Big Data and Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

Big Data is transforming the managerial, engineering, environmental, medical, and even social world. Nowadays, the competitiveness of firms, the environment, society, the development of sciences, or the evolution of humanity cannot be understood without looking at the new processes surrounding Big Data. In the new ubiquitous environment, a result of the increasing relevance of the “Internet of Things”, “pervasive and ubiquitous computing”, and the evolution of semantics or “Web 3.0 Era” (Garrrigos et al., 2012), people, scientists, and organizations need to understand these transformations to ensure continual adaption to these changes.

Specifically, in an environment where organizations, institutions, and scientists are aware of the sustainability of policies and processes, it is necessary to understand the effects of Big Data on sustainability. The diverse developments depend on the evolution of technology. Then, the economic and financial sustainability of organizations and areas—but also the natural, human, and social capital sustainability (Garrigós et al., 2018)—deeply depend on the understanding of processes related to Big Data.

The literature related to Big Data and sustainability, together, is reduced and still incipient, as the first studies have just appeared at the beginning of this decade. However, separately, the literature in both these fields has expanded significantly over the few last years. In addition, the volume of research in which both concepts are analysed together has also increased exponentially, reaching more than 150 papers a year since 2018, according to Web of Science data. 

Previous research in which both of these concepts have been considered together has mainly developed in areas of science; specifically, in computer science, engineering, and other topics related to science technology. However, the works conducted in social sciences as well as arts and humanities are also important, where the areas of environmental sciences ecology and business and economics are relevant, represented by almost 200 important articles each.

Previous articles have raised relevant issues, such as the sustainability of Big Data application to smart cities (Al Nuaimi et al. 2015; Bibri and Krogstie, 2017; Yigitkanlar et al., 2019) or for the management of smart grids (Baek et al., 2015; Diamantoulakis et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2019); the relevance of Big Data to improve sustainability of product design, manufacturing, and service (Tao et al., 2018), the sustainability of supply chains (Papadopoulos et al., 2017; Wu et al., 2017; Hughes et al., 2019) or sustainability in the context of Industry 4.0 (Gu et al., 2019); the use of Big Data to enhance environmental sustainability (Wong and Zhou, 2015; Wu et al., 2016; Dubei et al., 2019; Shen et al., 2019); the integration of Big Data and the circular economy (Jabbour et al., 2019); or even the use of Big Data analytics to improve the sustainability of tourism destinations (Fuchs et al., 2014)

However, the research on this topic, although experiencing important growth, is still limited and dispersed. Hence, important areas such as health, psychology, or chemistry are lacking in research, while studies in the fields of physics, transportation, or even tourism and hospitality are almost nonexistent.

This Special Issue welcomes a wide variety of academic disciplines encompassing different theoretical and methodological approaches that will allow for an expanded view of the use of Big Data to enhance diverse kinds of sustainability approaches.

Prof. Silvia Sanz-Blas
Prof. Fernando J. Garrigos-Simon
Guest Editors

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• Big Data
• environmental sustainability
• economic sustainability
• social and human sustainability
• Internet of Things
• pervasive and ubiquitous computing
• innovations and sustainability