The digital revolution ‘can be leveraged to accelerate and enhance a sustainability transformation’, according to a new report.
Titled: ‘The Digital Revolution and Sustainable Development: Opportunities and Challenges’, The World in 2050 (TWI2050) report was released today by IIASA, the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), and partners. With input from more than 45 authors representing 20 institutions, the paper sets out the ‘major opportunities and challenges’ in linking the digital and sustainability revolutions to deliver the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“The mobilisation of the enormous potential for a digital sustainability transformation is not an automatic process. In the past one or two decades, digitalisation has worked as an accelerator of economic processes that are still predominantly based on fossil energy and resource extraction. However, if course corrections succeed, the disruptive impact of digitisation on sustainability can be leveraged to accelerate and enhance a sustainability transformation. We demonstrate in the report how the “missing links” between digitisation and sustainability can be created,” said Dirk Messner, Director of UNU-EHS.
Check out the report.
