of power aims to describe).
Reproduction of existing societal hierarchies can also be in non-economic, symbolic,
and cultural forms. Noble (2018) argues that a combination of factors to do with the pri-
vate interests of corporations, the monopoly status of some internet search engines, and
the nonneutral nature of algorithms has led to “algorithmic oppression”, whereby search
engines reinforce racism and sexism, especially with regard to Black women. Noble writes
that “the everyday racism” found on the web is bad in itself; however, “it is entirely differ-
ent with the corporate platform vis-à-vis an algorithmically crafted web search that offers
up racism and sexism as the first results”. What her examples suggest is that discrimina-
tion found offline is reproduced and further reinforced online through algorithm-powered
208   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

internet search engines, portraying women of color as having less moral, social, and politi-
cal value, and sustaining racist and sexist stereotypes and cliches that continue to haunt
these women even online.
However, the effects of technology do not stop with the reproduction of inequalities
through exclusion and marginalization. According to the constitutive sense of power, tech-
nology becomes implicated in power relations, where the exclusion and marginalization
of certain individuals and groups can become internalized and normalized – as how they
see themselves or how others see them. Simply put, technology becomes implicated in the
production and shaping of subjects, selves, and bodies (see Chapter 5). To illustrate the
point, we can further develop our earlier example concerning automation and deskill-
ing. As automation increases, routine jobs become eliminated, resulting in deskilling and
unemployment of those who used to perform such jobs. Although automation in this case
may spare jobs requiring higher levels of skill or creativity (at least in the short term), even
highly skilled and well-paid workers cannot escape the negative implications of automa-
tion. As Azmanova writes, under “precarity capitalism”, “economic and social insecurity
has become a core feature of our societies” (2020, p. 105). And as Moore argues, “psy-
chological changes arising from precarity contribute to the formation of anxious selves
who have internalised the imperative to perform, a two-part subjectification of workers
as observing, entrepreneurial subjects and observed, objectified labouring bodies” (2018,
p. 21). Furthermore, surveillance and exploitation of employees in what Zuboff (2019) calls
“surveillance capitalism”, and current predictions about potential automation of non-
routine, creative, jobs through AI based on so-called “foundational models” (Bommasani
et al., 2021), can add to and exacerbate existing fears of being replaced by machines. Some
jobs are more precarious than others, and some selves are more quantified than others
(Lupton, 2016), but the effects of both precarity and quantification go into the very selves
of individuals, affecting, shaping, and constituting them.
For some time, economic thought was dominated by the view that advances in technol-
ogy lead to less inequality as more and more people begin to take advantage of the resulting
opportunities (see, e.g., Kuznets, 1955). As we have seen, there are numerous counterex-
amples which we need to address and overcome, before the long arc of history bends toward
equality and justice (see Chapter 17). Importantly, our discussion of how AI technology
affects equality of power shows that of the 17 top-level Sustainable Development Goals, at
least 6 can directly be impacted by inequalities of power: “Reduced inequalities” (SDG 10),
“Gender equality” (SDG 5), “Decent work and economic growth” (SDG 8), “No poverty”
(SDG 1), “Quality education” (SDG 4), and “Peace, justice and strong institutions” (SDG 16).

15.4 EQUALITY NOW!
Our preceding discussion has focused on how technology, especially AI, can negatively
affect equality in the distribution of power in society. However, one could question our
preoccupation with equality, as it is one of the lesser-regarded concepts in the traditional
liberal philosophy. Introductory texts on political philosophy rarely dedicate a chapter to
the concept (Coeckelbergh, 2022). Its unpopularity can be explained in terms of its instru-
mentality: Equality, unlike justice or liberty, is valued as a means to something else, rather
 Technology and the Distribution of Power   ◾   209

than as an end in itself. For example, equality is of instrumental value to democracy in the
form of equal distribution of voting rights among citizens, while economic inequality is a
problem for democracy: The rich may use their economic and financial resources to unduly
influence the electoral processes to the detriment of the poor (Frankfurt, 2015, p. 6).
To articulate the importance of equality in the distribution of technological power, the
discussion proceeds with a critique of traditional liberal philosophy. Specifically, it briefly
outlines three different criticisms of traditional liberal philosophy, based on republicanism,
Marxism, and politics of recognition. What this eclectic trio of political theories shares in
common, as we shall see later, is that they disagree with traditional liberal philosophy, by
highlighting different ways in which traditional liberal philosophy, including modern lib-
eral democracies, tend to overlook inequality and injustice suffered by marginalized peo-
ple, groups, and classes. Each of the outlined criticisms sheds light on a significant aspect
of the problem of inequality in the distribution of power as impacted by AI. Importantly,
they direct us toward a recognition of equality as an important principle of social and
political justice, in line with socially sustainable development, and SDG 10 in particular.
A republican critique of liberalism can be found in the works of Philip Pettit (1997, 2012).
At the core of Pettit’s argument is the idea of “freedom as non-domination”, which he offers
as a third option to “freedom as non-interference” and “freedom as self-determination” as
famously introduced by Isaiah Berlin (see also Sætra, 2021b, pp. 23–28). According to free-
dom as non-domination, humans are free insofar as they are not subject to the domina-
tion of others, exposed and vulnerable to their will, whims, and desires. Pettit argues that
many liberals, including Berlin, have long espoused freedom as non-interference, accord-
ing to which the powerful in society can be tolerated insofar as they do not interfere in
the affairs of the powerless. However, Pettit argues, freedom as non-interference largely
focuses on actual interference and overlooks potential interference. Were a powerful des-
pot to choose not to exercise his or her power, those subject to this power would still have
to live with a constant worry that this can change at any moment, which Pettit reasonably
finds objectionable. Hence, Pettit maintains that the republican conception of freedom
as non-domination better serves the institutions of a constitutional democracy than its
liberal counterpart. On this view, then, being subject to the power of automated decision-
making systems constrains one’s freedom (as non-domination) as long as there remains a
potential for arbitrariness in such systems (Sætra, 2021b; Creel & Hellman, 2022; Barocas
et al., 2017, p. 152).
Marxism is similarly critical of traditional liberal philosophy for emphasizing abstract
ideals of justice, without dealing with the capitalist structure of society, which actually cre-
ates inequality between those who own the means of production, and those who become
exploited as a result (see Chapter 13). Automation power by algorithms, in the hands of
corporate owners, produces a proletariat of unemployed people and exploits those still
employed through “surveillance capitalism” (Zuboff, 2019) under conditions of “precarity
capitalism” (Azmanova, 2020). Hence, inequality in the distribution of social goods is not
the main issue (which liberals aim to remedy by falling back on some conception of equal-
ity or justice); rather, the main problem is inequality in the production of social goods (that
is, in the ownership of the means of production). Put simply, in its quest for justice and
210   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

fairness, the liberal tradition is “barking up the wrong tree”: Instead of trying to fix the
symptoms of injustice, we should address the root cause of injustice – capitalism itself (see
Chapter 17). On this view, then, algorithms and AI technologies themselves do not lead to
inequality; rather they support and reinforce the capitalist system of production and dis-
tribution, which actually creates asymmetrical relations of power between the haves and
the have-nots.
Another critique of the traditional liberal philosophy is “identity politics” (also known
as “politics of difference” or “politics of recognition”) consisting of “a wide range of politi-
cal activity and theorizing found in the shared experiences of injustice of members of cer-
tain social groups” (Heyes, 2020). Advocates of identity politics criticize liberal political
theories at least on three counts. First, ontologically speaking, liberal theories imagine
people as essentially independent and similar individuals, devoid of their identities, differ-
ences, and affiliations. Second, historically speaking, political liberalism underestimates
the past origins of injustices, especially race, gender, or ethnicity. Third, empirically speak-
ing, liberal–democratic order has fallen short in stopping the exclusion and marginaliza-
tion of specific social groups. The core idea is therefore to recognize historically excluded
and oppressed groups and identities: “universal recognition based on a shared humanity is
not enough, particularly on the part of groups that have been discriminated against in the
past. Hence modern identity politics revolves around demands for recognition of group
identities” (Fukuyama, 2006, p. 9). On this view, then, analyses offered by Noble (2018)
and Benjamin (2019) about how algorithms are impacting people of color are specimens
of identity politics approach to AI, which raise important questions about identifying and
recognizing vulnerable groups at the receiving end of injustices (see also Chapter 5).
Overall, much can be said about the interconnections (and disagreements) between
republicanism, Marxism, and identity politics. First, all three criticisms constitute an
important part of the discourse concerning the overly universalist and individualist short-
comings of liberalism. Second, all three theories provide a necessary corrective to idealized
and ahistorical justifications of liberalism. Finally, they all share a common concern for
equality, especially for equality in the distribution of power in society. To clarify, for repub-
licanism, institutions of a constitutional democracy must be designed with the goal of
promoting “people’s equal enjoyment of freedom as non-domination” (Pettit, 2012, p. 123),
where people can pass the “eyeball test”, by looking “others in the eye without reason for
fear or deference that a power interference might inspire” (p. 103). As for Marxism, equal-
ity is important at least insofar as inequality in the ownership of the means of production
is the root cause of capitalist injustice. Finally, for politics of recognition, equality figures
in claims demanding equal recognition of diverse identities and groups, whether excluded
or marginalized.
We may not agree with all three criticisms of liberalism in their entirety. The point is
not to offer a comprehensive theoretical framework that could unify all these theoretical
perspectives. Rather, the purpose is to combine them in a neat program for policy action
to mitigate the negative impact of AI technology and facilitate the achievement of relevant
SDGs. The first (i.e., republicanism) explains why inequality in power brought about by
AI technology is objectionable, even in liberal–democratic societies, for there is no good
 Technology and the Distribution of Power   ◾   211

life in having to live your life at the mercy of the powerful even if they are not exercising
their power just yet. The second (i.e., Marxism) identifies the root cause of the unequal
distribution of benefits and burdens resulting from AI technology, which suggests that
we ought to pay more attention to those who own and control the technology. Finally, the
third (i.e., identity politics) identifies the foremost vulnerable segments of population, on
the frontline of AI revolution, which require priority protection. Together they suggest that
unequal distribution of power through AI can become a factor in the unsustainability of
socio-technical systems (Sætra, 2021a).
The republican call for freedom as non-domination through equality of power in society
is in large agreement with several SDGs which aim for equality, inclusivity, justice, and
strong institutions. Equalizing power relations in society can ensure inclusive and equi-
table quality education for all (SDG 4), achieve gender equality and empower all women
(SDG 5), reduce inequality within countries (SDG 10), as well as provide access to justice
and build inclusive institutions at all levels (SDG 16). To safeguard the achievement of
these goals and their relevant targets, it is necessary to address issues of bias, error, and
discrimination inherent in AI decision-making systems to be used by diverse institutions
which provide and manage health services, public education, social welfare assistance,
public security and policing, etc.
Marxist concern with who owns the means of production and who is being exploited
as a result is, too, in accord with SDGs which emphasize security, inclusivity and sustain-
ability in areas of employment, innovation, industrialization, and production. Reducing
sharp asymmetries of power between, on one hand, employers who develop, produce, and
deploy AI technologies, and on the other hand, employees who are subjected to surveil-
lance and quantification, job insecurity, and anxiety can help promote full and productive
employment and decent work for all (SDG 8), promote inclusive industrialization (SDG 9),
ensure sustainable production and consumption patterns (SDG 12), and indirectly, reduce
poverty (SDG 1), fight hunger (SDG 2), and reduce inequality within countries (SDG 10).
Last, but not least, identity politics, with its emphasis on recognition, emancipation, and
decolonization of racialized and gendered selves and bodies is in line with a number of
SDGs that promote equality, justice, and inclusivity in diverse areas of public life, including
housing, health, education, and government. Recognition of diverse identities and groups,
especially those who are made vulnerable, or unfairly marginalized and excluded from the
distribution of social goods based on their racialized or gendered identities, can be a sure
step toward building peaceful and inclusive societies, and provide access to justice for all
(SDG 16), achieving gender equality and empowering women and girls (SDG 5), making
cities and human settlements inclusive and safe (SDG 11), and, overall, reducing inequality
within countries (SDG 10).
These considerations further infuse a healthy level of concern with power and politics
into discussions about the goals and targets of sustainable development as they relate to
technology and innovation. The UN SDGs are rather wide-ranging. As such, the 17 top-
level SDGs are sometimes categorized into broader categories of economy, society, and
environment, which are regarded as the “three dimensions of sustainability” (Vinuesa,
2020, p. 2). As argued by Sætra (2021a), what makes such categorization problematic is that
212   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

politics largely disappears from picture. Hence, there is a real need to emphasize power and
politics intricately woven into technological and innovation processes (see Chapter 11).
Highlighting the power and political dimension of technology in general, and AI in par-
ticular, is necessary not only for our understanding of the effects of technology on specific
SDGs but also for our realization of how power and politics underpin our attempts to
strengthen and streamline our efforts to achieve the SDGs.

15.5 CONCLUSION
Technological solutions to social problems can create problems of their own. One such
problem is the negative impact of technology on the distribution and exercise of power in
society. The chapter set out to answer three interrelated questions: (1) What is technologi-
cal power? (2) How does technology lead to inequality of power? and (3) Why does equal-
ity matter in the distribution of power? – all part of the main question addressed by this
chapter: How do recent advances in AI technology can impact equality in the distribution
of power in society? In addressing these questions, it has been argued that (1) distinguish-
ing between different senses of power and applying them to (AI) technology helps avoid
potential ambiguity in discussions of technological and algorithmic power; (2) applying
different levels of analysis (which correspond to different senses of power) to technological
change can show how AI technology may have different effects on different levels; and (3)
the ideal of equality, albeit sometimes overlooked, still figures prominently in discussions
of social and political justice, and can have important implications for policy in mitigating
the undesirable effects of AI technology.
Equality, indeed, matters, as there is no good life in having to live your life at the mercy
of the powerful. Philip Pettit (1997, p. 5) wrote about

the grievance expressed by the debtor who has to depend on the grace of the mon-
eylender, or the bank official, for avoiding utter destitution and ruin; and by the
welfare dependant who finds that they are vulnerable to the caprice of a counter
clerk for whether or not their children will receive meal vouchers.

In the past, such grievances may have been only about people. Today, and in future, they
are going to be more about machines.

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 Chapter 16

What Does Data Valuation

Literature Tell Us About
Methods and Dimensions?
Implications for City
Data Marketplaces
Petter Kvalvik, Mary Sánchez-Gordón,
and Ricardo Colomo-Palacios

CONTENTS
16.1 Introduction 215
16.2 Understanding Data Valuation and City Data Marketplaces 218
16.3 Research Method 219
16.3.1 Data Valuation: Methods and Dimensions 221
16.4 Implications for City Data Marketplaces 222
16.4.1 Digital Data Partnership 222
16.4.2 Use Cases 223
16.4.3 Data Protection, Data Ownership, and Data Sovereignty 225
16.5 Conclusions 226
16.6 References 226

16.1 INTRODUCTION
Technological solutions are often proposed as quick and flawless ways to solve complex
real-world problems. Not only organizations but also cities are looking for technological
solutions to alleviate real-world problems. A stronger need to build sustainable cities that
last draws attention to more sustainable and resilient growth and development pathways.
In this sense, cities around the world are using smart city solutions to build resilience,
increase public safety, and create healthier, more livable urban environments. According to

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-16 215

216   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

the European Commission (European Commission, n.d), a city should provide improved
and smarter public services through a more interactive and responsive administration that
also meets the ever-changing needs of individuals who reside, work, or travel in the city.
Moreover, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, named “sustainable cities and com-
munities”, highlights that we need to “make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”.
Smart cities have become a popular concept because they have the potential to create a
sustainable and liveable urban future.
For smart cities, technology is a necessary but not sufficient component (Augusto, 2020;
Granath et al., 2021). Various data sources throughout the cities produce diverse data at
an increasing scale. For instance, data sources are personal devices (smartphones, wear-
ables, laptops), smart home devices (lighting, security, heating), public services (health,
administration, waste management, water supply management, emergency preparedness),
and smart grid (smart neighborhood, smart charging). Therefore, the data generated by
individuals, and private and public organizations are also an essential element (European
Commission, 2020a). For instance, collecting and sharing real-time data related to unem-
ployment, worker productivity, or citizens’ well-being to target aid interventions to vul-
nerable groups can help to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth (SGD 8).
Moreover, a human rights-based approach to data facilitates the gathering of relevant data
stakeholders and the development of communities of practice that improve the quality, rel-
evance, and use of data and statistics in accordance with international human rights norms
and principles (UN, 2018). However, data values are difficult to evaluate (J. Liang & Yuan,
2021), and the data valuation process of data for sustainable development (see Chapter 2)
arises as a nontrivial challenge that involves participation, transparency, privacy, and
accountability (UN, 2018).
As data are at the center of any smart city initiative, the full value and potential of that
data should be known, but there are no widely accepted approaches that would allow cit-
ies to properly understand the value and potential of data (Wdowin & Diepeveen, 2020).
Such data could help to build effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions (SDG 16) and
promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation (SGD 9). In fact,
it is expected that Common European dataspaces, in particular, the Green Deal datas-
pace, will be an important step in developing the digital ecosystem of the environment, on
issues such as climate change, pollution, deforestation, biodiversity, and circular economy
(Gronkiewicz-Waltz et al., 2020). Gronkiewicz-Waltz et al. highlight that cities play a piv-
otal role in achieving climate neutrality by 2050 and present the mission “climate neutral
and smart cities” to the European Commission. Figure 16.1 illustrates potential research
areas aligned with such a mission.
Data demand drives the rapid development of data trading (J. Liang & Yuan, 2021) which
requires data markets to support it (F. Liang et al., 2018). As a result, the development of
data marketplaces that enable efficient data trading cannot be overlooked. Although sev-
eral challenges need to be addressed to do so, the first is to determine the proper price for
the data to be traded (F. Liang et al., 2018). In other words, one of the central issues in data
trading is data pricing mechanisms (J. Liang & Yuan, 2021). In this sense, an understanding
of data valuation methods and dimensions allows us to make the right strategic decisions
 Implications for City Data Marketplaces   ◾   217
FIGURE 16.1 Research areas aligned with the mission “Climate neutral and smart cities”.
218   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

and assess robust investments in data assets, either organically or through acquisitions.
At the city level, there is a clear gap in understanding the consequences and impacts of a
potential investment in datasets, data platforms, and the usage of algorithms and other
analytical tools to extract that potential (Morgenstadt Value of Data, n.d.).

