Digital sustainability
The concept of digital sustainability describes the long-term oriented production and further development of digital artifacts and addresses the tragedy of the anticommons. Originating from the term sustainability, which has been predominantly used in connection with ecological topics, the concept of digital sustainability, according to the definition of sustainable development in the Brundtland Report, refers to the conscious handling of resources in a way that their current creation and use do not impair the needs of future generations.
Definition and distinction
Digital resources are sustainably managed when their benefit to society is maximized, so that the digital needs of current and future generations are equally met. The societal benefit is maximized when the resources are accessible to the largest number and reusable with a minimum of technical, legal, and social restrictions. Digital resources are knowledge and cultural artifacts digitally represented as text, image, audio, video, or software.Digital sustainability distinguishes itself from the original definition of sustainability in that digital sustainability exclusively deals with intangible goods, so-called knowledge goods. Such non-physical resources are non-rivalrous, so that no consumption of the goods can occur. Nevertheless, digital resources can be both excludable and non-excludable. An important distinction is to be made between sustainability and digital sustainability whereas natural‑resource sustainability focuses on limiting over‑consumption, digital‑artifact sustainability instead must ensure sufficient creation and use of resources. Through the protection of intellectual property, digital resources can be excluded from free use and further development.
Ten preconditions of digital sustainability
In early 2017, a scientific publication appeared in Sustainability Science by Springer Publishing and in July 2017 a related article in German describing ten preconditions of digital sustainability. The first four criteria concern the properties of the digital goods, the next five criteria the properties of the ecosystem, and the last criterion the impact on society. Concrete examples of digital sustainability include Wikipedia, Linux, and OpenStreetMap.The following ten preconditions of digital sustainability were presented with individual icons at DINAcon 2017. These are also published on Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons Zero license.
Properties of the digital good
Source:| 1. Elaborateness: The digital good must be qualitatively elaborate. For example, a software solution must be high-quality programmed, function correctly and securely, and fully cover the necessary requirements. | |
| 2. Transparent structures: Digitally sustainable goods must have transparent structures, meaning the source code of a software must be fully disclosed and the format of data must be publicly documented using an open standard. This technical transparency enables control and improvements, leading to more trust and fewer errors. | |
| 3. Semantic data: The advancing digitization requires that information is not only understood by humans but also by machines. Consequently, digitally sustainable information must be linked through semantic data. Such metadata allows large amounts of digital information to be processed, aggregated, and interpreted by machines. | |
| 4. Distributed location: In the digital world, the physical aspect also plays an important role. If data is stored only in one location or a system runs only on a single server, the long-term availability of these digital goods is at risk. It is digitally sustainable if information and applications are redundantly stored in multiple locations, for example, using peer-to-peer approaches. This reduces dependence on the physical location and increases permanent availability. |
Digital sustainability in academia
Since 2004, the definition by Marcus Dapp has been further developed and taught in a lecture of the same name at ETH Zurich. The student organizations TheAlternative and SUBDiN also describe this new sustainability approach in detail. The first historical text that explained the concept in writing was a competition entry for the anniversary publication "Essays 2030" of ETH Zurich, titled "ETH Zurich - A Pioneer in Digital Sustainability". A more recent contribution describes digital sustainability in the context of Open Data and Open-Source Software.Since 2014, the University of Bern has had the Research Center for Digital Sustainability. The center is led by Matthias Stürmer and employs around 20 staff members. The research center was established with a start-up funding of CHF 80,000 from CH Open at the Institute of Information Systems. Since 2019, the research center has been located at the Institute of Computer Science. The research center addresses issues related to open-source software, open data, linked data, open government, smart city, blockchain, smart contracts, and public procurement in research, teaching, and service provision.