ICT for Environmental, Social, and Economic Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

Throughout history, scholars and policy-makers have been highlighting the paradoxical nature of technology. Andrew Feenberg argued that even though technology is designed with development goals in mind, its excessive use often leads to social and economic inequality and environmental crisis. This argument is germane to the case of information and communication technologies (ICT). However, the prospect is not all doom and gloom. Supported by well-designed technologies, researchers, economic actors, civil society, and policy-makers can join forces to address key societal, economic, and ecological issues.

This focus of this Special Issue is on how individuals, organizations, policy-makers, and society at large can harness ICT to promote sustainability. We adopt the triple bottom line approach to sustainability as envisioned in the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that sustainability is about the synergy across people, planet, and profit. Accordingly, we conceptualize sustainability as encompassing social, environmental, and economic dimensions.

A specific focus is on green ICT defined as the study, use practice, and design of computing resources efficiently and effectively with minimal or no impact on the environment (e.g., climate change), as well as to promote sustainability-related practices.

We invite a wide array of submissions, from philosophical discourse to empirical study and design works. We encourage discussions on the values and ethics of computing with regard to sustainability goals. Moreover, we are also interested in works related to the role of ICT in sustainable development. Finally, we promote interdisciplinary research on various aspects of computing and ICT design for the purpose of sustainability.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• ICT for sustainability-related practices (e.g., persuasive technologies);
• Design of ICT for environmental, social, and economic sustainability (methods, artifacts, and frameworks);
• Philosophical and theoretical perspectives on green ICT;
• Indigeneous perspectives on green ICT;
• Ethics and green ICT;
• Balancing the demands of the three dimensions of the triple bottom line;
• Management of e-waste (i.e., reusing and recycling);
• Methods and frameworks for assessing sustainability impacts;
• Policy, regulatory, and legal aspects;
• ICT and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Prof. Dr. Maung Sein
Dr. Leona Chandra Kruse
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• ICT sustainability
• green computing
• triple bottom line
• design
• ethics
• e-waste