16.2 UNDERSTANDING DATA VALUATION AND

CITY DATA MARKETPLACES
Data valuation is an emerging discipline that aims to estimate the information’s value as an
asset (Leitner-Hanetseder & Lehner, 2022). The value of data could assess according to the
level of public interest, sensitivity, and relevance. Moreover, the data value is related to data
flow and data categories. Unlike most assets, which lose value as they are utilized, data can
potentially be more valuable the more it is used.
In cities, common goods or merit goods such as public infrastructure, public space, air,
water, vegetation, traffic flows, public safety, and street lighting are subject to rivalry and
hence need to be governed. These goods are increasingly linked in the smart city through
another good, whose nature is ambiguous: Data (Morgenstadt Value of Data, n.d). Data are
sometimes open (public domain), sometimes restricted, and sometimes only accessible to
their owner (private domain) (Gagnon-Turcotte et al., 2021). Publicly funded data lie at the
intersection of the public and private domains and could be created, for example, through
public–private partnerships. Since data are the basis of public services and urban develop-
ment in the smart city, this situation exponentially increases the complexity of public value
creation, smart city investments, and urban governance.
The city data market today is in the early stages of development. The European strategy
for data has launched an initiative to create a single data market that is open to data from
all over the world (European Commission, 2020a). However, one of the foremost chal-
lenges within these emerging markets is assessing the value of datasets. Current data pric-
ing strategies are often driven by the seller, with little visibility into the cost of collection,
cleansing, and packaging to the buyer. The lack of pricing transparency is the result of this
asymmetry of information. It is detrimental to both the seller and the buyer, as the seller
is unable to price optimally in the market while the buyer is unable to strategically assess
pricing options across data service sellers. As the final result from a data value chain is
useful insights rather than a tangible product or a service (Leitner-Hanetseder & Lehner,
2022), a more structured data market with a standardized pricing model would improve
the transaction experience for all parties.
A city data marketplace would help strengthen the urban economic ecosystem and
develop new business models and empower communities through sharing of data (Bass
et al., 2020). As a result, while city data marketplace technology has potential for good,
it may also have negative implications. In this sense, according to Sætra (2021), privacy
concerns are not adequately addressed by any of the SDGs, unless they result in unfair and
discriminatory consequences and behaviors. It means that SDGs require a complementary
framework like human rights to unveil the negative impacts related to a loss of privacy and
autonomy.
 Implications for City Data Marketplaces   ◾   219

16.3 RESEARCH METHOD
On the basis of our research objective, we formulate the following research question: What
methods and dimensions constitute the current body of literature on the valuation of data?
To answer this question, we conducted a multivocal literature review (MLR) which is a
systematic review of academic literature and grey literature. The searches are conducted in
academic databases for the first kind of literature, while Google Search was used to search
grey literature sources such as white papers, blogs, and posts (Garousi & Mäntylä, 2016).
It is noteworthy that there are secondary studies on topics such as business data sharing
through data Marketplace (Abbas et al., 2021) but our study is the first MLR on the impli-
cations of data valuation that discusses the preliminary findings in the context of city data
marketplaces. The search process is based on the study protocol depicted in Figure 16.2.
In this MLR, the first author conducted the study selection process, the second author
reviewed the process and checked the outcomes, and the third author supported the reso-
lution of disagreements. The main keywords were “data marketplace” and “data valua-
tion”, but we also included terms that are synonymous with them. The final search string
used Boolean operators to combine all the terms as follows.

(“data marketplace” OR “data market” OR “data trading” OR “data markets” OR

“data space” OR “data spaces”) AND
(“data valuation” OR “pricing model” OR “valuing data” OR “data pricing”)

The search was conducted on five academic databases, IEEE, ACM, ScienceDirect,
Springer, and Wiley. Although the search period was unlimited, it was executed by
March 2022. Given that Google Search retrieved about 197,000 results for grey literature,
we limited the search space by applying a relevance ranking approach (Google’s PageRank
algorithm) (Garousi & Mäntylä, 2016). It means that we went to the (n + 1)th page only
if the sources on the nth page still appeared relevant. As a result, the first few pages were
searched but we went further when necessary (101 sources). In the initial search, we found
1,232 sources.
The sources were screened by reading the titles, abstracts, and keywords in the academic
databases, while they were screened based on the title and meta-text provided by Google
Search. The inclusion and exclusion criteria were as follows:

• Sources that discuss data valuation and data marketplace.

• Sources that discuss methods and dimensions related to the topic.
• Sources that are accessible online in full text.

When a study was excluded, the following criteria were applied:

• Sources that are not presented in English.

• Sources that are duplicated or extended in other sources.
220   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development
FIGURE 16.2 An overview of the search process.
 Implications for City Data Marketplaces   ◾   221

When a source did not meet the inclusion criteria, it was excluded from the rest of the
selection process. In case of doubt, we took the source to full-text reading in the next
phase. The full text was then reviewed, and the inclusion and exclusion criteria were
applied again to ensure that the source contains relevant information for this MLR. As a
result, a set of 89 sources was selected as primary studies. Then, we systematically identi-
fied, classified, and analyzed the pricing mechanisms proposed or used by the authors of
each selected study.

16.3.1 Data Valuation: Methods and Dimensions

In the literature, we find 12 main categories of pricing mechanisms for a data marketplace
as shown in Table 16.1.

TABLE 16.1 Summary of pricing mechanisms

Pricing mechanisms Description
1 Auction The privacy cost of selling the data is calculated. Then, it is sent to a buyer
that calculates a utility score related to the data (Gonçalves et al., 2021)
2 Bundling Package Pricing Strategy is an improved usage-based pricing strategy, for
example, vendors provide a data package plan with a fixed price (F. Liang
et al., 2018).
Subscriptions consider period (Yang et al., 2019)
3 Compensation Individuals provide their personal data to a data market based on their
privacy preferences and are compensated appropriately (Yang & Xing, 2019).
The data market charges a price to the data consumer, and the data
consumer can acquire data products based on their willingness to pay.
4 Customers’ From a consumer behavior view, WTP refers to the price that a customer is
willingness to pay willing to pay to buy a specific data product or service (Yang et al., 2019). It
(WTP) could be related to data quality dimensions, for example, the sensitivity level
of privacy data (Yang & Xing, 2019)
5 Exponential method This method can be tailored to suit various auction scenarios (non-numeric
problems) while ensuring output quality (Zhang et al., 2021)
6 Flat pricing A vendor simply considers selling each digital commodity once. As time is
the only parameter, this mechanism lacks flexibility and diversity for
consumers (F. Liang et al., 2018)
7 Freemium Basic products or limited services are provided to consumers for free (F.
Liang et al., 2018)
8 Laplace method This method can be tailored to suit numeric problems, but it adds uncertainty
which results in sub-optimality (Zhang et al., 2021)
9 Privacy pricing This method introduces noise into the data or to some components of the
data release process to protect users’ privacy while releasing data (Nguyen
et al., 2020)
10 Query pricing Query pricing on incomplete data considers factors such as query quality,
data completeness, and data contribution (Miao et al., 2020)
11 Subscription Subscription determines the entire price of certain data items in advance by
analyzing consumer and vendor behavior. Although it overlooks the
difference among items, it is usually multi-stepped and consumers can select
the step they require and then pay for it (Li et al., 2022)
12 Two-part Tariff Two-part Tariff is a combination of package pricing and flat pricing strategies
(F. Liang et al., 2018)
222   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

The data value is defined by different dimensions, and the most evident is data quality.
However, another important dimension is data complexity which is related to the volume
of the data (size based on the number of entries in a dataset and/or the number of vari-
ables), the structure of data (e.g., relationships between elements), the heterogeneity of data
in terms of diverse values and structure (variety), and the level of granularity (e.g., aggre-
gated data). Moreover, data valuation is impacted by data perishability (Ricart, 2020), a
measure of the time since data collection which entails time dependency and devaluation
over time.
The data valuation has main implications for city data marketplaces regardless of the
pricing mechanism. In the next section, findings are grouped into three main implications:
(i) digital data partnership, (ii) use cases, and (iii) data protection, data ownership, and data
sovereignty.

16.4 IMPLICATIONS FOR CITY DATA MARKETPLACES

Establishing data markets is critical for trading data in the market in a secure, safe, and
fairway (F. Liang et al., 2018). A data market implies data sharing and the creation of digi-
tal data partnerships (Gagnon-Turcotte et al., 2021). By reviewing the literature, personal
information, privacy, and data ownership have been identified as barriers to participation
in digital data partnerships. In fact, preliminary results of this MLR reveal that a data mar-
ket also needs to protect the privacy of both data commodities and personal information
while providing an optimal experience for both vendors and consumers such as citizens,
and governmental and non-governmental organizations in a smart city.

16.4.1 Digital Data Partnership

Smart cities entail multi-stakeholder data sharing initiatives that require the develop-
ment of a data use culture (Gagnon-Turcotte et al., 2021). In Europe, a political agreement
was reached on the Data Governance Act (DGA) in April 2022 (European Commission,
2020b). This first legislative building block for establishing a stable and fair data-driven
economy aims to set up the right conditions for trustful data sharing in line with European
values and fundamental rights, strengthen the digital single market’s governance mech-
anisms, and establish a framework to facilitate general and sector-specific data sharing.
However, such initiatives require data from multiple industries, platforms, and a culture
that depends on these industries – sector and size – technology choices, and stakeholders’
attitudes toward data. Just because data, and the technology behind it, can help to reduce
inequality, improve health and education, and spur economic growth does not mean it
meets the criteria for privacy, security/safety, autonomy, justice, control, and power.
In a competitive market, the costs of creating and maintaining data might constitute
another barrier to participation. In the context of smart cities, new delivery systems could
include public service providers and commercial partners (Löfgren & Webster, 2020). This
raises concerns about the control, ownership, and access to data, and whether the value
is kept by society via government agencies or privatized by commercial interests. Public–
private partnerships are expected to become more widespread due to the private sector
collects a large portion of data with the greatest potential for public good. The challenge
 Implications for City Data Marketplaces   ◾   223

FIGURE 16.3 Overview of stakeholders and data sharing.

will be ensuring that clear frameworks are in place to establish roles and expectations for
all parties and that such partnerships are sustainable over time. Figure 16.3 shows an over-
view of data sharing and potential stakeholders identified from our MLR.
In the context of public services, value is not only multidimensional but also complex
and difficult to define and realize by both service providers and users (Löfgren & Webster,
2020). For instance, crime, drugs, and unemployment are challenging issues that require
multi-agency responses to realize better services that benefit both citizens and society. In
practice, finding policy and service solutions that consider the critical and active agency of
citizens requires collaboration.

16.4.2 Use Cases

A use case is a way to use data to achieve specified benefits for the stakeholders involved
(Gagnon-Turcotte et al., 2021). However, there are many ways in which data can bring
value to different stakeholders. In the context of smart cities, a challenge is to build a
shared vision, especially when there are many stakeholders with various interests partici-
pating and a large diversity of data that can be shared. Therefore, it includes commitments
to increase transparency. Focusing on innovation is more challenging because it implies
finding new ways to generate value from previously unshared data. Figure 16.4 illustrates
potential data-driven innovation areas reported in the literature, for example, mobility
services, sharing economy, intelligent buildings, and public services.
It is not an easy task to determine data value through use cases because the value of a data
source is determined not only by its potential intended use but also by whether it could be
replaced with another data source. There are also serious concerns about “unintended uses
224   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development
FIGURE 16.4 Data-driven innovation.
 Implications for City Data Marketplaces   ◾   225

of data” in the real world and the implications of other factors such as data combination,
re-selling, and new (at times unknown) uses. Combining multiple datasets, in particular,
may result in the re-identification of individuals or groups of individuals, exposing them to
potential harm. Therefore, there is a need for anticipation in design decisions considering
what might arise in the future, for example, new forms of discrimination may also emerge.
Unintended uses could arise for a large variety of reasons and their potential negative conse-
quences go beyond the individual, into economic, social, and political areas (Wigan & Clarke,
2013). In this context, new balances are needed to deal with the resulting power shifts.
Negligent data use can exacerbate existing inequality and harm citizens and communi-
ties, for example, the presence of discriminatory and skewed interpretations, privacy inva-
sion, and loss of individual autonomy and agency (Gagnon-Turcotte et al., 2021). Citizens
face real consequences as a result of such harm, which can be financial, physical, or emo-
tional. Moreover, when identifiable data is disclosed in delicate situations, it can lead to
exclusion, violence, or discrimination.

16.4.3 Data Protection, Data Ownership, and Data Sovereignty

Data protection arises as a critical element for ensuring data ownership (F. Liang et al.,
2018). To prevent data misuse or mishandling, proper data protection measures must be
implemented. Moreover, the rights to data protection and privacy must be balanced with
the right to access information. Data sovereignty, on the other hand, regulates how data
should be secured and governed. It reinforces the rights of data owners and gives them
control over their data. However, to respect data sovereignty, we must assess individual
rights against collective benefits.
In 2020, the European data strategy was published (European Commission, 2020a),
envisioning that data will be shared and used to reflect European values, put people first
in developing technology, and defend and promote European values and rights in the digi-
tal world. Likewise, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) established standards for
protecting privacy and data ownership (Gagnon-Turcotte et al., 2021). GDPR also covered
sovereignty, but each real-world implementation is unique due to its context. In the same
vein, the European Commission proposed a legislative building block called the Data Act
(European Commission, 2022), which concerns the actual rights regarding access to and
use of data. The proposed Data Act includes measures to allow users of connected devices
to gain access to data generated by them, rebalance negotiation power for small-medium
sized enterprises (SMEs) by preventing abuse of contractual imbalances in data sharing
contracts, means for public sector bodies to access and use data held by the private sec-
tor that is necessary for exceptional circumstances and new rules allowing customers to
effectively switch between different cloud data-processing services providers and putting
in place safeguards against the unlawful data transfer. However, there are cases in which
the ownership of data is unclear making data confidentiality and security more complex
(Gagnon-Turcotte et al., 2021). Identifying who owns the data could require not only the
interpretation of different laws but also an understanding of individual attitudes about data.
As the volumes of data grow, and the Internet of Things takes hold, universal surveil-
lance is becoming a practicable proposition. In this situation, concerns extend beyond
226   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

these raised by data breaches. Policymakers and governments are failing to recognize the
social costs associated with the growing scale of data and its detailed intensity (Wigan &
Clarke, 2013). In Europe, the “right to be forgotten” gives individuals the legal right to
have their data erased. This right is especially important in countries where underrepre-
sented groups suffer discrimination, for example, indigenous peoples are among the poor-
est socioeconomic groups.

16.5 CONCLUSIONS
As data become an essential component in smart cities, how quantifying the value of data
for sustainable development is an increasingly important topic of study with policy, eco-
nomic, and technological implications. In this chapter, we present a set of main implica-
tions in terms of promises and pitfalls for city data marketplaces based on the preliminary
findings of our review.
City data marketplaces are a kind of technology that may enable more efficient, agile, and
evidence-based decision-making and better monitor progress on the SDGs in a way that
is both inclusive and fair if used responsibly. However, there is also a risk of amplified bias
and inequality, and fundamental elements of human rights must be safeguarded to realize
the opportunities presented by data marketplaces: Participation, transparency, privacy, and
accountability are required, and the rights of individuals against the benefits of the collec-
tive must be assessed. In the future city data market, it is essential to develop a holistic valu-
ation method for judging data quality based on its inherent properties for pricing purposes.
The value of data is very context-dependent and requires a depth analysis. Thus, although
this study may be seen as a starting point and it provides good insights into this topic, we
pose the following open question: To what extent city data marketplaces can or cannot pro-
vide insight to solve the challenges related to inclusion, safety, resilience, and sustainability?

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 Chapter 17

Techno-solutionism Facing
Post-liberal Oligarchy
Ivar Jonsson and Lilja Mósesdóttir

CONTENTS
17.1 Introduction 229
17.2 Meta-critique of “Techno-solutionism” 231
17.3 Limits of Objectivism and Predictive Science 232
17.3.1 The Role of Actors in Disruptive Change 234
17.3.2 Social and Economic Planning as Technique 236
17.3.3 Planning Post-liberal Oligarchic Capitalism 239
17.4 Discussion and Conclusion: Future Trends Toward Post-liberal Corporatist
Oligarchy 242
17.5 References 244

17.1 INTRODUCTION

Inequalities also tend to become entrenched through the efforts of those at the very top
to secure and perpetuate their positions through various channels, such as having a
greater say in the political process or weakening anti-trust and other regulatory efforts
that are aimed at curbing monopoly power and improving market efficiency.
(United Nations, 2019, p. xxiv)

Humans are by nature active social beings, who struggle with solving remnant unsolved
problems of the past, while framing the opportunities of their future communities and
societies. Looming in the background are institutionalized power structures, ideologies,
and worldviews that largely set the principles when we are planning our socioeconomic
futures. The colors with which we as individuals paint our future societies depend to a large
extent on our reflections on these aforementioned institutionalized structures as well as on
our socialization, habitus, and virtues. Our focus in this chapter is on social and economic
planning, and we compare it with techno-solutionism.1 First, we need to argue for what we
consider obvious, and then we proceed to arguing for what may not be obvious for many of

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-17 229

230   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

those who read this chapter. What we take to be obvious for our reader is that the positivist
ideal type of “techno-solutionism” cannot be transposed into being an ideal prescript for
planning sustainable societies and economies. The main idea behind techno-solutionism
is that by refining and implementing frontier physical and/or social technology, various
problems facing humans can be solved effectively. The epistemics (i.e., the ontology and
epistemology) of societal planning confronts us with far too high level of complexity and
uncertainty. What we presume is not obvious for our reader is our claim that planning
for sustainable transition is impossible in capitalism. The market system cannot deliver
sustainable future without a disruptive change that would compromise its fundamental
principles of private property, maximization of profits, and regimes of economic growth.
Let us now turn to the problem of epistemics.
Sartre’s concept of “bad faith” comes to mind when we look at how scientists approach
acute and apparently destructive problems that threaten human societies. Although
molded by our past, we are always bound to choose and act, but, as Sartre (1972) stressed,
we may also choose not to act “in bad faith”, as we do when we excuse our not-acting by
simply referring to external circumstances claiming that they are outside our control.
Sciences tend in practice to be institutionalized as “bad faith” that scientists use as an
excuse for their passive approach to their objects of study. As Sartre puts it, “I train myself
in order to be a scientist, etc. Thus, from the outset, the three big categories of concrete
human existence appear to us in their original relation: to do, to have, to be” (Sartre, 1972,
p. 576). To this view, we would add that the practice most scientists do, the knowledge
they have, and what they are, boils down to their choice to become “scientists” and do
the necessary training to have the necessary skills to make “scientific” knowledge. But
this training requires that they accept to generate objectified images of reality resulting
in the reified knowledge that enables them to sell their labor as “neutral” professionals of
de-contextualized details.
The process of neutralizing scientists and the reification of scientific knowledge (Lukács,
1971 [1923], pp. 6–10) has taken long time to develop but has escalated fast in recent
decades. Science as a reified production process is the outcome of a development in which
the aims of academic research have been subsumed under the dominant production pro-
cess of commodity production. Science has become commodified. The main characteristic
of this commodity is narrowly defined units of specific knowledge bits for narrowly speci-
fied markets and hierarchies of customers. The reified producers, the scientists, are now
excused from actively engaging in politics on societal scale that seek to counteract existen-
tial threats to Humanity such as environmental problems arising from climate change due
to constantly unsatisfied need for population growth, waste-based consumption, and prof-
its. The scientists’ contribution is limited to their professions pregiven ontological reduc-
tions of fragmented reality view.
The production process that scientists find themselves in is part of the wider system of
social relations of commodity production. The basic social relation of the production is a
property relation that undermines what scientists have and can be. Furthermore, as their
labor power is a commodity in the same vein as the product they create, scientists are
estranged from the aims of their work and their reified product because they do not own
 Techno-solutionism Facing Post-liberal Oligarchy   ◾   231

themselves the products and the means of production. The virtue of their work and the
value of their creation are reduced to the shifting exchange value on the market.
It is in this context of the practice of science that we will approach the concept of “techno-
solutionism” by the way of meta-critical analysis. Our point of departure is the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) that focus on securing human well-being and social welfare
(e.g., the SDGs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 16). We concentrate on the human dimension of the
various SDGs because it marks the contexts of critical junctures during which scientists
are being challenged to address their role as actors of change. This task requires that the
scientists reflect on the moral and political nature of their work. Rather than accepting
science from the point of view of “bad faith”, their role should be that of reflective sci-
entists who actively take part in transforming the relations between science and nature.2
The nature of science needs to be redefined so that the science of nature would include the
human dimension. Hence, science must consider how various types of societies and their
relations with nature affect the state of her well-being and vice versa.3 This appears clearly
in the phenomena of climate change.
Our analysis in this chapter focuses on the following research question: Does the scien-
tific community and economic policy regimes have adequate knowledgebase for building
effective societal planning that would make the human dimension of the SDGs attainable?
We seek to answer this question by scrutinizing the weaknesses of social and economic
science in terms of philosophy of science, on the one hand, and by analyzing a contempo-
rary case of socioeconomic planning technique of post-liberal oligarchism, i.e., the World
Economic Forum (WEF), on the other hand. The WEF highlights the role of innovation
policies and social steering of technological change to save capitalism from socioeconomic
and political crises.

17.2 META-CRITIQUE OF “TECHNO-SOLUTIONISM”
“Techno-solutionism” is impregnated with a connotation that the framing of problem-
solving is rational. If we manage to bring together certain quantity of particular elements
in certain circumstances in time and space, the outcome will with high level of probability
eliminate the problem to be solved. Moreover, the most valuable type of solution is the one
that solves the same kind of problem in the most cost-effective way. Hence, the search for
solution is reduced to the methods of experimental laboratory science and mathematical
analysis. It goes without saying that techno-solutionism as we have summarized it earlier,
adheres to positivist philosophy of science that a priori beliefs in the fourth main rule
of positivism, that is, the essential unity of the scientific method, indeed, the method of
physical science and all knowledge must be reduced to that of physics (Kolakowski, 1972,
pp. 17–18). It suffices to say that this requirement is empirically unprovable and hence
metaphysical, even by positivist standards. Moreover, positivism emphasizes three other
rules upon which techno-solutionism must also be based if it is to be considered scientific,
that is, phenomenalism, nominalism, and the rule of rejecting value judgments and nor-
mative statements (Kolakowski, 1972, pp. 11–16).
It is particularly this last-mentioned rule that appears to limit the usefulness of the rei-
fied practice of contemporary science. The growing existential crisis of humanity that is
232   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

caused by climate change requires actions and policies that take moral and ethical stances.
Climate change threatens animal and human live in general as well as social harmony.
Moreover, world’s biomass and biodiversity are shrinking adding to the present moral
challenges of humankind (Diaz et.al., 2019; Sætra, 2020). The present aims and organi-
zation of the world economy do neither secure morally acceptable distribution of world
production nor global income distribution that is equal enough to satisfy the basic material
needs of the growing world population. Indeed, the world economy is dominated by mul-
tinational oligopoly corporations that have undermined market competition. Ironically,
market competition was used to morally legitimize the expansion of private property in
the heydays of an economic system coined as “capitalism” (Amin, 2014, pp. 3–5).4
It appears from the discussion earlier that the existential challenges to humanity require
transformation of science in which value judgments and moral principles are critically
accepted in advance of the reified production process of contemporary science. In this
respect, Habermas’ (1987, p. 308) categorization of science and his idea of critically ori-
ented sciences with emancipatory cognitive interests is valuable. Critical self-reflection
of the sciences and their knowledge and by analyzing their base in language and power
structures at a given point in history and society, scientists can transform knowledge of
existing social structures and argue how they could have been organized in the past, and
how they may be re-organized in the future. However, as Habermas claims, history shows
how violence deforms and suppresses repeated attempts at dialog and closes off the path to
unconstrained communication and mankind’s evolution toward autonomy and responsi-
bility (Habermas, 1987, p. 315).
Indeed, positivist science, its praise of objectivism and naïve “techno-solutionism”, if you
like, bears the mark of suppressed dialog that reproduces its limited and reified knowledge.

But the praise of objectivism has its limits. Husserl’s critique was right to attack
it, if not with the right means. As soon as the objectivist illusion is turned into an
affirmative WeItanschauung, methodologically unconscious necessity is perverted
to the dubious virtue of a scientistic profession of faith.
(Habermas, 1987, p. 315)

17.3 LIMITS OF OBJECTIVISM AND PREDICTIVE SCIENCE

Objectivism or the idea that knowledge can be objective in the sense that it is value-neutral
and has validity beyond individuals and social settings is highly contested in contem-
porary philosophy of science. As Gadamer (1977, pp. 74–81) claims, we can only build
our knowledge of reality by approaching it via language and formulate our view of it via
symbolic expressions and language. Moreover, as languages, including the languages of
sciences, and the meaning of words and symbols develop through time and via social set-
tings, knowledge cannot stay static through time and social settings. The same goes for
different types of knowledge, such as scientific knowledge. Put differently, our knowledge
of the world is created in a dialogical, hermeneutic praxis, and changes through time.5
Furthermore, as the objects of science and research are defined by means of the different
 Techno-solutionism Facing Post-liberal Oligarchy   ◾   233

languages of sciences, the level of predictability of hypotheses based on inquiry of objects

of study in the past tends to diminish in future studies of the same kind of objects of study.
Hence, the technical cognitive interest is satisfied with diminishing returns. In terms of
“techno-solutionism”, the predicted and proclaimed advances of solutions will require spe-
cial arguments for their usefulness as time goes by. The same goes for cases of different
cultures and societies.
Innovation of new technology often has unforeseen and unintended consequences for
external disparate areas or phenomena. Technologies that are invented and developed to
solve particular and sometimes urgent problems often create other problems in the pro-
cess. Well-known examples are chemicals like DDT causing widespread cancer problems;
combustion engines and burning fossil fuels leading to greenhouse gases, global warming,
increasingly stormy weather, and increasing risk of new ice age in the very long term. This
might happen due to melting glaciers, less salt in the oceans, and changes in the world sys-
tem of circulation of the ocean stream (Broecker, 2010; see also Starr et al., 2021).
In recent decades, investment in research and innovation in the field of digital technol-
ogy and “Artificial Intelligence” (AI) has been enormous. This investment has been led
by private corporations and the state, while scientists and engineers employed by these
actors have executed the research under the guiding rule of corporations and state institu-
tions. There are many cases of unintended consequences and serious malfunctions that are
claimed to be unforeseen. As an example, autopilots have been put into new models of cars
that have caused fatal accidents on the roads (Boudette & Chokshi, 2021). The technology
in question is put on the general market without sufficient research and public control.
Quite often, no one is deemed ethically responsible for such malfunctioning death traps
that use public roads or public spaces as sites for experiments.6
In some cases, even the categorization “unforeseen” and “unintended consequences” of
innovation and technological change is quite hollow, to say the least. Seen from the nar-
row and reified point of view of inventors it is to be expected that they can hardly know or
foresee in advance future consequences of their inventions. Indeed, they (un)intentionally
fail to take responsibility for the way in which their inventions are misused. Cases at hand
are platforms on the Internet and its numerous examples of intentional misinformation,
spread of unreliable knowledge by lay people, fake-news practices and bullying campaigns
against individuals, politician, stakeholders, and organizations. As Gatehouse (2022) has
documented, dedicated, and organized groups of bloggers copy political conspiracy theo-
ries from platforms such as QAnon and mainstream on popular platforms such as Reddit,
YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter (Rothchild, 2021). Such conspiracy theories that are gen-
erated in the “virtual world” start having a life of their own in “the virtual world” with
real-world consequences. QAnon is an example of such activity that produces popular mis-
information and conspiracy theories that had substantial impact on the presidential elec-
tions in the United States in 2016 in which D. Trump had the upper hand against H. Clinton.
Activities such as these are increasingly felt to undermine democratic societies leading
many governments to seek ways to implement policies to “regulate the wild-west” of the
Internet. An example at hand is European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation
(GDPR). The British Parliament has responded in similar vein (The House of Lords and
234   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

The House of Commons, 2021). In the last instance, it is humans as actors that have to set
the aims and rules for technological change and decide the moral limits of experimenting
with AI. Acting differently is an act of bad faith.
Fosch-Villaronga and Sætra (2021) argue that the spheres of science, ethics, and politics
should not be conflated so that reactions to AI’s implications would lead to adequate course
of action. They conclude that “the different functions of science, ethics, and politics must
be respected to ensure AI development serves the interests of society”. Their conclusion
helps somewhat in tackling the problem of “bad faith” and reification of contemporary sci-
ence. However, it suffers from a very high level of abstraction, and it does not consider the
uneven distribution of power that capitalism and its mode of production generates. Hence,
their conclusion is unlikely to contribute to satisfactory analysis of how the proposed ade-
quate course of actions is to be realized in terms of disruptive transition of contemporary
societies.
Let’s elaborate further on this last-mentioned point. How important it is to emphasize
disruptive transition from the point of view of uneven distribution of power becomes
clear in light of the fate of the scientists’ policy recommendations in the UN’s Sustainable
Development Goals Progress Report (2022). As a part of the work on the progress report,
the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released in August 2021 the
Physical Science Basis report of Working Group II of its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6)
(Foster & Clark, 2022, p. 16 and Foster, 2022, pp. 23–24). It claimed that even in the best-case
scenario prognosis, the worldwide climate change situation is so dire that it requires nothing
less than a rapidly escalating transformation of the entire global system of production and
consumption. There was a consensus among the scientists who wrote the report that if such
a drastic structural policy will not be implemented, the world will surpass a 1.5°C increase
in global average temperature after 2040 and enter vicious circle of existential crisis.
A “Summary for Policymakers” of Working group II was leaked to the French news
agency Agence-France Presse in June 2021 (Foster & Clark, 2022). This summary called for
transformational change at all levels: Individuals, communities, businesses, institutions,
and governments. Such a transformation would have required coordinated action, massive
public mobilization, political leadership and commitment, and urgent decision-making to
change the global economy. The central role given by the scientists to government action in
transformative change constituted a threat to the hegemony of corporations. As Foster &
Clark put it: “Unfortunately, such action has been consistently thwarted by capital and
global political leaders, who managed to remove the statement from the final published
Working Group II report, where it is nowhere to be found” (Ibid., p. 16).
This brings us to the role of actors in shaping transformative change. We will now look
at how the aims of innovation and technological change are socialized in a dynamic way,
that is, how these aims are limited and steered in regimes of innovation and technological
change (RITC).

17.3.1 The Role of Actors in Disruptive Change

The RITCs have become increasingly important for economic growth and societal devel-
opment of contemporary national states and international semi-sovereign organizations
 Techno-solutionism Facing Post-liberal Oligarchy   ◾   235

(ISSO), such as the European union. Moreover, they have become a major issue for pol-
icy formation that aims at institutionalizing research and development (R&D) in various
countries and ISSOs. It goes without saying that techno-solutionism as a taken-for-granted
ideology by scientists, public officials, politicians, and various stakeholders melts into the
R&D policies and the institutionalized RITCs by actors of structuration. Our critical
approach to the RITCs and the R&D as social constructions is shared by critical real-
ists such as Archer (1995) as well as sociologist Giddens (1984) who emphasize the role of
human actors in societal development. Let us now look closer at the role of agency in de-
mystifying, de-reifying, and de-commodifying science and technology.
Whether institutions and social change are determined by structure or agency is an old
question in social sciences. According to structuralist scholars, the change of social rela-
tions or their reproduction is a result of structural necessity irrespective of the intentions
or reflections of individuals. Structuralist view of this kind is opposed by constructivist
approaches that emphasize the role of intentions of individuals, their ethics and ideology,
and processes in which meaning is created in symbolic interaction.
We argue that social change and the development of institutions can be reduced neither
to structural necessity nor to individual intentionality. Social contexts give birth to indi-
viduals’ intentions, their ideas and morals which they “interiorize” (Jonsson, 2015, p. 141).
At the same time, social structures and relations are generated by intentional actions of
individuals and groups while the resulting structures are partly unintentional. This results
from the fact that intentions are never fully defined and they change in the moment of the
interactive practice of agents of change and, furthermore, actors’ information of contexts
of change is never perfect. Moreover, social contexts of change are constituted by societal
structures that constrain the alternatives of change. However, while these structures deter-
mine the alternatives of change, the determination is neither exclusively bound to one, and
only one alternative, nor an infinite number of voluntary choices. As a consequence, we
claim that social change is characterized by morphogenetic (Archer, 1995, pp. 157–158)
processes of “structuration”7 generated by way of active social construction and relational
politics.
Earlier, we have argued that science has emerged as if it were a production process that
produces knowledge estranged from its producer. Furthermore, the scope of the products,
that is, the knowledge, is increasingly limited to fit professions determined by actors of
power (Mósesdóttir & Jonsson, 2020) and goals generated in the various RITCs mentioned
earlier. These actors belong to societal power blocks that share balance of power and build
coalitions for economic and science policy formation that reflect their national and inter-
national economic interests.
By organizing science according to professions and narrowing their scope of study as
part of production processes, the steering of science has become more effective than ever
before. The so-called stakeholders have now a greater say when various research programs
are defined and carried out such that the contribution of scientists in particularized pro-
fessions have become easier to predict. Consequently, the opportunity to invest in and
steer multidisciplinary research projects at ever larger scale has become much easier for
the power blocks and political elites than it used to be. This last-mentioned point is what
236   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

the advocates of the thesis of “the finalization phase of science” argue (Schroyer, 1984,
pp. 716–718). As sciences reach the stage of increased maturity, research can aim either
at post-paradigm theoretical sophistication or, alternatively, to “functionalization” of
the object of study, that is, the object of study is externally defined according to practical
goals that are generated in interactive relations of science, society, nature, and politics.
Unfortunately, as goes for Habermas’s abstract idea of “emancipatory cognitive interests”,
the idea of extra-scientific determination of “functional finalization” of the objects of study
is equally hollow. In both cases, what is missing is a substantial dynamic theory, or at least
proper conceptualization of real power structures and hegemonic politics.
We presume that professionalization, the narrower scope of sciences, their “finaliza-
tion”, and canalization via the RITCs are not “Manna” that falls from heaven. Investment
in science and research as well as policy formation in this field is actively constructed in
coalition building that favors some stakeholders at the cost of others.
Hence, shifting balances of power and stakeholder coalitions undermine how secure
investment in research can be. The same goes for predictability of steering scientific pro-
duction: One cannot presume that science and research will necessarily lead to ever more
useful and predictable knowledge. Hence, it is very difficult to estimate who will, when and
how, generate science and research policies, how and when policies will emerge that aim at
solving the increasing existential crises of humankind. This is detrimental for realizing the
SDGs. As we discussed earlier, the answers are written on the wall, that is, in the limits of
objectivism and the credence in predictive science. Let us concretize this thesis of ours in
terms of the political economy of contemporary oligarchic capitalism.8

17.3.2 Social and Economic Planning as Technique

The realm of social and economic planning is increasingly dominated by a global industry
that already in 2007 counted over 250,000 expert advisors who sell “techno-solutionist”
advice to politicians and the state bureaucracy (Røvik, 2007, p. 64).9 The goods sold by the
“techno-solutionists” are developmental strategies that would deliver high level of success
measured in terms of improved predictability.
As Sætra discusses in Chapter 2, the concept of technology may be understood in a
broad sense. The concept encompasses what we make, but also what we do. But what we
make and do is affected by why we decide to make and do particular things. Why we do
things is often because techniques as means to make and do are fetishized due to scientists’
bad faith. Planning techniques, the way we plan things, are socially pregiven and a result
of skills learned in specialized occupational education.
However, promised success of planning and its techniques is questionable. The levels of
predictability depend on pregiven societal structures that are actively created in particular
historical periods and reproduced by actors of power who have miscellaneous interests and
goals. In Western societies, societal decision-making takes place on three levels of abstraction:

• Level one: Part of the general citizens have rights to elect representatives that have
the role to translate the citizens’ interests into policies and practices that would reflect
their interests;
 Techno-solutionism Facing Post-liberal Oligarchy   ◾   237

• Level two: The policies and practices are then supposed to realize the citizen’s inter-
ests in the various formal institutions of power belonging to the state, regional orga-
nizations, municipalities, etc. Hence, the citizens take part in a system of indirect
democracy in which elected representatives have the role to formulate the abstract
interests of the miscellaneous individuals and groups of “the people” and realize
them in laws and regulations;
• Level three: The “will of the people” is then brought further from the people to the
executive branch of the state and other public institutions. On the way, democracy
becomes even more indirect and detached from the people;
• Level four: The cleavage between the people, the representatives, and the public exec-
utive branch in this system becomes further amplified and extended in scale as popu-
lations grow depending on the size of jurisdictions.

Indeed, in recent decades, policy formation developed from being predominantly limited
to regions and the interests of nation-states to international organizations such as the UN
and military defense pacts. Moreover, the concept “security” in international politics is
not anymore limited to military defense but is increasingly understood in terms of socio-
ecological threats on global scale. The SDGs are a case at hand that demonstrate growing
importance of internationalization in policy formation today. Later, we will discuss this
issue in view of the rise of post-liberal oligarchic capitalism.
The levels of complication of decision-making escalate to the extent that particular
type of knowledge and practices have to be formulated in ever more abstract way. This
is necessary to reflect the miscellaneous definitions of interests, goals, and means the
estranged actors in levels one to three have, so that they do not collide in disastrous
chaos. The need for societal planning intensifies, that is, the type of planning that can
be presented as acceptable. It has to be based on high level of abstraction, if the main
colliding actors are to accept them and use them as a substance for long-term coalitions
of collaboration. The bottom line is that insofar as science and research are to constitute
this substance, science itself has to take on board ideological simplifications and starts
functioning as ideology.10
Collaboration involves legitimizing11 societal planning. If societal planning is to be
accepted as legitimate, it must be based on these principles of “objectivity”, “neutrality”,
and “science”. However, if planned outputs fail to generate public policies that facilitate
economic growth, a stage of rationality crisis threatens the legitimacy of the executive
system. In addition to hinder output crises, societal planning needs to secure loyalty of
the masses. Otherwise, the existing social formation faces an input crisis, namely a legiti-
mation crisis. At this point, planning functionality starts to lose its rationality as loyalty
stands and falls with normative values and cultures of the masses. However, rational-
ity tends not to be accepted at any cost of ethics and virtues. In the context of indirect
democracy with its large distances between the various groups and their miscellaneous
interests, legitimation crisis is always a risk that undermines success in social and eco-
nomic planning.
238   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

FIGURE 17.1 The analytical framework: Socioeconomic planning technique, developed from
Sætra’s Figure 2.5 in Chapter 2 of this book.

The history of capitalism has many stories of broken promises of social and economic
planning and consequent legitimation crises. Let us look closer at this dimension of socio-
economic planning as a technique that is illustrated in Figure 17.1.
In the heydays of the competitive capitalist system, the virtues of possessive individual-
ism found grounds in the expanding civil and family privatism. The ideology presumed
that private initiatives and efforts by successful private competitive citizen would create
his/her wealth and fortune. The needs of the family and the individuals were presumed
to be relatively easily recognizable. However, gradually more basic needs were satisfied by
the state. At the same time, it became more difficult for the private persons in the affluent
society to define their needs. Hence, the principle of possessive individualism and civil
privatism faltered. The wealth and fortune of the individual were decreasingly secured by
private efforts and gradually replaced by the various forms of welfare states in capitalist
societies (Esping-Andersen, 1989).
The virtue of possessive individualism was not only undermined by the necessary role
of the state but even more by the rise of trusts and oligopoly and monopoly corporations
(Sweezy, 1939).12 The last decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 21st cen-
tury saw the rise of the virtue of what we prefer to call “possessive oligarchism”, following
unprecedented increase in worldwide wealth concentration and inequality. In the 1930s,
the Great Depression sets in with worldwide economic depression and escalated rise of
fascist and Nazi movements. This trend intensified again following the development of
neoliberalist regimes since the 1980s and the rise of financial and digital oligarchy in the
present era (Amin, 2014).
Since the 1930s, capitalism and its socioeconomic techniques have developed through
four main alternatives, that is, Keynesianism, neoliberal, neo-Schumpeterian, and the con-
temporary post-liberal oligarchism which still is in its early stage of development. We have
elsewhere analyzed the first three mentioned alternatives.13 In the following, we will dis-
cuss the fourth alternative of post-liberal oligarchic capitalism.
 Techno-solutionism Facing Post-liberal Oligarchy   ◾   239

17.3.3 Planning Post-liberal Oligarchic Capitalism

The new contemporary oligarchic era required new ideology to legitimize a resetting of
the planning principles for economic growth, that is, a new oligarchist innovation system
that must secure the interests of the rising oligarchist elite. The task at hand is to legitimize
economic growth that would revive “possessive individualism” at the same time as “pos-
sessive oligarchism” must embellish. Simultaneously, the former Keynesian and neoliber-
alist regimes of capital accumulation had delivered leftovers of waste and climate change
from their particular versions of economic growth policies. These leftovers were increas-
ingly met with rejection and protests by the general public. Hence, in the aftermath of the
financial crisis in 2007–2008, the contradictions escalated on national and global levels,
not only in terms of economic inequality and polarization of power between the masses
and the elites but also climate change that has turned into an urgent unsolvable problem
due to economic growth (Fominaya & Cox, 2013). As climate change is a global problem,
the economic policies/ideologies of Keynesianism, neoliberalist untamed liberalization
of markets and national systems of innovation turned out to be rather useless techno-
solutionist instruments to resolve the problem of escalating climate change. Indeed, the
political regimes could not transform or generate new policy solutions accepted as “scien-
tific economic planning”.
However, the crises could not go on for too long time and the search for new policies
continued. This search was intensified and made possible in the oligarchic dominated by
the WEF with its annual conference in Davos, other regional conferences in locations
across Africa, East Asia, Latin America, and India and additional annual meetings in
oligarchized communist China and the United Arab Emirates (World Economic Forum,
2022). The engineer K. Schwab established the WEF in 1971, which allegedly has become
the main ideological think-tank forum organized for and by multinational capital and
oligarchs.14
The main thrust of the WEF is that it exploits the crises in the present balance of power
between sovereign states. The WEF invites selected academic researchers, opinion giv-
ers, hegemonic ideologists, and members of the global political elite to join their political
efforts. These individuals play the role of coalition builders for a new alternative developed
by the WEF which we would like to call the “post-liberal alternative” (PLA). So, what does
the PLA stand for?
The PLA is an ideology that is supported by willing economists and social scientists who
aim at building a new era based on economic policy that focuses on satisfying predefined
and prechosen multi-stakeholder interests. It aims at saving capitalism from socioeco-
nomic crash that would threaten its essential need for economic (profit) growth as well as
from letting humanity suffer in an environmental existential disaster.
The PLA emphasizes the view that technological development, particularly megatrends,
generates long-term economic growth and prosperity. Much like what neo-Schumpeterians
presume, technological megatrends generate major changes in social structures, the econ-
omy, and political life (Freeman, 1977 & 1987), the WEF presumes that industrial capital-
ism is presently going through the so-called fourth industrial revolution (4IR) that knits
together AI, gene editing and advanced robotics blurring the lines between the physical,
240   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

digital, and biological worlds. Innovations and inventions in these fields generate mega-
trends of societal transformation (Jonsson & Mósesdóttir, 2018).
Unlike neoliberalists but much like neo-Schumpeterians, the PLA acknowledges that
inequality represents the greatest societal concern associated with the 4IR (Schwab,
2015 & 2016). What explains the rising gap in wealth between those dependent on capital
as opposed to labor is that the largest beneficiaries of innovation tend to be the innova-
tors, shareholders, and investors. Moreover, machines will also displace many low-skilled
workers, while the diffusion of new technologies may result in a net increase in jobs for
the highly skilled. According to Schwab (2015) the WEF´s founder, growing polariza-
tion in income and wealth will in turn lead to an increase in social tensions. However,
Schwab’s analysis suffers from the same shortcoming as that of the neo-Schumpeterian.
Both approaches lack an account of how social and political actors resist and/or seek to
shape the diffusion of new technologies.15 Instead, they are preoccupied with taxonomical
categorization of the main features of technical change.
In the 1970s and 1980s, neo-Schumpeterian economists emphasized that developing
strong national systems of innovation would be the right instruments to deliver future eco-
nomic growth (Freeman, 1977, 1987). In recent years, the neo-Schumpeterian Mazzucato
(2018) has followed suit with her “mission-orientated innovation policies”. We claim that
their policy initiative came too late as capital accumulation was already far too international-
ized. The PLA of the WEF adheres to a quite different and much more one-sided policy alter-
native in line with the elitism of oligarchic capitalism. It rejects the idea that the sovereign
state and the UN must play a leading role in solving the crises-ridden capitalist societies.
According to Schwab (2008), states and related international organizations are far too
slow to implement the measures for societal transformation that would save capitalism.
He argued that the global corporate elite has to engage in “Global Corporate Citizenship”
and gain hegemonic role to rule over the outdated international system of states and global
elites (Schwab, 2008).
Following suit, the WEF has since 2009 been working on its Global Redesign Initiative
(GRI), which effectively argues for a transition away from intergovernmental decision-
making toward a system of multi-stakeholder governance. The essential function of this
initiative is to marginalize democratic governments by limiting their role to the negotia-
tion of treaties which are then given the green light by democratically elected representa-
tives. Thereafter, the treaties are delivered to a self-selected group of multi-“stakeholders”
who make decisions about their execution on behalf of the general public. This WEF ini-
tiative of multi-stakeholder governance (MSG) is worrisome as it may undermine Western
democracy.
As Glecksman claims: “What is ingenious and disturbing is that the WEF multi-
stakeholder governance proposal does not require approval or disapproval by any inter-
governmental body. Absent any intergovernmental action the informal transition to MSG
as a partial replacement of multilateralism can just happen” (2016, p. 92).
The term itself, “stakeholder”, has rather doubtful connotation and may be designed for
framing proposes to confuse the general public. It conceals the immense differences in
interests, role, power, and legitimacy that exist among the various actors that participate
 Techno-solutionism Facing Post-liberal Oligarchy   ◾   241

in multi-stakeholder initiatives. In practice, the multi-stakeholders are not equal and there
is no distinction made between alleged “rights holders”. Hence, no community is consid-
ered more affected than another by environmental destruction or human rights violations
depriving individuals of their legitimate right to participate in decisions-making affecting
their lives. Moreover, private corporation who are only accountable to their stakeholders
and elected governments (“duty bearers”) who have an obligation to act in the public inter-
est are treated as partners with common interests (Manahan & Kumar, 2022, p. 7).
Following this train of thought, the WEF runs a network of “Global Future Councils”
that are “dedicated to promoting innovative thinking to shape a more resilient, inclu-
sive and sustainable future” (World Economic Forum, 2022). According to the WEF, “it
assembles more than 1000 of the most relevant and knowledgeable thought leaders from
academia, government, international organizations, business, and civil society, grouped in
expertise-based thematic councils. It is an invitation-only community and members are
nominated for a one-year period” (World Economic Forum, 2022).
In addition to the WEF’s activities, the “Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
A Global Initiative for the United Nations” (SDSN) works on initiating global coordina-
tion and standardization of statistics for the SDGs. As the homepage of the SDSN informs,
it is not a part of the UN but a private sector network financed by oligarchs and private
corporations. The aim is to influence international organizations and national statistical
bureaus to fasten the process of developing and implementing the SDGs-based policies at
national and international levels. The SDSN publishes annual reports on how the coordi-
nation work progresses.
Furthermore, the SDSN has moved the SDG initiative to a stage that may be called
“stage 2”. While stage 1 refers to UN’s formulation and acceptance of the SDGs, stage 2
refers to implementing action agenda at the national level for the “multi-stakeholders” in
the form of six transformations: The core of the six Transformations is the recognition
that all 17 SDGs can be achieved through six major societal transformations, focused on
(1) education and skills, (2) health and well-being, (3) clean energy and industry, (4) sus-
tainable land use, (5) sustainable cities, and (6) digital technologies. All are guided by the
twin principles to “leave no one behind” and “ensure circularity and decoupling . . . The
six Transformations provide an action agenda for government ministries, businesses, and
civil society” (Sachs et al., 2021, pp. 44–45).
As the SDSN acknowledges, the progress of instigating the six transformations is disap-
pointing. The chief threshold is that the financing needs of low-income developing coun-
tries (LIDCs) are far greater than their governments can provide. The LIDCs will need
a significant increase in fiscal space, which will require a combination of domestic and
global fiscal policies (Sachs et al., 2021, p. 21).
The SDSN has no solutions to this problem, presumably because that would require
a fundamental system shift and disruptive transition of capitalism. The system change
would call for massive increase in state intervention, not only at national but at interna-
tional level as well. It appears that a stage 3 is needed for the realization of the SDG involv-
ing initiatives at the international and national levels facilitating structural transition of
“creative destruction”.16
242   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

Moreover, in terms of developing effective governance strategies to transform politi-

cal cultures and establish stable pathways for transition, the task ahead is enormous.
Indeed, global differences in World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) are
huge between high-income OECD countries, low-income countries, and middle-income
countries (World Bank, 2022). WGI refers to percentile rank (0–100) of indicators
such as Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence Violence/Terrorism,
Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption.
In 2020, the average score of high-income OECD countries was 82, low-income coun-
tries was 21, and middle-income countries was 37. As we have discussed earlier, the low-
income countries are those that have the largest difficulties in implementing SDG and
they score lowest in WGI.

17.4 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: FUTURE TRENDS

TOWARD POST-LIBERAL CORPORATIST OLIGARCHY
Our study of the PLA economic planning alternative is grounded in the main historical
versions of the ideology of innovation and technology for economic growth. These alter-
natives involving Keynesianism, neoliberal, neo-Schumpeterian, and the contemporary
post-liberal oligarchism appear to have resulted in a long-term crisis of liberal democracy
and the crisis of its mode of legitimation of the capitalist system, that is, possessive indi-
vidualism and oligarchism.
The core of the legitimation of the capitalist system is an ideology presuming societal
planning based on “scientific economic theories” and socioeconomic planning technique
that suffices to satisfy both possessive individualism and oligarchism by the way of secur-
ing permanent economic growth. However, there are some unfortunate foresights that
worry us:

1. It is very likely that possessive individualism will be satisfied and in the short-term
continue to keep the citizens of formally democratic societies apathetic.
2. The rise of multi-stakeholder governance of the WEF’s oligarchic capitalism is
directly aimed at undermining representative democracy by deliberately organizing
the escalation of the power of oligarchic transnational corporations in planning the
future policy formation.
3. As Stiglitz (2016) argues, economic policies based on orthodox economic theories
have for decades advocated and generated extreme inequalities of income in most
of the rich economies of the world. The experience of this development shows that
increased inequality leads to reduced economic performance. Indeed, we would add
that with post-liberal oligarchism, orthodox economic policies are likely to continue
to generate growing inequality. Consequently, the legitimation crisis of capitalism is
likely to deepen in the long term insofar as possessive individualism will be under-
mined and lead to decreasing apathy. Inequality and decreasing apathy may lead to
mobilization of extremist political groups such as far-right fascist groups that increas-
ingly threaten Western democracy.
 Techno-solutionism Facing Post-liberal Oligarchy   ◾   243

4. Economic growth is essential for the survival of the capitalist system. However, eco-
nomic growth is a major hindrance to the haltering climate change and the prospect
of Green Growth is bleak (Hickel & Kallis, 2019). Research evidence do not support
the assumption of the SDGs that economic growth and environmental sustainability
can go hand in hand given the current state of technology (Hickel & Kallis, 2019).
5. Moreover, the reification of science, their increasingly external steering, and their bad
faith due to their naïve objectivism and positivism are unlikely to counteract the rising
era of the post-liberal alternative of “multi-stakeholder” governance under the hegemony
of TNCs. In so far as the SDGs are grounded in profit-based economic growth, their
attainment remains a utopia. The path dependency of the present system undermines
Western democracy and the SDGs’ participatory strategy. While the UN’s strategy lacks
sound policy and means for global action, the WEF elite at Davos and expert networks
like the SDSN are giving birth to their strategy of post-liberal oligarchic corporatism.
6. The UN has not yet managed to develop a plan of actions to transform the SDGs into
necessary policies that would lay the grounds for sustainable development regimes.
The reason being the need for structural transition of capitalism and its “creative
destruction” that requires extensive state interventionism on national and global
scales to bridge the gap between low- and high-income countries. Moreover, as the
WGIs indicate, the task ahead is enormous as effective governance strategies must be
developed to transform political cultures and establish stable pathways in the low-
and lower-middle-income economies of the world.

Having the previous prognosis in mind, the request for sustainable development appears
to contradict in a fundamental way the capitalist order and its economic policy regimes.
Hence, we conclude that the SDGs focusing on securing human well-being and social wel-
fare (e.g., the SDGs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.7, 9, 10, 16) while at the same time fetishizing naïve
techno-solutionism are rather unrealistic goals. In other words, capitalist sustainable tran-
sition appears to be a mission impossible.

NOTES
1 In this chapter, we use the term “techno-solutionism” rather than “techno-fetishism” that
neo-Schumpeterians used in their book Cole et al. (1973) Models of Doom. A Critique of the
Limits to Growth.
2 In terms of our present-day situation, we are challenged by constructing technological futures,
that is, alternatives in molding nature–humans–society relations in the field of determining
the aims and uses of technology such as AI. To what extent this challenge optimizes demo-
cratic participation of the general public or serves the interests of reified technocracy, capital
accumulation and dominant elites, is among essential issues in contemporary politics. See,
e.g., Sætra (2020).
3 For an early meta-critique of science of this kind, see Marx who wrote in 1844: “History itself
is a real part of natural history and of nature’s becoming man. Natural science will in time
subsume the science of man just as the science of man will subsume natural science: there will
be one science” (Marx, 1975, p. 355). For a comprehensive analysis, see Jonsson (2008).
244   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

4 As Foster (2015, p. 18) points at, the Forbes 2015 list of the top 500 largest companies in the
world have revenues that mount to around 30% of 500 global private of world revenue.
5 See Sætra, 2018.
6 For further discussion, see Fosch-Villaronga, et al.’s chapter in the present book. See also
Sætra (2021).
7 For a critical scrutiny of the concept of “structuration”, see Stones (2001).
8 See Hacker (1964) for early analysis of the concept of “oligarchic capitalism”.
9 According to more recent source, the global management consulting services market is
expected to grow from $819.79 billion in 2020 to $895.46 billion in 2021 at a compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.2%. The market is expected to reach $1201.06 billion in 2025
at a CAGR of 8% (BusinessWire, 2021).
10 See Stiglitz (2002).
11 See Offe (2013).
12 The Marxist economist P. Sweezy (1939) was one of the first economists to put forward a
theory of oligopolist competition.
13 See Jonsson (1991, 2015), and Mósesdóttir and Jonsson (2020).
14 With around 3000 paying members and selected participants – among which are investors,
business leaders, political leaders, economists, celebrities, and journalists – for up to 5 days
to discuss global issues across 500 sessions. WEF is funded by its 1,000 member companies,
typically global enterprises with over five billion dollars in turnover (varying by industry
and region). These enterprises are among the largest companies within their industry and/or
country. In 2011, an annual membership costs $52,000 for an individual member, $263,000
for “Industry Partner”, and $527,000 for “Strategic Partner”. An admission fee costs $19000
per person. By 2014, annual fees for “Strategic Partner” had increased to $628,000. However,
these figures are not official WEF information as WEF keeps its finances secret (based on
information from Wikipedia (“World Economic Forum,” 2023) that may not be accurate, but
gives rough indication of the subject matter).
15 See I., A. Ibrahim’s Chapter 14 on the importance of politics and multi-stakeholders concern-
ing implementation of SDGs.
16 The concept of “creative destruction” was coined by J. Schumpeter (see, e.g., H. Borgebund´s
Chapter 12). As J. Elliott (1978, pp. 148–169) has argued, K. Marx had already worked on a
similar concept in his work Grundrisse in 1857–1858. Schumpeter recognized Marx´ contri-
bution in this field of study. While Schumpeter referred to “perennial gale of creative destruc-
tion”, in which capitalism, through its creative success, leads to its own destruction, Marx
highlights capitalism’s “revolutionizing properties” in terms of technological change and
mode of production that generates the surplus production, that is, surplus value upon which
socialist society can be built as well as what today is referred to as de-growth and ecological
socialism. See also Foster, 2022.

17.5 REFERENCES
Amin, S. (2014). Capitalism in the age of globalization, the management of contemporary society.
Zed Books.
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 Chapter 18

The Role of Technology in

Alternatives to Growth-Based
Sustainable Development
Henrik Skaug Sætra

CONTENTS
18.1 Introduction 249
18.2 Growth and the Role of Technology in the Sustainable Development Goals 250
18.3 The Alternatives to Growth and Centralization 252
18.3.1 The Critique of Growth 253
18.3.2 Næss and Deep Ecology 255
18.3.3 Soft Technology in Deep Ecology 256
18.3.4 Technological Determinism and Radical Sustainable Technology 260
18.4 The Role of Technology in Radical Alternative Futures 261
18.5 References 263

18.1 INTRODUCTION

Change in technology implies change in culture.

(Næss, 1989, p. 102)

The implications of technological development and change are vast, but how these implica-
tions are evaluated varies drastically. While some – the techno-optimists and Prometheans
stand out – see humanity’s savior in technology (Danaher, 2022; Farley & Smith, 2020),
others argue that technology – at least in its current form – is to blame for a situation
perceived to be undesirable and detrimental to our prospects of sustainable development
(Watson, 2020). Some believe that growth and innovation have created societies in which
human life has never been better (Pinker, 2011), while others have long argued that the
downsides to economic growth, greater scale, and more complexity have negative conse-
quences of great importance. Examples of the latter camp are those who call for various

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-18 249

250   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

versions of degrowth and decentralization as radical solutions to our current ailments,

arguing that endless growth in a finite world is bound to be disastrous (Kerschner et al.,
2018; Latouche, 2009; Næss, 1999).
Kerschner et al. (2018) provided the first review of the role of technology in degrowth research.
In the research agenda developed through this review, they argue that exploring “new classical
authors” is important, and this is a call here heeded. While authors such as Illich, Schumacher,
Ellul, and others are heavily cited in the literature, the review also shows that, for example,
Arne Næss and deep ecology and the alternative technology movement were not mentioned.
This chapter argues that Næss’ works and the sources that inspired him provide useful con-
ceptualizations of different types of technologies and their role in achieving more sustainable
outcomes across the three sustainability dimensions (Næss, 1989, 1999; Smith, 2005).
The deep tension between different approaches to technology becomes particularly clear
when seen in light of the concept of sustainable development. While sustainable devel-
opment establishes a set of goals that are in large part shared by all, great controversies
surround how these goals are to be achieved. Of particular importance in this chapter is
the role of technology and the need for growth discussed in the United Nations’ concep-
tualizations of sustainability through the concept of sustainable development (Brundtland
et al., 1987) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations, 2015).
In this chapter, I explore these tensions through an exploration of the role of technology
and growth as described in the 17 SDGs, the 169 targets, and the broader Agenda 2030 which
contain them. I then proceed to present some radical alternative perspectives on growth and
technology, which break fundamentally from the perspective derived from the SDGs. These
alternatives are then used to explore the relationship between technology and growth in
general. The key question asked is how technology can also play a role in non-growth-based
approaches to sustainable development, thus departing from the technological determinism
often found in common approaches to techno-solutionism as discussed throughout this book.

18.2 GROWTH AND THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN

THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
Before examining the SDGs, it is worth having a brief look at its foundations in the concept of
sustainable development, developed in the Brundtland commission’s 1987 report Our Common
Future (Brundtland et al., 1987). The basic aspects of this concept are described in Chapter 2,
and I focus on the role of growth and technology in this chapter. The Brundtland report clearly
argues that economic growth is required and that “[w]hat is needed now is a new era of eco-
nomic growth – growth that is forceful and at the same time socially and environmentally
sustainable” (Brundtland et al., 1987). This is further developed in chapter IV.3 of the report:

We see instead the possibility for a new era of economic growth, one that must be
based on policies that sustain and expand the environmental resource base. And
we believe such growth to be absolutely essential to relieve the great poverty that is
deepening in much of the developing world.
(Brundtland et al., 1987)
 Technology in Alternatives to Growth-Based Development   ◾   251

The report is deeply pragmatic and sees the decoupling of economic growth and environ­
mental impact as the only path that simultaneously allows us to address environmental
and social sustainability – a position that is challenged later. Nevertheless, this perspec-
tive on the need for growth is largely accepted in mainstream corporate and intergovern-
mental forums on sustainable development today, as exemplified through, for example,
efforts to achieve green growth (Jacobs, 2013). The report was, and still is, criticized for
the emphasis on economic growth, and even those who seek to defend the report from
the most severe criticisms tend to agree that economic growth is central to the notion
of sustainable development there developed. Langhelle (1999), for example, attempts to
show that while “economic growth is an important part of the message in Our Common
Future, it is definitely not the entire message” – and the latter part is certainly not chal-
lenged here.
Another central message in Our Common Future is the role of new technology as a
“mainspring of economic growth” (Brundtland et al., 1987). Technology is argued to be
capable of “slowing the dangerously rapid consumption of finite resources”, but the authors
also acknowledge the dangers of “new forms of pollution and the introduction to the planet
of new variations of life forms that could change evolutionary pathways” (Brundtland et al.,
1987). Exacerbating these problems is the fact that polluting industries highly reliant on
natural resources tend to grow rapidly in the developing world, which both need growth
and have limited means of addressing environmental harms (Brundtland et al., 1987). One
of the central features of the report is arguably the belief that deep pragmatism is required
when attempting to address environmental challenges while simultaneously upholding
social and environmental justice.
While the role of technology is emphasized, it is also explicitly accepted that new tech-
nologies introduce new risks. Arguing in favor of a precautionary principle of technology
application focused on environmental sustainability, the authors argue that “national and
international institutional mechanisms are needed to assess potential impacts of new tech-
nologies before they are widely used” (Brundtland et al., 1987). Furthermore, technologies
of great potential also introduce challenges related to distribution, as developed nations
have better access to new technologies, which might exacerbate – rather than alleviate –
inequality (see Chapter 8). Technology transfer is thus essential (Brundtland et al., 1987),
something also highlighted in the SDGs.
In Agenda 2030, it is stated that our time is one of “immense opportunity”, and that
information and communication technology (ICT) and increased connectedness on a
global scale can “accelerate human progress” and “develop knowledge societies” (United
Nations, 2015). Scientific and technological innovation are seen as key to both understand-
ing and exploiting these immense opportunities (United Nations, 2015).
Two goals of obvious relevance are SDG 8 and SDG 9. Goal 8 is to “Promote sustained,
inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent
work for all”, while SDG 9 is to “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and
sustainable industrialization and foster innovation”. Starting with growth, the targets of
SDG 8 point to sustaining per capita economic growth “in accordance with national cir-
cumstances” with a specific goal of at least 7% gross domestic product (GDP) growth per
252   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

annum for the least developed nations (8.1). Sustained growth and increased productivity
are to be achieved through “technological upgrading and innovation” (8.2), and resource
efficiency must also be improved in order to “decouple economic growth from environ-
mental degradation” (8.4). Finally, target 8.a mentions the need for trade-related technical
assistance to least developed countries.
SDG 9 is a compound goal, and in this context it is useful to distinguish between targets
aimed at infrastructure, industry, and innovation (Sætra, 2022). In terms of infrastruc-
ture, 9.1 points toward “quality, reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure” to sup-
port economic development, human well-being, while also being affordable and providing
“equitable access for all”. 9.2 refers to increasing industry’s role in GDP and employment
significantly, while 9.4 states that both infrastructure and industry should increasingly
adopt “clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes”. 9.5 pro-
ceeds in the same vein with an emphasis on the role of research in upgrading technologi-
cal capabilities. 9.a refers to the need for “enhanced financial, technological and technical
support” to those most in need, while 9.b targets the support of “domestic technology
development, research and innovation in developing countries”. Finally, 9.c points to the
vital role of ICT and the need to increase access to such technologies, with an emphasis on
“universal and affordable access to the Internet”.
The broader agenda also encourages movement toward a world in which “development
and the application of technology are climate-sensitive, respect biodiversity and are resil-
ient” (United Nations, 2015), but further explanations of what this entails are omitted.
While AI for climate change mitigation and adaption is currently a hot topic (Clutton-
Brock et al., 2021; Rolnick et al., 2022), technology is not explicitly mentioned in SDG 13
on climate action. Neither is it mentioned in SDG 15 (life on land), while SDG 14 does aim
to increase research capacity and transfer of marine technology (14.a).
Throughout the other goals, technology is presented as important for reducing poverty
(SDG 1), ending hunger (SDG 2), as an area of importance related to education for those
in least developed countries (SDG 4), empowering women through enabling technology
(SDG 5), access to clean water and sanitation (SDG 6), and ensuring access to clean energy
(SDG 7). In addition, a subsection of SDG 17 – partnership for reaching the goals – con-
tains three goals focused on technology. 17.6 emphasizes the need for cooperation for pro-
moting access to technology and a “global technology facilitation mechanism”. 17.7 aims
to promote technology transfer to developing countries on “favorable terms”, while 17.8
focuses on operationalizing the Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries1 and
using more enabling technology.

18.3 THE ALTERNATIVES TO GROWTH AND CENTRALIZATION

The SDGs and the foundational concept sustainable development accept growth as inevitable
and give technology a major role in achieving this. While the SDGs almost exclusively discuss
the positive potential of technology, we did see a discussion of the accompanying dangers in
Our Common Future (Brundtland et al., 1987). Nevertheless, both the SDGs and sustainable
development are based on a foundational techno-optimism, indicating that it is assumed that
 Technology in Alternatives to Growth-Based Development   ◾   253

technology will, in balance, have a positive effect in terms of bringing about more of what is
considered good. This aligns with what Danaher (2022) refers to as the preponderance view
of techno-optimism. Seeing the qualifications made in the sustainable development frame-
work, it does not represent techno-utopianism, but it is even further away from representing
a variety of techno-pessimism or technophobia (Dinello, 2005).
But what are the alternatives to the techno-growth paradigm enshrined in sustainable devel-
opment and the SDGs? I will here focus on attempts that challenge the need for growth, with
an emphasis on how degrowth can in theory be technology based or technology limiting. This
demonstrates that while technology is often tied to the growth imperative, it need not be.

18.3.1 The Critique of Growth

The scale of the challenges we now face across all sustainability dimensions is unprec-
edented, and the environmental challenges have even given rise to the concept of the
Anthropocene – a new era of Earth’s history “in which humankind had emerged as the
most powerful influence upon global ecology” (McNeill & Engelke, 2014). Jørgen Randers,
one of the authors of the famous Club of Rome report Limits to growth (Meadows et al.,
1972), 40 years after the original report describes the world as small and fragile, populated
by a “huge, dangerous and powerful” collection of human beings (Randers, 2012).
We might be dangerous, but we are also the ones in danger. One of the major figures
in the “degrowth” community, Serge Latouche (2009), describes our current situation as
follows:

We are heading for a crash. We are in a performance car that has no driver, no
reverse gear and no brakes and it is going to slam into the limitations of the planet.
(Latouche, 2009, p. 2)

The feeling of impending catastrophe has triggered a wide range of responses, and the ones
discussed as “radical” in this chapter focus on the need to stop senseless and damaging
growth. This was a crucial issue for Arne Næss and deep ecology (Næss, 1999), but today
the mainstream movement often connected with this fight is the degrowth community.
However, despite its unfortunate consequences, growth tends to be pursued for seemingly
very good reasons. Randers (2012), for example, sees great challenges associated with the
projected plateauing, and then decline, of nations’ GDP. Slower economic growth, or even
no growth or a contraction, is a problem that will require drastic changes in our societies:

It’s not only the City analyst who will worry about my forecast of slowing eco-
nomic growth in the rich world over the coming decades; most people feel that
growth is desirable. The fundamental reason why most people favour growth is
that it is the only way modern society has found to solve three problems effectively:
poverty, unemployment, and pensions.
(Randers, 2012, p. 5)
254   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

Latouche and others have discussed the end of economic growth at length, and having a
plan for Randers’ scenario seems indispensable (even if we should believe that continued
growth is most likely):

We know that simply contracting the economy plunges our societies into disarray,
increases the rate of unemployment and hastens the demise of the health, social,
educational, cultural and environmental projects that provide us with an indis-
pensable minimal quality of life. It is not difficult to imagine the catastrophes that
negative growth would bring about.
(Latouche, 2009, p. 8)

For Latouche, “degrowth” is not an ideology, but a necessity. We must evaluate forms of
society that don’t require perpetual growth, he argues. Theoretically, he prefers the term
“a-growth” (as in atheism), for approaches that “reject the irrational and quasi-idolatrous
cult of growth for growth’s sake” (Latouche, 2009). This – a move away from focusing on
constantly expanding GDPs – is also a key issue for Næss and deep ecology (Næss, 1999).
Næss says that we need to find the difference between great and big, and both Latouche
and Næss seek to evaluate quality of life by criteria far removed from the ones based on
consumption, etc. (Næss, 1999).
Latouche also discusses Kenneth Boulding’s “spaceship Earth” metaphor and names
him one of very few economists (at least in his time), to see the problems with maximiz-
ing consumption (Latouche, 2009). The “cowboy economy” is based on “predation and the
pillaging of natural resources”, while the “spaceman economy” is Boulding’s suggestion
for a sustainable way of using the resources we have available (Boulding, 1966). According
to Latouche, he “concludes that anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on
forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist” (Latouche, 2009).
The critique of the “growth imperative” is nothing new, but it comes in various guises,
such as today’s degrowth (Kerschner et al., 2018). However, other varieties of “post-
development” present somewhat similar critiques of mainstream notions of “development”
and growth (Dunlap et al., 2021). The origins of both post-development and degrowth are
often traced to the same people, and Ivan Illich is particularly often named a key source of
inspiration (Dunlap et al., 2021; Kerschner et al., 2018).
Illich argued, among other things, that growth results from a mindset in which tech-
nology and the tools we use are not treated not as means but rather as ends (Samerski,
2018). Limiting our reliance on and use of technology was important for Illich
(Samerski, 2018), and he was also the originator of the concept of convivial technology
(Kerschner et al., 2018). Convivial technology enables us to “reestablish the ‘autonomy’
of humans from large hierarchical nondemocratic techno-structures powered by fos-
sil fuels” (Kerschner et al., 2018) and can be analyzed through the dimensions relat-
edness, access, adaptability, bio-interaction, and appropriateness (Vetter, 2018). It is
contrasted with manipulative technology which is both hard for users to understand
and control, and which promotes heteronomous action instead of autonomous action
(Samerski, 2018).
 Technology in Alternatives to Growth-Based Development   ◾   255

In their review of who the contributors to a special issue on degrowth and technology
cite, Kerschner et al. (2018) find that Illich is a clear number one. Other frequently cited
authors include, for example, Latouche, Georgescu-Roegen, Schumaher, and Ellul. In the
technology for degrowth research agenda they develop, their first point refers to “New clas-
sical authors” and the need to broaden the literature on the role of technology in degrowth.

18.3.2 Næss and Deep Ecology

This chapter focuses on an author largely omitted from the citations of the articles just men-
tioned (Kerschner et al., 2018), namely Arne Næss whose writings are largely in line with post-
development and degrowth (Dunlap et al., 2021). Næss’ main work on deep ecology, Ecology,
community and Lifestyle (Næss, 1989, 1999)2 contains detailed discussions about the limitations
of GDP-focused growth and what he refers to as soft, hard, and remote technologies. Næss’ ideas
are built upon, among other sources, Ellul’s The Technological Society (1964). Readers of Ellul
will see this in, for example, Næss’ foregrounding of the politics of technology. As he relates this
directly to environmental and economic concerns, his work is of particular relevance to under-
standing the radical potential of technology in the context of sustainable development.
My main purpose is not to present or develop Næss’ full philosophy but to explore his
concepts of different kinds of technologies and the general role of technology in achieving
a more sustainable future. In doing so, we might also note that Næss himself cites many
of the same authors as mentioned in Kerschner et al. (2018). In the 1999 version of the
book, he cited, among others, Illich, Gerorgescu-Roegen, Schumacher, and Ellul (Næss,
1999). However, the first version of the book was named Økologi og filosofi (Ecology and
Philosophy) and was released in 1971, which indicates that his philosophy in many ways
preempts and was developed alongside the canon of degrowth.
In order to situate Næss’ philosophy alongside this book’s project, and also degrowth,
certain basic aspects of his philosophy should be established. First of all, Næss distin-
guishes between shallow and deep ecology (Næss, 1973, 1999), where the shallow ecology
movement is presented as follows:

Fight against pollution and resource depletion. Central objective: the health and
affluence of people in the developed countries.
(Næss, 1973)

Deep ecology, on the other hand, relies on a perspective highlighting (a) humans as not
existing in the environment but as part of it, (b) bisopherical egalitarianism in principle, (c)
diversity and symbiosis, (d) anti-class posture, (e) the fight against pollution and resource
depletion, (f) complexity over complication, and (g) local autonomy and decentralization
(Næss, 1973). Deep ecology is an expressly normative system, and Næss developed his own
version of it – referred to as Ecosophy T – described in the following eight points:

1. The flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth has intrinsic value. The value
of nonhuman life forms is independent of the usefulness these may have for narrow
human purposes.
256   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

2. Richness and diversity of life forms are values in themselves and contribute to the
flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth.
3. Humans have no right to reduce the richness and diversity except to satisfy vital
needs.
4. Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the situation
is rapidly worsening.
5. The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease
in the human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease.
6. Significant change in life conditions for the better requires a change in policies. These
affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures.
7. The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in situa-
tions with intrinsic value) rather than adhering to a high standard of living. There
will be a profound awareness of the difference between big and great.
8. Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly
to participate in the attempt to implement the necessary changes (Næss, 1989, p. 29).

What is referred to by Næss as biospherical egalitarianism, or ecocentrism, can be con-

trasted with technocentrism or technological environmentalism. O’Riordan (1981) con-
trasts the two approaches and argues that the former lacks faith in large-scale technology,
which is seen as requiring elitist expertise, being dependent on a central state, and anti-
democratic. Materialism “for its own sake” is perceived as wrong, and the main reason for
promoting growth would for the ecocentrists be to fulfill the basic needs of people living
below subsistence levels, as emphasized by Næss (1999).
O’Riordan (1981) also describes the latter group – the technocentrists – composed of
“environmental managers” and “cornucopians”. The former highlight the need to create
the right incentives (through taxes, fees, laws) to allow for the continuation of growth
and resource exploitation. The latter group displays an even greater faith in humanity’s
ability to “find a way out of any difficulties either political, scientific or technological”.
Cornucopians emphasize human will and ingenuity, and believe that science and technol-
ogy is how we can and will improve “the lot of the world’s people” (O’Riordan, 1981), and
they are thus representatives of the prometheanism described in Chapters 1 and 2.

18.3.3 Soft Technology in Deep Ecology

Næss shares with the technocentrists the opinion that we need to take technology more
seriously. Not because it will necessarily solve all our challenges through its continued
development and increased complexity, but because technology is instrumental for either
barring or opening the paths to reaching our “ultimate ends” (Næss, 1989).
Næss discusses the need to invent and develop “ecologically satisfactory” technology and
to progress from the study of technologies in isolation. Preempting the embedded analysis
of Barley (2020) (see Chapter 2), Næss argues that all technologies must be analyzed as
 Technology in Alternatives to Growth-Based Development   ◾   257

systems of technologies connected to both up- and downstream processes and technolo-
gies. Industrialized agriculture, for example, is a “higher order technology” composed of a
vast myriad of technologies and material production processes (Næss, 1999, p. 123).
Soft technology is the label used to describe technologies developed with ecological
responsibility in mind, and these are contrasted with hard technologies. Næss refers to
ongoing – in his time – research, for example, by Robin Clarke and David Dickson, using
such terms when discussing ecologically responsible technology, and the labels of soft and
hard technology are not presented as his own. Of particular importance for understanding
Næss’ perspective is the alternative technology movement (Smith, 2005), which foreshad-
ows much of what is written about the role of technology in degrowth today. This move-
ment highlighted how technology mediates our relations with one another and nature and
how technological solutions tend to only temporarily alleviate the problems we seek to
solve through technology. Unless, that is, we realize that the problems discussed in this
book are “about prioritising multiple social values that are always shifting and developing”
(Smith, 2005) – to some degree as a direct result of our use and application of technology
(Næss, 1999). The alternative technology movement was particularly interested in renew-
able energy, organic food and production, cooperative forms of living and producing, and
small-scale and local infrastructures (Smith, 2005), all of which fits well with deep ecology
and the call for smaller and more decentralized forms of living.
Næss relays Robin Clarke’s comparison between soft and hard technology with a trans-
lated reference from Dickson (1974). The list is long, and Table 18.1 shows some selected
items for comparison.
Næss argues that while instructive, the key distinction between standardization and
diversity must be further emphasized. Of crucial importance is how the localized approach
to technology generates great variation in technology and the production of these tech-
nologies (Næss, 1999). The benefits from such variation encompass not only the enhanced
ability to adapt technology to local needs but also how increased diversity in technologies
might generate fertile ground for innovation and continuous development. One example of
a modern approach to technology based on such ideas is the “radical indigenous” Lo-TEK,
described as a design movement aimed “at rebuilding an understanding of indigenous phi-
losophy and vernacular architecture” for sustainable infrastructures (Watson, 2020). Such
approaches are less complicated and of less scale than modern “hi-tech” solutions, but they

TABLE 18.1 Hard versus soft technology, translated excerpt from list reproduced in Næss (1999)
Hard technology Soft technology
Use of materials and energy Reversible use, recycling
Limited lifespan Unlimited lifespan
Mass society oriented Local society oriented
Alienated from nature Integrated in nature
Growth-oriented Stable
Alienates young and old Integrates young and old
Too complicated to be understandable by the public Understandable by the public
258   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

also highlight how traditional and indigenous solutions are also, in essence, technological.
Rejecting technology is not a solution, but understanding what sort of technology is con-
ducive to the future we desire is crucial.
While all might in principle agree that the goals of soft technology are commendable,
the practical difficulties of implementing them are substantial, and often perceived as
insurmountable. Næss refers to three key difficulties when political realities are brought
to bear on the situation: The fear of decreased business profitability, decreased material
standard of living, and the fear of unemployment (Næss, 1999). These take us straight back
to the problem of conceiving an alternative to growth and the problems related to an end
of growth discussed earlier (Latouche, 2009; Randers, 2012).
Another key point Næss makes is that hard technology is never purely instrumental.
It cannot simply be appropriated, borrowed, or transferred between different societies
without significant implications for the society into which it is introduced. Næss (1999)
describes the impossible position of developing nations when they consider how much, or
if at all, they can introduce hard technologies from industrialized countries without also
having to introduce undesirable aspects of these societies. He describes initial optimism
– gaining technology and preserving existing society – but argues that this “best of both
worlds” approach has proven to be seriously flawed. Of crucial importance is how the pres-
ervation of existing value systems and ideology has proven to be exceedingly hard, because
hard technology is embedded with its own values and ideology (Næss, 1999).
Technologies cannot successfully be imported and implemented in isolation; they
require systems of technologies and, crucially, other non-material technologies related to
how humans relate to each other, our work culture, etc.

Stated briefly: one unleashes cultural invasion and increases ones dependence on oth-
ers. Ones own culture dissolves. This can be referred to as the “domino hypothesis”.
(Næss, 1999, p. 128)

These are old debates and relate tightly to the questions of the values and politics inherent
in technology (Ellul, 1964; Winner, 1977). Næss here refers to Farvar and Milton (1972),
who stressed the importance of refraining from thoughtlessly transferring technologies
to “developing countries” because culture is a whole in which technologies cannot be
selectively introduced without drastically shifting broad sets of relations and institutions
(Næss, 1999). Such considerations are just as important today – 50 years later – as tech-
nology transfer to developing and least developed nations is now so heavily emphasized
(United Nations, 2015).
Before moving on, I close this section with Næss’ own nine-point summary of the rela-
tionship between technology and “ecosophy T” (his deep ecology):

1. Objects produced by labor of a technical nature are in intimate interaction, not only
with the means and the mode of production but also with all essential aspects of cul-
tural activity.
 Technology in Alternatives to Growth-Based Development   ◾   259

2. Therefore, technology is intimately related directly or indirectly to other social insti-

tutions, for example, the sciences, the degree of centralized government, and beliefs
about what is reasonable. Change in technology implies change in culture.
3. The height of technical development is primarily judged by the leading industrial
states in terms of how the techniques can be assimilated into the economies of these
states. The more advanced Western science, for example, quantum physics or elec-
tronics, a technique presupposes, the higher it is regarded. This untenable criterion
of progressiveness is applied not only to our own technology but also to the technol-
ogy of other cultures. This in turn leads to the general depreciation of the viability of
foreign cultures.
4. The ecosophical criteria for progressiveness in technology are relative to ultimate
normative objectives. Therefore, culture-neutral statements of the degree of advance-
ment cannot be formulated.
5. The ecosophical basis for an appraisal of technique is the satisfaction of vital needs in
the diverse local communities.

6. The objectives of the deep ecological movement do not imply any depreciation of
technology or industry, but they imply general cultural control of developments.

7. Technocracies – societies to an overwhelming degree determined by technique

and technology – can arise as a consequence of extreme division of labor and
intimate merging of technologies of a higher order, combined with extremely
specialized, centralized, and exclusive education of technologists. Although nei-
ther politicians, nor clergy, nor other groups with authority in the culture can
test the explanations granted to the public, they can to some extent determine
the political development. The extent of this influence is dependent upon many
things: How much technical counter-expertise can be mobilized, and how willing
the mass media are to present these counter-reports in a generally understand-
able form.
8. When a technique is replaced by another which requires more attention, education,
and is otherwise more self-engaging and detached, the contact with the medium or
milieu in which the technique acts is diminished. To the extent that this medium is
nature, the engagement in nature is reduced in favor of engagement in the technol-
ogy. The degree of inattentiveness or apathy increases and thus our awareness of the
changes in nature caused by the technique decreases.
9. The degree of self-reliance for individuals and local communities diminishes in
proportion to the extent a technique or technology transcends the abilities and
resources of the particular individuals or local communities. Passivity, helplessness,
and dependence upon “megasociety” and the world market increase (Næss, 1989,
pp. 102–103).
260   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

18.3.4 Technological Determinism and Radical Sustainable Technology

It would also be dangerous to suppose that any one group has full insight into and
power over the techno-economic systems. The profundity of the crisis is due in
part to its largely uncontrolled character: developments proceed at an accelerating
pace even though no group, class, or nature has necessarily determined, planned,
or accepted the next phase. Built-in mechanisms see to it that the tempo does not
slacken. The cog-wheels have drawn us into the very machinery we thought was
our slave. Reaching new objectives for progress necessitates greater insight into this
machinery, not only within the elites of power, but also within the populace at large.
The latter should participate as much as possible both in the formulation of new goals
and in suggesting means to reach them.
(Næss, 1989, p. 24)

Both proponents and opponents of the need for continued economic growth agree that
technology has played a crucial role in the growth human societies have experienced thus
far. However, saying that it has been instrumental in enabling growth need not by neces-
sity imply that technology is the cause of such growth nor that technology cannot play an
equally important role in the construction of more sustainable societies based on different
economic and political foundations.
As discussed in Chapter 2, technology cannot be presumed to be completely neutral
(Winner, 1980). Even the hammer, which is at times used as the example of a simple and
straightforward contrast to modern complex technologies, is imbued with a certain logic.
The old saying referring to how every problem is a nail to a person with a hammer demon-
strates that this is not some mystical insight, but both an old and well-understood aspect
of all technology. Even a hammer has its own politics of sorts, and while more complicated
technologies could have political implications that are more difficult to unpack, I consider
the fundamental question to be the same.
The main question, then, is whether the values and logic imbued in technologies deter-
mine historical development, or if we might either shape and change or control the political
tendencies inherent in technologies in order to make sure that they are used in ways that pro-
mote our fundamental values (Næss, 1999). I have already emphasized how many philoso-
phers of technology, like Winner (1977), highlight the autonomous force and inherent values
of technology. This tends to lead to what some refer to as unintended broader consequences
of technology (Collingridge, 1980), as we have seen represented in Næss’ writings as well.
However, in order to have any hope of achieving a form of sustainable development that
has some potential to address both social and environmental challenges without, for exam-
ple, the need for rapid and drastic reductions of the human population, we must reject
defeatist technological determinism (Barley, 2020; Heilbroner, 1994; Marx & Smith, 1994;
Wyatt, 2008), and focus on how to assert social control of technology (Collingridge, 1980).
This does not mean that the social power of technology is ignored or denied. It simply
entails that we focus our efforts on how to evaluate technologies in terms of their potential
 Technology in Alternatives to Growth-Based Development   ◾   261

implications (Kerschner et al., 2018), that the crucial role of politics in determining how to
develop and apply technology is foregrounded, and that the competencies and institutions
required for effective political control are strengthened (Næss, 1999).
As highlighted by Jasanoff (2016), the term “unanticipated” consequences is problem-
atic, because we know that technology has broader social implications than those discov-
ered through simplistic and isolationist analyses. Excusing designers and producers by
referring to problems of anticipation is thus deeply troubling. Moreover, providing engi-
neers and those in control with such “outs” could even enable them to weaponized tech-
nology – such as Winner’s (1977) example of how bridges might be built with too little
clearance for buses to pass, effectively keeping those parts of the population dependent on
public transportation out of certain areas, etc.
By drawing not only on the philosophy of technology and knowledge of technol-
ogy’s autonomy, we must also draw upon the sociology of technology, which highlights
how technologies’ inherent qualities underdetermine historical development, and that
social processes are integral to understanding the promotion, selection, and development
of technologies (Smith, 2005). However, gaining control over technology is difficult, as
Collingridge’s dilemma illustrates; when technologies are new, we can relatively easily
control them, but their consequences are also uncertain. When technologies mature and
disseminate, however, we know their consequences but tend to have a hard time regaining
control over them (Collingridge, 1980).

18.4 THE ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY IN RADICAL ALTERNATIVE FUTURES

This chapter has focused on the crucial role of technology in achieving any kind of future,
and in particular how a clear form of techno-optimism – even solutionism – permeates
Agenda 2030 and sustainable development in general. By exploring radical alternatives to
techno-solutionism, we have seen that even among the “radicals” there are very different per-
ceptions of what the role of technology is or should be. Some argue in favor of deep restraint
(Samerski, 2018), while others highlight how other forms of technology – exemplified by
Næss’ notion of “soft technology” or Lo-TEK – are instrumental in achieving the alternative
futures envisioned by those who do not see endless growth as the final solution to human
and environmental ills.
The autonomous force of technology has also been highlighted. Not to quash hopes of
controlling it, but rather to highlight the need to fight the aimless adoption of new tech-
nologies and the values and ideologies they permeate. Technocracy was for Næss the result
of such an approach to technology, and combatting such technocracies is one of his key
goals. This, he argues, must be done through political mobilization and the purposive pur-
suit of a deeper understanding of technological values and implications and the competen-
cies required to gain control of it. He argued for mobilizing “technical counter-expertise”
to wrest control from the technocrats, and also to examine how to make, for example, the
media available for disseminating such expertise (Næss, 1999, p. 131). Academic institu-
tions appear to be crucial for both promoting and building such expertise (Smith, 2005).
When academia is connected to social movements, the alternative technology movement
262   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

and Næss saw some hope for building post-growth societies not premised on the annihila-
tion of technology (Næss, 1999; Smith, 2005).
For technology to have any chance of contributing to sustainable development, Næss
(1999) argues that deep reforms of technical education on all levels are required, as
engineers are no longer solely responsible for solving technical–economical problems –
humans will also have to be considered. Furthermore, and crucially, deep reform of the
relationships between democratic institutions and public institutions with technical goals
is required (Næss, 1999). We thus return to the problem of the social control of technology
(Collingridge, 1980), a problem that is, according to Næss, further problematized by how
a technological logic inevitably wins out by way of economic arguments. Therefore, he also
strongly emphasizes the need to resist the urge to turn politics into questions of economics
and stresses the need to mobilize not only technical counter-expertise but also economic
counter-expertise (Næss, 1999).
One approach to radical technology is the “methodological luddism” of Langdon
Winner (1977). This does not entail rejecting all technology, but to realistically
appraise the often inflated expectations of technology and to re-politicize technology
and its control (Garcia et al., 2018), very much in line with the ecosophy of Arne Næss
(Næss, 1999).
Radical approaches to technology can in theory be either techno-optimist or techno-
pessimist (Danaher, 2022). However, the main perspective developed in this chapter,
derived from a combination of an acceptance of the political nature of technology and
an emphasis on the social control of technology to achieve a future clearly distinct from
what we are currently headed for, could more plausibly be referred to as technorealis-
tic. Technorealism is an existing concept (Bennahum et al., 1998), but one originally
tied quite closely to ICT and not technology in general. The concept can, and perhaps
should, be further developed to describe a control-focused and skeptical approach to
technology.
Achieving sustainable development – broadly understood – might indeed require
technology, but it cannot be based on a blind faith in technology-based growth. In fact,
we might need “degrowth in the technological sphere” in order to achieve the necessary
changes in the economic sphere (Samerski, 2018). However, the perspective here presented
does not suggest that it makes sense to think we’ll get by without technology at all. It is,
instead, a question of making sure that we introduce and promote the right kinds of tech-
nology – soft technology – and that we always make sure to analyze technology as a part
of broader socio-technical systems and never as isolated instruments divorced from values
and ideology (Barley, 2020; Næss, 1999).

NOTES
1 www.un.org/technologybank/mandate
2 The latest edition of the Norwegian language version of this book (Økologi, samfunn og
livsstil) is more comprehensive than the English language version, and I mainly rely on the
Norwegian version in this discussion of Næss’ views.
 Technology in Alternatives to Growth-Based Development   ◾   263

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 Chapter 19

Conclusion
The Promise and Pitfalls of Techno-
solutionism for Sustainable Development

Henrik Skaug Sætra

CONTENTS
19.1 Introduction 265
19.2 What Technology Can Do 266
19.3 What Technology Cannot Do 267
19.4 Techno-solutionism, Sustainable Development, and the Sustainable
Development Goals 268
19.5 References 269

19.1 INTRODUCTION
Throughout the preceding chapters, a wide range of aspects related to technology and
sustainability have been explored. Issues as varied as the use of technology in education,
the engineering of our climate systems, and the use of technology for influencing human
behavior have been analyzed. The perspectives and approaches have been as varied as the
issues, and it is time to consider what the various findings indicate. What is the prom-
ise and what are the pitfalls associated with a techno-solutionist approach to sustainable
development?
This chapter contains a synthesis of the key results presented in this book. I begin
by presenting the findings related to the positive potential for sustainable development.
Then, the limitations and problematic aspects of seeking technological solutions for
sustainability-related challenges are discussed and seen in light of the positive potential.
Finally, the concluding section considers the overall implications of this book, both in
terms of the promise and pitfalls of techno-solutionism for sustainable development, but
also with the goal of highlighting the problematic assumptions in and limitations asso-
ciated with the concept of sustainable development and the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs).

DOI: 10.1201/9781003325086-19 265

266   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

19.2 WHAT TECHNOLOGY CAN DO

The benefits of technology have been shown to be potentially significant and varied.
Continuing with the framework presented in Chapter 2, where impacts are analyzed on
the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels, we have seen impacts across all levels presented.
On the individual – or micro – level, we have seen how technology might be used to
improve the situations of vulnerable individuals. Two examples are the use of VR-based
interventions for people with autism and the use of filtering technology by trans persons.
Both these cases demonstrate how technologies might be able to improve the situation
of vulnerable groups. The former case shows how enabling technologies might be used
to overcome individual challenges associated with, for example, disabilities and disorders
(Chapter 7) – from serious to less severe. Such benefits of technology also extend to the use
of various forms of assistive technologies. For example, technology that helps individu-
als see what their eyes cannot through computer vision applications or hear what their
ears cannot through audio-to-text applications. While companies such as Google are fre-
quently under scrutiny for purported privacy-unfriendly practices, their assistive technol-
ogy in various guises can be quite useful for individuals with special needs (McNicholl
et al., 2021), and such potential benefits must also be factored into the overall picture of the
impacts of technology.
The latter case – the use of Shinigami Eyes discussed in Chapter 5 – shows how indi-
viduals might use technology to control their connections with the world around them. In
the case discussed, the purpose is to avoid harmful individuals and information, and trans
people exemplify a particularly vulnerable group for which such technological filtering is
useful. Similar technologies could also be used to control who gets access to oneself, and
thus serve as a two-way filter, as demonstrated by various privacy-preserving technologies
(Brunton & Nissenbaum, 2015).
On the group (meso) level, the use of technology to combat discrimination is one exam-
ple of how particular groups can benefit from new technologies. However, as discussed
both in Chapter 9 and later, the overall potential might not be positive, even if there are
aspects of the technology conducive to contributing positively to combatting discrimina-
tion. Other positive meso-level benefits have not been particularly heavily emphasized in
this book, but we have seen how sustainable development and the SDGs expect technology
to bring beneficial effects to various groups (see Chapters 8 and 18, and Sætra (2022)).
The positive impacts most emphasized by the contributors seem to arise at the societal
(macro) level, and these relate to all dimensions of sustainable development. In the environ-
mental dimension, geoengineering (Chapter 4) and the use of green nudges (Chapter 13)
exemplify how technology might be used to both mitigate and adapt to climate and nature-
related challenges. In the social dimension, the positive potential related to smart cities
properly governed has been presented (Chapter 16), and also potential benefits related to
the governance and legal frameworks capable of guiding digital innovation toward good
social outcomes (Chapter 10). The latter chapter also touches upon the economic dimen-
sion of sustainable development and how technology relates to innovation. Central to this
dimension is the idea that innovation and growth are based on technological development,
as highlighted by Borgebund in Chapter 12.
 Conclusion   ◾   267

In sum, the positive potential of technology has certainly not been dismissed and impacts
across all levels and sustainability dimensions have been acknowledged. However, there is
a clear discrepancy between such acknowledgment and the techno-optimism manifested
in the sustainable development framework and in Agenda 2030 and the SDGs. The main
discrepancy stems from how most of the contributors who have acknowledged positive
impacts have also thoroughly stressed how technology simultaneously has significant neg-
ative impacts – at times as or more significant than the positive impacts. Not least, many
of the positive impacts discussed seem to stem from how technology can be used to find
solutions to challenges generated by existing technological solutions. Filtering social media
users and content is one example of how the very challenges solved arise because of how
technology platforms work. It is time, then, to consider the pitfalls of techno-solutionism
and the more general limitations of technology for sustainable development.

19.3 WHAT TECHNOLOGY CANNOT DO

While we have seen that technology has positive macro- and micro-level potential, the nega-
tive impacts discussed by the contributors have tended to emphasize macro- and meso-level
impacts. However, negative impacts related to individuals targeted by filtering technology
and others harmed by hateful content online were discussed alongside positive benefits in
Chapter 5. Furthermore, other general concerns related to new technologies, such as issues
related to privacy infringements and manipulation, were addressed in Chapters 13 and 16.
The contributors have directed much attention toward negative meso-level impacts,
and in particular Chapters 8 and 17 have dealt with fundamental consequences related to
increased inequality generated by or reinforced by technology in combination with market
forces and political systems. This is paradoxical and highly important when we consider
how the SDGs promote technology as an inequality inhibitor. A concrete example in the
domain of education is presented in Chapter 6. The tight link between technology and
power presented in Chapter 15 serves to highlight how technology, when not properly con-
trolled, might easily lead to outcomes quite the opposite of those envisioned for sustainable
development and in the SDGs.
Finally, negative macro-level effects in the environmental and social dimensions have
been emphasized. In Chapter 3, the materiality of technology, and artificial intelligence in
particular, was connected with environmental challenges and the climate crisis. One of the
major topics discussed in this book has been the challenges related to our political systems
and the lack of social and political control of technology. Chapter 11 discusses fundamental
governance challenges, while Chapter 14 highlighted the importance of politics through
concrete cases of failures of technology for sustainable development. Finally, Chapters 17
and 18 have focused on fundamental challenges and more radical challenges related to how
market forces and techno-optimism fuses together in a form of growth fetishism presented
as fundamentally opposed to environmental, social, and economic sustainability.
While technology has a positive potential, we might conclude that technological solu-
tions simultaneously tend to introduce new layers of complication in our social structures
and consequently new sources of novel challenges. These might, of course, then be sought
solved through ever-new technological solutions. The alternative discussed in Chapter 18,
268   ◾    Technology and Sustainable Development

however, points toward the potential of technological degrowth and a form of methodolog-
ical luddism. One key takeaway from the preceding discussion of the promise and pitfalls
of techno-solution seems to be that technology tends to address symptoms and rarely the
root causes of the problems we want to address. Natural, perhaps, as technology itself is
often one of these very root causes.

19.4 TECHNO-SOLUTIONISM, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT,

AND THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
What remains is to consider the overall implications for the sustainable development frame-
work and the SDGs. Both were presented as clearly techno-optimist in Chapter 18, while
Agenda 2030 and the SDGs contained fewer and less obvious caveats related to the poten-
tial negative impact of technology than the sustainable development framework. Natural,
perhaps, as the SDGs are political goals based on negotiating a very wide array of national
and regional concerns – ending up with a common denominator of goals that rarely funda-
mentally challenges the core values of powerful actors, be they private or public. Regarding
the 17 goals, this book supports other work on the SDGs and technology in the overall
conclusion that there is both positive and negative potentials of technology, and the limita-
tions are strongest with regard to enabling political change (Sætra, 2022). This is an impor-
tant conclusion, because without political change, within nations and globally, it seems
unlikely that the overall effects of technology will be to promote the goals of, for example,
reduced inequality (SDG 10), and sustainable and inclusive economic growth (SDG 8). The
interconnectedness between the various goals has been stressed throughout this book, and
Chapter 8 in particular explored the potential inconsistencies between SDG 9 and SDG 10.
Despite this, technology has the potential to enable the reaching of most SDGs, but the main
conclusion derived from the contributions in this book is that this will not happen without
more social and political control of technology.
Sustainable development has received criticism both in this book and in general (Dunlap
et al., 2021), and particularly the emphasis on growth and development has been problema-
tized. Nevertheless, the pragmatism undergirding Our Common Future (Brundtland et al.,
1987) can be argued to be both necessary and beneficial. In the short and intermediate
term, the needs of those least well-off likely cannot be addressed by immediately ending
growth and radically changing all political, social, and economic institutions. At least not
without severe consequences for a wide range of individual and groups – and most likely
the natural world. This is partly why Serge Latouche (2009) admits that degrowth is not a
humanist philosophy:

[B]ecause it is based upon a critique of development, growth, progress, technology

and, ultimately, modernity and because it implies a break with Western central-
ism. It is no coincidence that most of those who inspired de-growth (Illich, Ellul,
but also Claude Lévi-Strauss, Robert Jaulin, Marshall Sahlins and many others)
denounce Western humanism.

One fundamental cause of the difference of opinion with regard to the prospects of tech-
nology might consequently be differences in philosophical perspectives and moral values.
 Conclusion   ◾   269

These are questions beyond the scope of this concluding chapter, but they have been
approached to some degree in different chapters and seem crucial for continuing the debate
about what sustainable development is, and what our goals related to such development
should be. While some may have abandoned hope of salvaging the very concept of sustain-
ability and sustainable development (Dunlap et al., 2021), others seek to re-imagine and
fight for a change in what we mean by these concepts and to rearrange their foundations
(Farley & Smith, 2020). The latter approach might carry more potential for achieving real-
world change, but radical shifts toward completely new societies seem unlikely through
this path. The choice, then, might be between likely incremental change and unlikely radi-
cal change – an age-old question that will not be settled here.
However, we have argued that technology will play an integral role in whatever future
we end up with. Even radical futures where negative social and environmental impacts
are decoupled from growth will depend on technology. This book will hopefully allow
for debates about what sort of technologies we want, and how we might be able to control
technologies and their autonomous force.

19.5 REFERENCES
Brundtland, G. H., Khalid, M., Agnelli, S., Al-Athel, S., & Chidzero, B. (1987). Our Common Future:
Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. United Nations General
Assembly document A/42/427.
Brunton, F., & Nissenbaum, H. (2015). Obfuscation: A user’s guide for privacy and protest. MIT Press.
Dunlap, A., Søyland, L. H., & Shokrgozar, S. (2021). Editorial introduction: Situating debates in post-
development and degrowth. In A. Dunlap, L. H. Søyland, & S. Shokrgozar (Eds.), Debates in
post-development and degrowth: Volume 1. Tvergastein.
Farley, H. M., & Smith, Z. A. (2020). Sustainability: If it’s everything, is it nothing? Routledge.
Latouche, S. (2009). Farewell to growth. Polity.
McNicholl, A., Casey, H., Desmond, D., & Gallagher, P. (2021). The impact of assistive technology use for
students with disabilities in higher education: A systematic review. Disability and Rehabilitation:
Assistive Technology, 16(2), 130–143. https://doi.org/10.1080/17483107.2019.1642395
Sætra, H. S. (2022). AI for the sustainable development goals. CRC Press.
Index

Note: Italicized page numbers in this index indicate illustrative materials.

A B
accountability for climate engineering back-to-the-land approaches, 17
innovation, 35 – 46 “bad faith”, 230, 234
dimensions of accountability, 42 – 45 Barley, Stephen R., 13
Agenda 2030 (UN), 5, 18 – 19, 41 – 42, 98 – 99, 203, behavioral climate policy, 182, 183, 184
251, see also Sustainable Development behavioral economics, 179
Goals (UN) Berlin, Isaiah, 209
agricultural industry, 27, 194 – 196 Big Data
Agricultural Technology (AgriTech), 195 and agricultural industry, 194 – 196
alternative technology movement, 250, and artificial intelligence, 2
257, 261 – 262 and transboundary water governance, 192 – 194
American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), blackboxing (Latour), 177
196 Blyth, M. M., 178
Ames, Morgan, 76 – 77 Boulding, Kenneth, 254
Anthropecene, 253 Breakthrough Institute, 27
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), 87 – 88 Brundtland commission, 4 – 5, 17, 250
Archer, M., 235
Arendt, Hanna, 63
C
artificial intelligence (AI)
and agricultural technology, 195 Cameron, David, 178 – 179
and automation, 208 capitalism
and climate solutions, 23 – 31 modes of production, 98, 103 – 106
disposal of machines, 29 – 30 oligarchic capitalism, 238 – 242
and gender inequality, 109 – 123 precarity capitalism, 208, 209 – 210
and power inequities, 208 – 212 sustainability and democracy, 163 – 173
and regulation, 132 Carbon Capitalism and Communication
and social control, 207 (Murdock & Brevini), 24, 25
social media websites and applications, 205 carbon capture, usage, and storage (CCUS), 36 – 37,
supply chains and environmental costs, 28 – 30 38, 38 – 39
Swedish Innovation Agency research, 115 – 120 and political considerations, 39 – 40
asymmetrical power relations, 27, 39, 46, 135 – 136, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), 150, 153
206 – 208, 210 carbon dioxide gas emissions, 25, 30
austerity, 179 – 181, 184 carbon flow and MRV (monitoring, reporting, and
Autism Spectrum Disorder and virtual reality, verification), 44
85 – 92 carbon trading, 153, 157
automation, 102 – 103, 106, 206 – 208 Cave Automatic Virtual Environments (CAVE), 88

271
272   ◾    Index

choice architecture (nudging policy approaches), destructive creativity, 105, 146, 148, 151, 157,
175 – 184 164 – 165, 166
Christensen, Clayton M., 190 developing nations
circular economy model, 146 – 147 LIDCs (low-income developing countries), 241
cities and vaccine accessibility, 2
city data marketplaces, 215 – 226, 217, 220, 221, differential empowerment, 206 – 207, see also power
223, 224 structures
inclusiveness and safety, 57 digital data partnerships, 222 – 223
Clarke, Robin, 257 digital divide, 97 – 107
climate change levels of digital divide theory, 100 – 102, 103
artificial intelligence, potential of, 26 – 27, 110 Digital Politics, 191
CCUS and climate models, 39 digital technology and education, 71 – 81
Norway case study, 153 – 157 disruptive technologies, 147, 189 – 197
overview, 2, 43 disruptive transition pathways, 148, 152 – 153,
and sustainability approaches, 130 157 – 158, 234 – 236
threat of, 168 – 169, 182, 231 – 232, 239
climate engineering, 35 – 37
E
Club of Rome, 3, 253
Collingridge’s dilemma, 14, 261 ecocentrism, 256
conspiracy theories, 233 Ecology, Community and Lifestyle (Næss), 255
COVID-19 pandemic ecology, deep, 253 – 259
and reliance on technology, 25 Ecology and Philosophy (Næss), 255
vaccines, 2 Ecomodernism, 27 – 28
and virtual schooling, 78 Ecomodernist Manifesto, An (Breakthrough
COVR project and toolkit, 136 – 137 Institute), 27
creative destruction, 105, 146, 148, 151, 157, economic growth, see growth
164 – 165, 166 economic models, circular, 146 – 147
cyborg anthropology, 204 education
digital technology, 71 – 81
green tech literacy, 31
D
and SDG 4, 56
Dahl, Janne Stang, 65 electric car sales, 183 – 184
Danaher, John, 169, 253 Ellul, Jacques, 12 – 13, 178, 250, 255
Data Act (proposed by European embedded analysis of technology, 15, 15 – 16, 20, 206
Commission), 225 emissions
data centers and energy usage, 29 carbon dioxide gas emissions, 25, 30
Data Governance Act (DGA), 222 net-zero goal, 38 – 39
data protection, 225 – 226 environmental sustainability, 5, 18, 74, 75, 130, 145,
data sharing, 196 243, 251
Datatilsynet (Norwegian Data Protection equity concerns
Authority), 61 – 62, 65 CCUS and power asymmetries, 39 – 40, 46
data valuation literature, 215 – 226 digital divide, 97 – 107
Death Note (manga and anime show), 59 digital education, 74 – 76, 81
decommodification, 148, 156, 157 services for special needs individuals, 85 – 86
deep ecology, 253 – 259 Sustainable Development Goal 10, 56 – 57
Deepmind (Google), 29 and technological power, 203 – 212
“degrowth”, 253 – 254, see also growth and vaccine accessibility, 2
democracy see also power structures
and citizenship, 237 Essay on the Principle of Population, An
and economic inequality, 209 (Malthus), 3
in public sphere, 63 ethical considerations
and sustainability, 19, 163, 170 – 172 of artificial intelligence, 30
 Index   ◾   273

Autism Spectrum Disorder interventions, 91 as necessary for human development, 17 – 18

of climate engineering, 37 see also green growth
fem washing, 110 – 111
European Commission, 23 – 24, 28
H
White Paper on Artificial Intelligence, 26
Exxon Mobil, 30 Habermas, J., 232, 236
Habermasian public spheres, 53 – 55, 63 – 64
Halpern, David, 179 – 180
F
Hardin, Garrett, 169
Facial Emotion Recognition (FER), 112–113 hard technology, 257, 257 – 258
farming, 27, 194 – 196 Harnessing Artificial Intelligence for the Earth
fempower-washing, 110 – 111 (World Economic Forum), 26
“five Ps” (Agenda 2030), 19 head-mounted displays (HMD), 88
forest-monitoring systems, 26 – 27 healthcare
fossil fuel industry gender-related inequality, 114, 120
and greenhouse gas emissions, 25, 30 healthcare robots, 132
in Norway, 153 – 154, 155 – 156 health coverage, universal, 56
resistance to transition, 149 – 150 hegemony (Gramsci), 178
see also carbon capture, usage, and storage Heidegger, Martin, 176 – 177
(CCUS) High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence
Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies, 26, (HLEG AI), 135
76, 239 – 240 Hole In The Wall Project, 73
Frankenstein (Shelley), 3 Human-Machine Communication (HMC), 26
freedom as non-domination, 209, 211 human power, transition to nonhuman, 204 – 206
Friedman, Milton, 178
I
G
ideas
gender issues exchange in the public sphere, 62 – 65
artificial intelligence and inequality, 109 – 123 as technology, 176 – 178, 184
in autism research, 90 identity politics, 210 – 212
women’s rights, 56 Illich, Ivan, 250, 254, 255
see also LGBTQ+ rights and social media impact levels, 16, 20, 206
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Incheon Declaration (UNESCO), 72
225, 233 inclusion, 55 – 56, 268
geoengineering, 2, 37, 176, 194, 266 inclusive policymaking, 136 – 139
Giddens, A., 235 see also LGBTQ+ rights and social media
Global Redesign Initiative (GRI), 240 inequality, see equity concerns
Google Deepmind, 29 Information and Communication Technology
governmental regulation (ICT), 29, 97, see also digital divide
and tech innovation, 131 – 132, 135 – 139, 190 – 192 infrastructural technological change, 13 – 14
transition models, 145 – 158 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Gramsci, Antonio, 178 (IPCC), 44, 176, 234
Green Certification, 31 International Kyoto Protocol, 28
green growth, 2, 5, 146 – 147, 243, 251 International Labor Organization (ILO), 147
greenhouse gas emissions, 25, 30 International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
green license plates, 183 – 184 report, 99 – 100
green tech literacy, 31 Internet access, 98 – 100, see also digital divide
growth Internet of Things, 189, 225 – 226
alternatives to growth-based development, intersectionality, 56, 58 – 59
249 – 263 Is AI Good for the Planet? (Brevini), 24, 26
critiques of, 253 – 255 isolationist approaches, 4, 12
274   ◾    Index

J Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral

Interventions (NDBIs), 86 – 87, 89
just transition, 44, 46 – 47n3, 147, 154
neoclassical economics, 179
Norway as case study of regulatory transition, 148,
K 153 – 157
Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO),
Kocka, Jürgen, 165
154 – 155
Nudge (Thaler & Sunstein), 179, 181
L nudging policy approaches, 175 – 184
Latouche, Serge, 253 – 254, 255, 268
Latour, B., 177 O
law
objectivism, limits of, 232 – 242
discriminatory law, 56
oil and gas research, 30
international law, 42
oligarchic capitalism, 238 – 242
legal approaches to sustainable digital
post-liberal corporatist oligarchy, 242 – 243
innovation, 127 – 139
online media, see social media labeling
rule of law, 133, 139n3
optimism, see techno-optimism
legal sustainability, 127 – 139
Osborne, George, 180
LGBTQ+ rights and social media, 55 – 58
Ostrom, Elinor, 169
LIAISON Project, 137
Our Common Future (Brundtland commission),
liberalism, critique of, 209 – 210
4 – 5, 17, 250 – 251, 252, 268
limits to growth, 17 – 18
education technology, 80 – 81
Limits to Growth, The (Club of Rome), 3, 253 P
low-income developing countries (LIDCs), 241
pacing problems, 6 – 7
Luddite movement, 177
Paris Agreement (PA), 44
path dependent sustainability transition pathways,
M 150 – 152, 157 – 158, 243
machine learning, 193, see also Big Data pay gap, gender, 114, 120 – 121
macro-level of impact, 16, 20, 206, 266, 267 Petrobras, 30
Madianou, Mirca, 28 Pettit, Philip, 209, 212
Malthus, Thomas, 3 PLA (post-liberal alternative), 239 – 240
marketplace of ideas, 64 – 65 policy approaches
Markovits, D., 103 nudging, 175 – 184
Marx, Karl, 98, 104, 105, 177, 243n3 policy layering/policy drift, 151
Marxism, 209 – 211 politics
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), 73 – 74 and agriculture, 194 – 195
materiality of technology, 14 – 16 and climate models, 39 – 40
media, see social media labeling democratic politics, 171 – 172
meso-level of impact, 16, 20, 206, 266, 267 identity politics, 210 – 212
micro-level of impact, 16, 20, 206 overview, 19
Milkround, 25 and sustainability transition, 148 – 153
Mill, John Stuart, 64 and technology, 190 – 192, 261
modes of production, 98, 103 – 106 and transboundary water
moral imperative of mitigation, 35 – 36, 37, see also governance, 192 – 194
ethical considerations positivist science, 231 – 232
Mumford, Lewis, 12 poverty, 56
One Laptop Per Child initiative, 73
see also developing nations
N
power
Næss, Arne, 6, 8, 13, 250, 253, 255 – 259, 260, definitions of, 205
261 – 262 human to nonhuman transition, 204 – 206
 Index   ◾   275

power structures, 39 – 40, 46 Sims, Christo, 78

AI and inequities, 208 – 212 Skolt Lapland communities, 14, 16
asymmetrical relations, 27, 39, 46, 135 – 136, snowmobile use in Skolt Lapland communities,
206 – 208, 210 14, 16
and technology, 203 – 212 Social Democratic values, 148, 151 – 152, 155 – 156,
see also equity concerns see also Norway as case study of regulatory
precautionary principle, 14 transition
Privacy and Security Principles for Farm Data, 196 socialism, 164, see also capitalism; Social
prometheanism, 3 – 4, 249 Democratic values
public spheres and idea exchange, 62 – 65 social media labeling
careful consumption in media, 65
and LBGTQ+ rights, 55 – 58
Q
overview, 53 – 55
QAnon, 233 safe spaces in online public spheres, 62 – 67
Shinigami Eyes, 58 – 62, 60, 65 – 67
social sustainability, 18, 55, 75, 97, 147, 251
R
socioeconomic planning technique, 231, 238, 242
Randers, Jørgen, 253 – 254 soft technology, 256 – 259, 257, 261, 262
regimes of innovation and technological change solar radiation management (SRM), 36 – 37
(RITCs), 234 – 236 solidarity, as value, 148, 155 – 156, 157
regulation and tech innovation, 131 – 132, 135 – 139, solutionism, 3, 11, 109, 113, 261, see also
see also law techno-solutionism
resource and appropriation theory, 101 stacks, 4, 15, 15 – 16
robots Stonewall International, 55 – 56
COVR toolkit, 136 – 137 Strange, Susan, 178
healthcare robots, 132 substitutional technological change, 13 – 14
Royal Dutch Shell, 30 Sunstein, Cass, 179, 181
sustainability
and democracy, 170 – 172
S
and digital education, 71 – 81
safety, violence, and hate crimes, 57 – 58 economic sustainability, 4, 18, 237
safety online, see social media labeling environmental sustainability, 5, 18, 74, 75, 130,
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 230 145, 243, 251
Schumacher, E. F., 250, 255 legal sustainability, 127 – 139
Schumpeter, Joseph, 105, 146, 163, 164 – 166, overview, 4 – 6, 17 – 20
170 – 172 social sustainability, 18, 55, 75, 97, 147, 251
Schwab, K., 239, 240 strong sustainability approaches, 130, 132 – 135
Science and Technology Studies (STS), 191, 204 sustainability transition, 148 – 153
scientific conservationism, 17 theory and practice, 167 – 170
scientific knowledge, 230 – 231 weak sustainability approaches, 130, 133, 134
limits of objectivism, 232 – 242 Sustainable Development Goals (UN)
positivist science, 231 – 232 accountability and governance structures,
screening and filtering behavior, 65, see also social 40 – 42, 44
media labeling agricultural goals and deforestation, 27
SDGs, see Sustainable Development Goals (UN) artificial intelligence, 24, 28
Second Machine Age, The (Brynjolfsson & and autism, 89 – 90
McAfee), 102 and capitalistic frameworks, 164, 167 – 168
Shelley, Mary, 3 and CCUS, 39
Shinigami Eyes web browser extension, 54 – 55, contradictory nature of, 147 – 148, 173
58 – 62, 60, 266 and digital divide, 97 – 99, 102, 106 – 107
criticism of, 62, 65 – 66 and digital education, 74 – 75
evaluation of, 67 and disruptive technologies, 189 – 197
Simon, Herbert, 179 and gender equality, 110, 113 – 115
 276   ◾    Index

and governmental regulation, 151 – 152 transgender people, see LGBTQ+ rights and
human dimension of, 231 social media
in Nordic countries, 147, 155 – 156 transition to sustainability, 148 – 153
overview, 5, 18, 18 – 19 Treeswift, 26 – 27
and power relations, 211 – 212
Progress Report (2022), 234
U
progress toward meeting, 145 – 146
role of technology, 250 – 252 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
SDG 4 and education, 56, 74 – 77 (UNFCCC), 44
SDG 9 and scientific research, 137 United Kingdom
and social marginalization, 54, 55 – 57 green license plates, 183 – 184
sustainable cities, 216 Internet regulation, 233 – 234
and techno-solutionism, 268 – 269 rise of “nudging,” 178 – 181
Sustainable Development Solutions Network universalism, as value, 65, 148, 155 – 156, 157
(SDSN), 241 urban areas, see cities
Swedish Innovation Agency use cases and data marketplaces, 223 – 225
research, 115 – 120
V
T
violence
technique (Ellul), 178 gender-related violence, 114, 118, 120
technocentrism, 256 safety, and hate crimes, 57 – 58
technocolonialism, 28, 30 – 31 virtual reality
techno-fix compromises, 35, 39, 46 and Autism Spectrum Disorder, 85 – 92
technological determinism, 191, 260 – 262 overview, 88
Technological Society, The (Ellul), 12, 255 virtual schooling, 78 – 79, see also digital technology
technology Voluntarist Views of Technology, 191
cultural approach to, 12 voluntary simplicity, 80
indirect and unintended effects, 4, 233, 261
levels of impacts, 16, 20, 206
W
materiality of, 14 – 16
as neutral tool, 12 water governance, transboundary, 192 – 194
overview, 12 – 16 White Paper on Artificial Intelligence (European
technological change, 4, 13 – 14, 15, 46, 102 – 103, Commission), 26
128, 146 wilderness idea, 17
techno-optimism, 3, 27, 169 Winner, Langdon, 6, 13, 207, 260, 261, 262
Technopolitics, 191 women’s issues, see gender issues
technorealism, 262 work, unpaid, 114 – 115, 121
techno-solutionism, 229 – 243 workplace gender pay gap, 114, 120 – 121
benefits and challenges, 265 – 269 World Economic Forum (WEF), 26, 231, 239 – 241,
meta-critique of, 231 – 232 244n14
overview, 2 – 3, 27 Worldwide Governance Indicators (World
sustainability and education, 77 – 79 Bank), 242
Thaler, Richard, 179 – 180, 181
transboundary water governance, 192 – 194
Z
Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda (UN),
see Agenda 2030 (UN) Zion Market Research, 30

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